Hi, long time not been here and I now have actually a weird problem myself.
I bought a new system recently (AMD 7950X, C12.0.70, Win11, RME UCX, all latest drivers etc) and once in a while, after opening a project and hitting playback, there is no sound at all. not only that, all meters show no signal at all. The workaround is to go to studio setup and hit āresetā on the Audio System page. After that, regular playback.
This can happen even if I had the same project open before and just reopening it, without restarting Cubase. This can also happen after a fresh reboot. It happens with different projects, older ones created on my previous system, and new ones created on the new machine. I cannot identify any pattern at all, it seems to happen randomly once in a while.
To exclude a problem with the audio interface, I tried starting another audio software while Cubase is in mute state, and that has absolutely no problem playing backup audio through the UCX (with ASIO driver).
Audio Connections are configured correctly. I thrashed all preferences, no difference.
No idea anyone? It just happened again, after a fresh start of the system and Cubaseā¦ Never had anything like this in twenty years of Cubase.
Not exactly dramatic, sure, but quite annoying if it happens several times a day.
Are you sure that there are no third-party plugins running on your master bus that you have not yet re-activated (such as entering the license number) after you set up your new system? Some plugins offer trial modes that mute the signal after the trial period expired. I trapped into this a couple of times.
I encountered such issues in the past, too, but in those cases you would see signals on your track meters. In my case, there is nothing at all on the track meters in the mixer, complete zero everywhere. The playhead moves, but that is all. No sound, no meters moving, until I reset the audio engine.
I finally solved the problem by completely uninstalling the RME driver (everything RME, to be sure) from the system, then installing it again.
Still remains a mystery why Cubase was the only ASIO host that had problems, but there you goā¦
Wanted to chime in and say āthank youā for this tip! It also worked for me.
Background: Had a RME Fireface 802 for a long time. Then switched to a RME UFX II. Since then, no sound when opening projects. I had to reload Audio Connections several times, until audio was back. After closing and reopening the project - had to start again. Very annoying!
Un-installing and then re-installing the drivers solved the issue. Thank you!
Never thought it could have something to do with the drivers.
Sadly, the issue has arisen again, more or less out of the blue, and this time, no de- and reinstallation of the driver has worked, or anything else I tried (preferences, recreating audio connections, updating driverā¦).
I have opened a case with Steinberg, but of course I havenāt heard back from them in weeks, as usualā¦
Well, I only ever had my UCX from RMEā¦ but I am inclined to think it is not a problem of RME. First, theyāre reputation for writing good drivers is legendary, and second, I downloaded the demo version of reaper and tried to reproduce it there, but with no success.
This afternoon I thought I made some progress, I noticed that I didnāt have the āSteinberg Powerplanā activated in the Studio setup, and I did that (maybe some weird energy saving setting?), and it seemed to be successful. But then I disabled it again, tested with opening and closing Cubase and project, everything worked.
This evening, back to usual, regardless of power plan. Sometimes a project opens and plays, sometimes not. Completely randomā¦
I am just wondering why it is seemingly just the two of us who ever had this issueā¦
Was wondering the same. I just had a chat with ChatGPT (hope itās ok to reference it here) about our specific situation: Cubase + Ryzen 9950X/7950X + RME
And I got some interesting insights which make āsenseā:
Cubaseās ASIO engine expects a deterministic driver initialization timing ā meaning, when it asks Windows āstart the ASIO driver,ā it expects to get the āreadyā response within a few milliseconds.
On Intel platforms (Z690, Z790, etc.), the USB and PCIe bus latency during device enumeration and DMA (direct memory access) setup is extremely short and predictable.
On AMD platforms (X670, B650, etc.), the latency jitter is larger during device activation ā sometimes just a few extra milliseconds ā because of the way AMDās I/O die (IOD) and CCX scheduling handle interrupts, memory mapping, and PCIe power-state transitions.
That small difference (weāre literally talking 2ā10 ms) is enough for Cubase to āmissā the RME driverās ready handshake, so the ASIO engine starts in a silent state ā meters frozen, playback moving but no audio.
And about the āwhy only Cubaseā issue:
Cubaseās ASIO host engine is very old and extremely strict about initialization order ā it opens the driver, then immediately builds its full routing graph, then sends the first buffer.
Other DAWs (Reaper, Bitwig, Ableton, etc.) poll the ASIO driver until itās ready ā they basically āwait longer.ā
So on AMD, Cubase sometimes starts too soon, while the RME driver is still setting up DMA descriptors.
But there have to be more Cubase users with AMD + RME systems I guess?!
That is an interesting find, and a timing issue could explain the behaviour.
Still weird that it would also happen when Cubase is already open and after closing and reopening a project, but maybe Cubase also reinitializes the driver inbetween.
Also weird that I had months and months where this didnāt happen, no problem at all. Of course it might also be related to some Windows update that changed things a little bit, who knows.
tbh, I kind regret buying the ADM CPU, nothing but trouble with it (one defect after two months, next one still issues with OpenGL/graphics, now thisā¦)
Iām not sure if blaming the CPU alone would be the right call.
Iām on Ryzen-systems since the second generation, had an 2xxx, 3xxx, 5xxx, 7950X and now the 9950X. Never had any issues with Cubase (or in general) with those CPUs.
Also the 9950X was fine - the issues occured when I switched from the RME FF802 to UFX II. So there has to be something strange with this combination.
I have had my UCX for more than ten years, and before this AMD system, I always had Intel systems, and never encountered this problem before (although different windows versions, 7 and 10).
Hmm, canāt confirm from my side. I always shut down and boot my system, no sleep (except for screen). And I had the effect quite often after freshly starting Windows.
One of the oldest rules when it comes to DAW computers is to disable any type of Sleep or Hibernation functions. Not sure about current versions of Windows, but it used to be that the USB functions and some services were disabled in Sleep mode, and had to be enabled when the computer was awakened. Windows wouldnāt always behave correctly afterwards.
Sleep is a function best kept away from DAW machines. If you do feel you need it though, have you disabled USB selective suspend in your power profile?
Also, open Device Manager and navigate to Universal Serial Bus Controllers. When you expand this youāll see entries for all the USB controllers in your machine. Double click each one and click on the Power Management tab. Untick āAllow the computer to turn off this device to save powerā.
and I now have actually a weird problem myself.