OK, so I’m trying open some tracks that my friend gave me. We’re both on PC and we both have Cubase 8.5, Cubase 10.5, and he recently upgraded to 11. For the longest time, we’ve been able to share tracks without issue (when using 8.0 and 8.5) but recently, regardless of which song I open (some songs are 8.5, others are 10.5), Cubase will get to the loading popup and hang. I’m forced to kill Cubase from the task manager. I’ve tried disabling the preferences for the 8.5 songs but the songs still hung. The only way I can get ANY song to open is to use 10.5 and disable all third party plugins; however, I’ve looked at all of the plugins used and I’ve confirmed he doesn’t have any that I don’t have, either. I realize this isn’t much to go by, but does anyone have any ideas?
Sounds like it is hanging while trying to load something. I assume you can go the other way and your friend can load stuff from you fine.
While it is loading the Cubase splash screen usually tells you what it is doing as it goes along. When Cubase is hanging what does it say it was last doing. Also if you have Task Manager running while launching that can sometimes provide a clue. Make sure you expand the Cubase tree so it shows all the sub tasks.
I’d still be suspicious of a plug-in since disabling them made the problem go away. Just because the two of you have the same plugs, it doesn’t mean they are exactly the same. Compare the version numbers to confirm you are on the same update. I know there were some updates of Kontakt that caused stability problems. There are a couple of Topics on this forum on it you might search for.
Good luck.
Hi raino, I did eventually figure out the issue so it’s worth letting others know just in case someone, somewhere, down the line has the same deal.
Turns out it was the “Sugar Bytes WOW2” plugin that was causing Cubase to crash. We both have the plugin, but he had upgraded his to a “slightly” newer version. Seems crazy that it caused such a catastrophic error in Cubase, but that’s what it was. 
Thanks for you response and suggestions. You were definitely right about it being plug-in.