Every 5 minutes i cannot work for 1 minute

Cubase
1

Listen to this, Steinberg :

With the loads of crashes i got with C7.5.20 on my Win7 x64, i’m FORCED to autosave as often as i can. But it takes forever for Cubase to save big projects (from 18Mo to 40Mo cpr files).

So, every 5 minutes, my mouse freeze and i cannot work for 1 minute.

For about 12h of work a day, it means i LOSE 144 minutes of work. Is this really professional ? Is this serious business ?? Tell me.

It drives me crazy. It drives my clients crazy. I could break the office into pieces because of you.

Do you really think Americans will switch to Cubase or Nuendo considering this ? Do you ?

But wait, i’ve recorded and screen captured every crazy delirious bugs i’ve encountered on the last two big projects this last months, you’ll be amazed to discover which kind of software you let out. As soon as i can send the final batch to the mix, i’ll spend hours to give you a proper review.

2

These don’t sound like bugs… these sound like issues with your computer which isn’t Steinberg’s fault. Do you really think your experience is shared by the majority of Cubase users? A proper review of what? You’re ridicule of Steinberg because their product doesn’t work on your ill workstation? I’ll pass. Maybe instead of ranting you can actually troubleshoot your problem? One offensive plugin can cause problems like these. I’d go plain vanila with your setup and start from there. However, without an attempt to do your homework along with your attitude, I’m afraid not many are going to come to your aid.

3

Agreed with cmaffia,

An initial post with no intention but to rant is not a good way to solicit help. I’m an American running a HUGE scoring template of over 1200 tracks with 30-40 VSTi’s on Win 7 64bit for about 14 hours per day without crashes or long save times. It works very stable. I would certainly attribute your issues to either a bad plugin or a sketchy hardware or driver combination.

In any case it might be helpful to detail your setup and your issues. and kindly ask for suggestions

4

A MAJOR! MAJOR! MAJOR! +1.

And look on the bright side;
at least you can do up to four minute projects. :slight_smile:

Ma bad, Couldn’t resist. Just joking. :slight_smile:

{‘-’}

5

o dear what a palava.
EWplay does this soometimes, depending on the library, just saying. could be a similar plug you got.

6

Hi All

Just a thought F.E. I recently had an issue with this and found that if I had detected hitpoints and then split the file at those hitpoints in order to quantize or whatever, an ended up with (in my case it was 800 clips)lots of clips it took forever to load. So I bounced the track…problem gone. As I say, just a thought…

Best Regards

Dave

7

I have a few thoughts:

  1. Nobody is ever forced to use autosave. Just save every few minutes manually, as we have done for 20 years or so.
  2. If saving is really taking 5 minutes, this usually means that there are many, many plugs in the project. However, for people who are mostly using VSTi there is a way to remove most of this wasted time. Load your template VSTi in VE Pro, decouple, and then you won’t be saving the state of every plug each time you save. Obviously this means that all tweaks have to be automated, or you have to remember to re-couple before the final saving of the day, but it would solve the OP’s problem.
  3. Work out what bugs are wasting the most time and then develop a workflow that removes them from the equation.

DG

8

Why the American reference?

9

if i were your client i would probably find a new studio where they at least know how to set up their equipment
but maybe you and your client enjoy rant fests more than making music. whatever floats your boat i guess lmao

but on the serious side… it kind of sounds like a device inactivity timer powering down every 5 min… assuming
its a regular interval of 5 min

oh ya btw… canadians love cubase LOL

10

for what it’s worth I figured out this weekend that the chrome adobe plugin was causing crashes using Cubase, Performer and a few other apps that access video. If I never started the Chrome browser, I could work for days. It took me awhile to figure that out. I’m just adding my 2 cents as you never know what little gremlin is lying around.

