Hi, So Media Bay is completely dead in Cubase 13. I tried re-scanning etc. All folders are grey and nothing shows, no Audio Files, Presets…Nothing.
When I reopen Cubase 12 everything works.
What’s doing?
Thanks
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Odd thing… When I hit Rescan or Quick rescan, the corresponding folder turns from yellow to gray. I tried reinstalling Cubase, and deleting media bay prefs. Nothing works. Ugh
Hi,
Is there any filter setup? Could you attach a screenshot of the MediaBay window?
Hi Martin.
Here’s a screenshot. I also see non-existing folders in the Sounds A drive. (second Screenshot). Again, no issues in CB12.
It’s displaying these “ghost” folders in the Documents folder as well. (Screenshot).
Very odd behavior.
I tried reinstalling Cubase but no luck there either.
And I tried starting from scratch by throwing out the Cubase 12 and 13 Pref folders.
Same issue.
Sorry, me again. So I attached another screenshot. This Media Bay is busted. Look at all of those folders in Orange. They don’t even exist in the Documents folder. So it’s doing the same thing on the OS drive that it’s doing on external Sounds drive. Plus, I’ve deleted the “mediabay3.db” file from prefs, restarted, and launched Cubase. I then did a rescan in Media Bay with no results. Afterward, the “mediabay3.db” file was not recreated in the prefs. I’m out of ideas. Please HELP. Cheers
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Same is happening here… Super annoying, CB is completely useless without mediabay.
Mine show some files, but only AIFs, CPRs, not a single WAV file…
Any news on this?
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Okay guys, I solved this one. In case you still struggling, this is what i did:
- disable virus protection, windows defender, etc
- run CB in administrator mode
Scanning the disc for files sometimes require higher admin rights, and it can happen that new releases are not authorized to do this. Never happened with previous Cubase verions though.
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With Cubase 13 the MediaBay was switched to a client / server implementation. That was done for HALion 7 in advance. Now there is only one database, and tags are in sync across those apps.
The process that is scanning your content is the Steinberg MediaBay Server, you can see it in the Windows Task Manager / macOS Activity Monitor. Cubase starts the Server so the permissions are passed on.
Regarding performance: The MediaBay supports a concept of Volume Databases: Do a right click on a volume in the MediaBay Tree in Cubase / Nuendo and select “Create Volume Database” - best before scanning!!! That will separate your scanned library content from the all the preset and VST Sound content. If not creating such a Volume Database all media is put into one database and browsing presets can become very slow, depending on how large your libraries are.
Btw. those Volume Databases are shared between products (even between C12 and C13), but they do not immediately communicate updates between the products, as the MediaBay Server does. (e.g. edit a Rating in HALion 7 and see the “real-time” result in Cubase 13).
Note: Volume Databases are created in a “.steinberg” folder in the root of the drives, so write permissions must be granted for the feature to work.
Deactivating Antivirus / creating exclude rules only for your libraries (after manual AV check) is a good idea. Checking the permissions on the volume is another good idea. If trouble persists I can help with activating logging and analysis of logs.
The appearance of hidden files is something we can fix, I’ll talk to our planners for next actions.
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Hi Joerg. I’m on OSX Mac so most of this won’t apply. When I right-click on drive icons in the Media Bay Tree i do not see the “Create Volume Database” option.
Any ideas on how to fix this on Mac? Otherwise, this update is a bit useless.
I’d appreciate the help.
Thanks
Sorry, I actually see “Create Volume Database” but when I try I get a “Database creation failed” message
Interesting, never done that, I keep my samples on separate M2 SSD where are only sample folder (400 000 files 90% tagged by myself) I will give it a go although I am not sure I will have some benefit from creating vol db 
In “theory” what can be done to speed up performance of mediabay, mostly listing when you pick/unpick tag?
We can try with fresh Prefs and activate logging, or taking a sample of the MediaBay Server process. I will provide detailed instructions later. I have a lot of meetings today, so I can’t promise to deliver fast.
Apart from Volume Databases on Volumes (aka “drives” “partitions”) not much. I don’t think memory is a limit today. As you said you run on SSD already. So it is up for us to speed things up. Ideas exist plenty, so we still need some time. As always: planning info needs to stay inhouse 
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Secrets secrets everywhere 
Thx Joerg on the feedback.
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I am finally looking carefully at your screenshots, could have realised earlier:
I see everything is included to be scanned, that can take loooooong time … Are you sure you want to scan the System and all folders in Users? There might not even be the right permissons.
I see the need for MediaBay fixes here in terms what is shown in the MediaBay tree, like all hidden folders (those starting with “.” should not be shown at all), but:
You need to reduce what gets scanned, I propose to start over with fresh Steinberg MediaBay Server Preferences. First without checking anything in the MediaBay tree.
Do do so:
-
shut down Cubase, wait 60 sec. for the Steinberg MediaBay Server to shut-down, see Activity Monitor (you can filter for “MediaBay”):
-
Back-up or delete the Steinberg MediaBay Server Preferences and the Steinberg MediaLib Preferences (The “MediaLib” contains support for scanning media):
-
Start over, after starting Cubase, open the MediaBay and wait until Setup is finished:
Now all Steinberg presets and libraries should be browsable in MediaBay … you might want to add your private sample libraries and let the MediaBay scan them… Use the tree to locate them and then check only the directory of your library and best wait until the scanning is complete:
Here I just added the folder “TTT” and scanning is complete.
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Hi Joerg. Thanks for all the great suggestions. I tried them all, including starting with fresh Prefs (trashing older ones completely), No luck. As soon as I launch Cubase 12 I have zero issues. It’s definitely a bug-related issue.
I hope the next update will fix this.
Hey Guys! I already wrote my suggestion, that solved this issue, but now it popped again, and i figured exactly the reason, at least on my end:
IOBIT Malware Fighter (internet security software) - Network Guard function was causing it.
So it makes sense that anything that limits the network processes will kill Cubase’s Mediabay Server functionality.