Cubase 15 Stability

Cubase
1

I am having regular crashes when running Cubase 15. I don’t remember anything similar with version 14 so think this is version specific.

I will often boot my PC and go straight to Cubase, I record a weekly radio show using it and do show setup/recording/editing/export over multiple sessions so this is impactful but intermittent.

I find that the audio system crashes, to the point where my whole Windows PC is so painfully slow I have to force a reboot. Some days it doesn’t, and usually after a clean boot everything is fine.

What I don’t get is why things should be different after a reboot as I’ve only just booted my PC up if the first place.

I also run Ableton Live 12 on the same PC and have no stability issues at all (unusual for Live). Until today, when I tried to see if Groove Agent ran OK in Live at which point the whole PC froze, even after closing Live.

I have added all the Steinberg program/file locations as antivirus exceptions but it feels like some part of the Steinberg infrastructure is crashing my PC.

It is incredibly frustrating to the point where I am thinking of moving my radio show workflow to Ableton just to try and avoid the problems as I can’t resolve them.

I’ve tried uninstalling recent Windows patches, all the antivirus exceptions so would welcome any further troubleshooting suggestions as I love working in Cubase until recently!

System config:

MS Windows 25H2 (26200.7462)

Processor 12th Gen Intel(R) Core™ i7-12700F, 2100 Mhz, 12 Core(s), 20 Logical Processor(s)

32GB DDR4, multiple SSDs all with plenty of space.

ASIO Audient iD22 on latest drivers.

2

Install WinDbg (windows debugger) and load up the dump file created by Cubase crashing into it. Then click the “!analyze -v” link to run the analyzer.

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You’ll get details of the crash which will indicate what caused it. The most likely cause is a VST plugin.

3

Do you know the difference in booting Windows when the PC was switched of and a reboot. Switching the PC on recovers from a stored status to boot fast.

Rebooting cleans really up. It‘s confusing because normally most users would expect a clean status after booting when the PC is switched on.

4

That is not fully correct.

What you say is correct for Standby or Hibernate status, but if you shutdown your computer it does not save any previous state. Booting the computer after a full shutdown comes up in a clean state.

1 Like
5

Not true if Fast Startup is enabled in Power Options (it is on by default).

6

This :index_pointing_up:t3:

You have to disable ‘Turn on fast startup’

Control Panel > All Control Panel Items > Power Options > System Settings

7

Make sure you add all steinberg/cubase folders to antivirus exceptions. Helps a ton.

Also make sure no new pr updated plugins are causing the issue. I am such a hypocrite saying that, but I know better.

8

OK. Thanks for all your replies. I tried lots of options to resolve this, clearing out all old VSTs not used, disabling all VSTs and then trickling them back in, a clean install of Cubase and Groove Agent, removing my antivirus software, moving to NVidia Studio GPU drivers.

In the end I think I have traced the crashing back to a Windows Graphics setting: I disabled “Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling” in Win 11 System > Display > Graphics.

Back to writing music now thank god!

1 Like
9

Disabling hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling has some downsides, it can make video playback appear choppier.

If disabling Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling helps, it might be that your TdrDelay registry setting is too low in the Windows registry. The TdrDelay setting controls how quickly Windows forcibly reloads the driver in the event that the graphics card momentarily becomes unresponsive due to being busy. The default TdrDelay is 2 seconds and when the graphics card is extremely busy this could be too little. Forcibly reloading the driver can cause applications to freeze or crash.

I had to increase the TdrDelay to “a” (in hexadecimal, which corresponds with 10 seconds in decimal) and then I was able to re-enable Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling without the issues on my system.