11

Yeah, through the years I’ve found similar things. My experience is that Cubase does not play well with others. And I’ve had my moments of utter frustration as Cubase would not perform as expected. But I’ve learned how to build fairly stable systems (both Mac and PC) and had the pleasure of watching Cubase roar along. Every once in a while Cubase will still crap out on me for utterly unknown reasons, but with proper planning, I’m back up and running in minutes.
My blood pressure is a lot lower these days.

-Rich

12

Just a thought, have you taken steps with W7 to make it run well for audio?

I have possibly lesser gear than you (TBD) and I have no issues to speak of.

Try these steps and see if you have a good day:

http://www.sweetwater.com/sweetcare/articles/pc-optimization-guide-for-windows-7/

:slight_smile:

13

Ditto…

It is always something other than Cubase that causes most issues.

Stable and working solid for years here. Yes, there are typically minor annoying bugs for some systems or possibly unwanted changes when upgrading to newer versions for some, but things evolve.

A crash is almost always a users system setup flaw or use of something that is not agreeing with Cubase or any other recording software. Either way, it is almost/or never the the DAW at error, it is the users choices or lack of knowledge in choosing correct setup or crap plugins that kill the goodness.

Blaming the host is so passe… - sorry, I don’t know how to get that squiggly thing above the ‘e’. To busy not saving my project… lol!

No offense to the OP, but you just have issues unrelated to Cubase to deal with. Promise. :slight_smile:

14

Aloha guys,

Sure hope the OP (f.e) is continuing to read this thread.

Some great tips and info going on here.

@ f.e:
Did any of this help? (not my lil joke)

{‘-’}

15

Back from a short break. Of course, i won’t troll against all the bad mood i’ve created with my questionable desire to rant :slight_smile:

@DLearyUS : no, my clients won’t go anywhere else, they know i’m the best (as you probably know yourself, without knowing it :slight_smile: )

Americans reference was for joking.

Just to make things clear : i may have sounded like a douche because i was REALLY exhausted by all the issues i’ve had, but be assured i know my system and i will be very surprised anything outside Cubase would provoke these troubles. I will investigate the Chrome tip JMCecil gave me (THANKS for that route).

My system is up and running since years. Always updated. Protected. Serviced. And so on. I never had any such troubles before with any version of Cubase, nor PT, nor Ableton Live, nor FL Studio, nor MaxMSP…

But at the moment i write these lines, Cubase already crashed, always on the same behavior, which would be hard to avoid : i just selected tracks, from bottom to top, with the shift key… It seems selecting things is the culprit in my case, like i would have a corrupted memory or something. But it’s a bug i only have since 7.5.20…

I’ve replaced my RAM recently but kept the same brand and the same specs, just changed the amount from 8 to 16 because two previous sticks died weirdly. But, again, without any incidence on any other piece of software i use.

The everyday plugins used are : latest Kontakt, Pianoteq 4, latest Nebula Server, Lexicon PCM, latest Trillian, S-Gear. Audio gear is Fireface. External midi devices are CC121, Maschine, Doepfer LMK2+ via usb, Motu express 128. Dongles used : ilok 1, ilok 2, elicenser.

I can screen capture all the different occurrences of the bug. Already got a few. Will send it here for you to witness.

@DG : yes, on my way to buy VEPro. But isn’t using Cubase’s VST System Link on another computer a better solution ? Especially with Dante Via coming ?

16

Thanks for the Dante Via heads up. I’m gonna be watching this closely. I have a suspicion that it can only offer significant multi-channel, via a lossy codec. If so, then System Link is not an option, as it requires a bit-for-bit lossless digital connection. I realize their promo references Cubase (and other DAWs), but this could be for scenarios without System Link. ___I hope I’m wrong, because I’ll take two copies of Cubase and System Link before VEP Pro – good as VEP Pro is.

Mainly, cuz VEP Pro won’t do FX Rack use-cases and their announced product for doing that is probably a long way off.

As for you stability issues, here’s what I did to final squash 99.9 % of them:

Prep work: Build a new DAW-only rackmounted PC. Nothing goes on it except Cubase and plugins. Win 7, as Win 8 was less stable with many 3rd party plugins.

