We have the knowledge base article on El Capitan online now:
Dear Patanjali, first of all, let me apoligize for my sarcastic answer about the 90’s. That was not respectful, and we all should be.
Ed, feel free to read the below as it took me some time to prepare 
BTW, thanks for the KB article.
We agree that all this is about frustration handling.
If I understand your point, frustration can only go away when the fix is available. I still disagree. E.g.: if SB is blocked because of Apple and have no handle on it, they should share the info. This helps because we all have sort of a mental model on how fast Apple can fix something (answer: can take months) vs. Steinberg. In the end that sets expectations and reduces frustration.
Now, instead of simply complain, let me be constructive by doing a summary => critique => improvement proposal.
Here is a recap of how SB communicated:
- Sept. 9: El Capitan golden master is available to developpers
- Sept. 28:> SB announce > that CB cannot run on El Capitan and ask to wait for the full compatibility chart is released on Oct. 23rd
- Sept. 30: El Capitan public release.
- Oct. 13: New iMacs released (cannot run anything but El Capitan reliably)
- Oct. 23: > SB announce > that they still cannot deliver the compatibility chart since they encountered additional issues. No further date provided.
- Oct. 23: > Ed adds > that it may be an issue with Apple. At this stage, he doesn’t tell if that’s confirmed whether it’s an Apple issue or if SB just don’t know what the issues sources are. That’s fine, I can understand that. > Ed also adds that > SB has a list of issues and expect to set up the infamous knowledge base after “Early next week” (Oct. 26th-28th).
- Oct. 30: > Ed replies > that SB has the test results and he’s waiting to be provided the final list to publish it so that we can track the progress of the issues.
- Nov. 18: > Ed apologises > for the delay and announces that he’ll create the knowledge base article that day, released on Nov. 19 (today).
In my opinion:
-
- The core of the issue here is that people did not get a sense of SB actively working on compatibility as their top priority. Reading all the above in a single summary actually helped me, which leads to my next point.
- There should be a single page tracking the progress instead of having to dig into the forum for further answers. Every bullet point above could have been an official communication on their website. Instead, I would go to this page everyday, which is a really geeky way to get infos.
- Explaining that it takes SB a full month to run a test pass (when things go right) would have set the expectations. Instead, people thought that SB did nothing between the golden master and the public releases. I’m sure it’s not the case.
- SB should have have made a public statement about the fact that the new iMacs are not supported so that people don’t buy them (it’s not obvious that those cannot be officially downgraded).
- There should have been a statement early November announcing further delays instead of leaving those interested in the dark for 2-3 weeks while the Oct.30 message set expectations for an imminent communication.
Now I wished SB communicated on a single public web page this way:
- Sometimes in Aug. “We are testing the 10.11 betas. As of any OS upgrade, we do not expect full compatibility on release day one since we currently see bugs come and go build after build. Therefore, we cannot start fixing them until the golden master is available”
- Sept. 9: “We are running the full tests on the golden master. This takes a full month to complete. Expect news just before the release”
- Sept. 28: This communication was just fine: “It’s more complicated than expected. We need yet another month to deliver the full compatibility chart. In the meantime, don’t upgrade .More news on Oct. 23”.
- Sept. 30: El Capitan public release.
- Oct. 13: “Don’t buy the new iMacs since those cannot be downgraded to 10.10 which is currently the latest supported OS”
- Oct. 23: "We’re still working on it as our top priority. Sorry for the delay. Sorting our what is CB bugs and what requires Apple to issue a fix requires a lot of testing. Regardless of the state, we’ll issue come back with the latest state on Oct. 30th.
- Oct. 30: “Still working on it”
- Nov. 18: “We’ll publish the compatibilty chart tomorrow. This means that we know all the issues that needs to be fixed. We’ll need more time to estimate how long it’s going to take. Those on Apple, we don’t know since they have their own priorities. You can send them > feedback > if that ever helps pushing the prio up. We’ll also share dates on when the SB-side issues will be fixed.”
Thanks Jacky14. Accepted. But, actually, I’m more stuck in the '60s, at least musically.
Well, now you have some better data to go on, and it does not look good. Unfortunately, it still rather vague, as it doesn’t indicate:
a. What the problem is.
b. With whom the problem lies, as it not explicitly clear whether it is SB that is providing the update, or that you need to wait on an update from Apple. Vague!
Come on, SB, more detail here. Basically, you’re El Capitan Mac users are dead in the water until 2016.
On my side, I’m happy: I know that I’ll be able to upgrade to C8/new iMac late december. In the meantime, we can assume that it just doesn’t work.
Could you please try this workaround?
