With Cubase, projects are like a window within the program itself.
If I click the X (close) button, only the window inside is closed.
This is good when I just want to close the current project and open/start another.
But how about closing Cubase entirely when a project is open?
Should I just use CTRL + Q (or whatever the command is)?
How do you do it?
I hit the “X” in the upper right corner to close Cubase.
I got into the habit of closing all projects by going to the File>Close menu first before closing Cubase. I’ve seen a lot of forum posts of user complaining about Cubase “hanging” during close. I never had this issue so I’ll stick with my “longer” closing process.
Regards 
I usually close the Project first (ctrl+W) then wait a 10 seconds or so and close Cubase (ctrl+Q).
I think when you try closing both the Project & Cubase at the same time that coordination issues between the two closes can cause hanging.
Same here. Straight quitting causes Cubase crash/error. Since I have UAD, I close the project and wait until all UAD plugins are unloaded. Then I’m safe to quit 
Ahh, I never considered the UAD shutdown as being a cause. Makes sense.
On the few occasions where I’ve put my DAW to sleep UAD really hates that. It thinks I’m licensed to run all plugs as expected, it just doesn’t think there are any UAD cards installed.
Ok. Well so far CTRL + Q works for me.
It closes the project, and after a few seconds Cubase closes.
I assume and hope it’s a safe way to quit it
Yes that should always work fine (but sometimes it doesn’t), and as long as it works fine in your situation use it. But if you start having Cubase crash or hang when closing then try doing it in 2 steps.
I first close the project, then I wait until the HD activity light stops flashing, them I quit Cubase. No hangs or crashes.
I don’t see how using the easy CTRL + Q should cause problems.
It closes the project and AFTER that it quits the program. Right?
Yes that is the sequence of events that occurs. And in theory it should not cause problems. But just because the Project has closed it doesn’t mean that everything that was associated with the Project has shutdown too. UAD hardware/software seems to still be in the process of shutting down after the Project is fully closed. I’m sure there is other stuff (plug-ins, controller surfaces, etc) that behaves like this too.
Because of that some of us find it reduces hangs/crashes if we wait a bit to close the program after the Project. But if you are not have any issues then ctrl+Q is the way to go - it even asks if you want to save the Project if it has been changed (and often when it hasn’t 
).
I do the Ctrl W first. Because when you get that hang I get paranoid that things have not been saved. Ctrl W just as a paranoia cure.
It’s not paranoid, any changes to Preferences or Key Commands get saved when Cubase shuts down. So good chance you would loose those changes.
Once when I kept UAD performance monitor on screen I’ve noticed that when I press CTRL+Q Cubase closes faster than the UAD plugins unload, thus crashes on exit. So if the project has UAD plugins safe method is with 2 steps. If there are no UAD plugins then I can safely CTRL+Q.
Ah, an actual experiment. Good to know.
Hmm I get spammed by “new replies” to this thread, but there are none
Maybe this…
Regards.
I shut down the projects one at a time, then shut down Cubase. I’ve always wondered what would happen if I just hit Ctrl-Q when I have a bunch of projects open, but I’ve never had the time to try it out, feels scary.
Most of the time it works fine - but not always. Basically it will either crash or hang (and you get to crash it). As long as you’ve saved you Projects before quitting they should be OK. If you changed any Preferences during the session the changes will likely be lost.
Yeah, well I’m the kind of guy who usually wait for the question “do you want to save the changes made”, so to have to crash Cubase would not be good for me:)
Thanks for the answer!
Nice topic! And good tips 
As a new user of Cubase,using the shortcuts,for closing down Cubase properly,is something I should get in the habit of doing,lol 