Put all your projects and sound lib on an external USB3 drive. Reconfigure you projects, as required, so that they’ll all work off an external drive. Cubase’s “Back up project…” is your friend here.

Step 1: I got an Icy Dock 6 tray SSD accessory. Drive imaged my old Cubase install on to an SSD that sits in tray one. This is what I worked off of – crashes and all – while doing step two…

Step 2: New copy of Windows, fresh install of Cubase on another SSD that can be popped into tray one of the SSD tray (quick and easy – no removal of PC cover required – just pop one drive out and pop the other one in).

Now, just add the plugins one-by-one and keep a text file of the manifest (put it on your external project drive).
Each time you add a plugin, you have to check that:
\

  1. Cubase itself (pre-project) loads without a crash. Don’t have Cubase auto-load the latest project. Have it start to a blank slate.
  2. Cubase Plugin Manager’s “Update” and “Update plugin information” rescan without crashing. Many times, this is where it will crash. If you get a crash – that’s it. The offending plugin gets put on ice until the next Cubase update or plugin update (whichever comes first). Cut your losses and move on.
  3. Load your projects (each one) and do the Update and Update plugin info. again. Again, many times it will crash here with the project data loaded in memory.
  4. Mess around in your project for a good 5 minutes. Open plugin windows (the ones installed).

    Repeat 1-4 until you’re stable.

    The SSD tray will let you flip back and forth between testing your new install and doing real work on your old, buggy install.

    Bonus is that you can now easily drive image your system once it’s stable. Keep a manifest of every plugin that you update between backups so that you can recreate it if you need to revert to the back up.

    Also, I own just about every DAW on PC, and switched back to Cubase because it was MORE stable. Studio One was a crash factory when projects got large. Sonar was pretty stable, but had some other performance issues that Cubase side-steps._
17

I was going to suggest using a PC like HP because I had a positive experience with their product, I came across some interesting information about FREEZING:

http://h10010.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?cc=us&lc=en&dlc=en&docname=bph06739

18

With any large program like Cubase you will occasionally get a crash IF you stretch it mostly. But crashes might happen UNCONNECTED with Cubase. NONE of us here looking at problems like this can be ABSOLUTELY sure if it’s Cubase or the user is an absolute klutz.
“Every 5 minutes I can’t work for a minute” is NOT a universal complaint of Cubase. Ergo one MUST assume a system malfunction. It’s good to ask here. Someone might point out the obvious (which could be easily missed) but usually it’s a case of get a computer expert in to thoroughly rag the system to find out if it’s in a working state to use Cubase.

19

my point was… if the problem happens regularly with a set time interval that strongly suggests a system/device issue rather than cubase… cubase has no “5 min timers” built in lol if its totally intermittent then you have a big troubleshooting job ahead of you… again unlikely its cubase as no one else has this issue.

as for the rant part… we all do it on occassion perhaps not so publicly lol
and as for you being the best… yes! you are and i dont even know it but i’m willing to take your word for it cuz you
seem like a sincere fellow lol

cheers m8 hope you get it sorted.

20

Could be nice to look at your crash dumps. Cubase has properly generated the dumps from each crash in this folder:

  • My Documents\Steinberg\CrashDumps

You could zip the crashdumps (them with the correct timestamp), and attach them here - or a link to where they could be downloaded. This could reveal much more about the crashes, if plugin(s) is involved and could be the cause.

Also be sure, that you has a “clean” DAW setupm, since 3. part software that maybe runs in the background, can provoke all kinds of strange things to happen. I’m thinking of antivirus software, energy saving util and other kinds of background software, that could hit Cubase’ realtime performance or even make it crash.

if your crashes also happens on an empty project, try and initialize your Cubase profile. The profile sometimes get corrupted, and can provoke slow saving times to happen, and other strange problems.

SLL