Loading some channels takes forever

On latest Cubase 12 pro on windows. Many of my projects load very slowly (over 3 minutes), and get almost stuck on “loading channel…”

I have a very light template designed to load fast (for quick ideas and noodling) with just four guitar tracks, bass, Addictive Drums and EW Opus Piano.

What it really chokes on, is one channel: A clean guitar channel with Gear VST amp sim and nothing else. The other clean guitar channel also have the same plug, but with no noticably loading time.
I have tried removing the channel and moving content to a new channel with the same plug - same result. I have tried to remove that plug in, then the project gets stuck on “vocals 2”, which have NO plugins! And it takes the same amount of time!

Is there something wrong with the way Cubase loads channels? Am I the only one here? What could cause this?

Is “Gear VST amp sim” referring to the built-in amp sim or is it a 3rd party product? If it is the latter, maybe the plugin phones home to check for licensing on startup?

Hi,

Could you try to use Microsoft ProcDump, to get more data, please?