HALion 7 – “Hot Brass Split” preset takes ~10 min to load, UI then freezes (Windows 11 / Cubase 14P)

Virtual instruments HALion
1

Hi everyone,

I’m running into a very specific issue with HALion 7’s Hot Brass library and would like to know if anyone else can reproduce it or has a fix.

My System

Windows 11 (latest updates)
Cubase 14 Pro (latest patch)
HALion 7 (current version in Steinberg Download Assistant)

Problem

  1. Insert a fresh HALion 7 instance.
  2. In the browser, select Hot Brass > Hot Brass Split (or any preset after it in the list).
  3. Cubase/HALion appears to hang for ca 10 minutes
  4. After loading finishes, the Hot Brass instrument window is non-responsive (no UI interaction, but can play sound via keyboard).
  5. After another ca 10 minutes the VST window is responsive again
  6. All earlier Hot Brass presets (e.g., “Hammer Horns” and above) load in a few seconds and work normally.

What I’ve tried

Re-installed the HALion 7 via Steinberg Download Manager.
Confirmed the same behavior with a friend who runs a similar system

None of the above changed the 10-minute load time or the unresponsive UI afterward.

  1. Can anyone reproduce this with “Hot Brass Split” (or the presets after it) on their system?
  2. Is there a known bug or a hotfix for this library?
  3. Any other troubleshooting steps I should try?

Many thanks for any pointers!

2

I am on Win 11 with Cubase 12. It appears to be doing the same thing. 2 minutes later and it’s still trying to load “Hot Brass Split”

3

I also can reproduce this with the standalone version of HALion 7. So it’s probably a bug in the vstsound file or HALion itself. I guess this needs to be investigated by the Steinberg team.

4

Same issue. Windows 11, Halion 7, stand alone.

5

Verified in HALion 7.1.40.846 on Nuendo 14.0.30.324 running on MacOS 15.5 Studio M3 Ultra. It actually results in Nuendo not responding, forcing termination for me.

6

Thank you everyone for your confirmation. I will now open a ticket and bring it to the attention of the Steinberg team.

7

There are also some Steinberg employees active here. Maybe @Gerrit_Junge could have a look.

8

Hi Klaus_Konrad,
thank you for your great and detailed bug-report. I’m able to reproduce it here. It’s now in our Defect-Tracking-System and listed as Bug-ID “ HALLY-11193”.
I hope we can provide a fix for it soon.

Thanks for your report and please accept my apologies for any inconvenience caused.
Gerrit Junge

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