Right click the Cubase Artist 8 application and select “Show Package Contents”. Then go to “Contents” → “Components” and move the “vstconnectse.bundle” file to the desktop or at least out of the folder. Try to start Cubase Artist. Does it load?
The same would apply to Cubase Pro 8 users but here there is only one crash on the first start. All further attempts should work then.
Jacky14, I cannot say that I don’t agree here. We need to improve the communication on topics like these. This wouldn’t neccessarily mean that the updates will be released earlier but the information keeps our customers in the loop. The issues now still open need to be fixed by us and we are working on it.
For sure that would not bring the updates earlier, this would just make us feel all better (including you as your position is uncomfortable when being accused of slacking off…).
Thanks for listening and understanding.
Hi Ed - still the same crash right after authentication.
Is it Cubase Pro or Artist? What exactly do you mean with “authentication”? Is there maybe another VST Connect component to be found in Library → Application Support → Steinberg → Components? Thanks!
Sorry, one more. Looks like the “VST Connect SE.vst3” plug-in needs to be removed as well. It had been removed here already so I forgot to mention it.
It’s also in the application’s “Contents” folder but in “VST3”. Could you remove this one as well?
For me it’s Artist. I plug in the dongle and at startup, it asks me if I want to start “Artist demo” or full “Artist” (something like that) and I click on “Artist” and it looks like it’s starting up and then crashes and I get the screen that asks me “ignore” etc. So it’s not an immediate crash when I click on startup.
Can you tell me more about the VST Connect component in the library? What to look for and what to do? I only see Groove Agent SE.vst3 and HALion Sonic SE,vst3.
Thanks
It’s not in the library (this would just be an optional location in this case). Both are here: Right click the Cubase Artist 8 application and select “Show Package Contents”. Then go to “Contents” → “Components” for the “VSTConnectSE.bundle” and “VST3” for the “VST Connect SE.vst3”
With these two removed, I can open Cubase Artist on my El Capitan system here.
thanks Ed. But is still crashing. I confirmed that “vstconnectse.bundle” was out ( I had to delete it ), and tried to open several times.
I’m really happy and thankful that Steinberg have finally posted their findings and expected fix date for the products.
I’m incredibly disappointed and extremely dismayed that it’s going to end up taking 3 months from public release, 6 months from public beta releases, and 7 months from the developer beta releases to get compatibility.
Considering that we can all reasonably expect OS X to be updated again next year, it’s crazy to me that Steinberg is okay with this kind of timeline for its products. I’d personally find that embarrassing and frustrating enough to look for work elsewhere if I were on the team. All this has done is reinforce the comments made by those with development experience in this thread who are frustrated with Steinberg’s terrible management of this upgrade/support cycle.
Personally, I don’t have the “VST Connect SE.vst3” file in my package there. (see below - I removed the “vstconnectse.bundle” file.
and its not in the other Appplication Support location either…
I’m a little shocked about how long this will take. I’ve never had this experience of being told that the software I purchased will not be available for 6 weeks or so after 3 weeks of waiting to find out. I do appreciate the communication and knowing when instead of wondering, but still stunned by the news. Hard to understand from this vantage point.
That is a major disaster indeed, but also predictable as well. We are going through the same cycle every single year. The problem is that Mac OS releases coincide with Steinberg’s own upgrade cycle path and all their team is pulled to meet the dateline.
This year, Cubase 8.5 will be announced on Wednesday 2nd of December and will be El Capitan ready, but we will have to pay for it of course. Only then, Steinberg will begin their work on patching up broken version 8, hence projected update is end of December, but it will probably be January next year (fashionably late, as always).
If this is true its enough to make me switch primary DAW. In comprehensible to me and such an arrogant stance. Or maybe I just don’t understand… arg. I’m having to change the DAW I work with anyways so learning a new one is good, but doesn’t seem like great business behavior
Not to be reactive or anything, cause I don’t feel reactive, BUT I just decided to sell Artist and be done with this whole thing. This kind of lack of support has been enough to drive me away. I no longer wish to support this product. I have Padshop Pro on the eLicenser and would love to keep it but don’t know if I can run the Padshop Pro plugin on its own without the dongle. If not, so be it.
I know there are extenuating circumstances that I probably don’t understand, but I’m baling on this.
Then, in the interests of keeping Cubase customers in the loop:
- What are the ‘issues now still open’'?
__ There might be some customers that can still do work if not dependent upon these. - Is the ‘solution’ for any of these likely to affect the Windows version?
I ask the last question, because while usually OS-specific stuff in a largely common code base would be isolated, that the ‘solutions’ for Cubase will take several weeks, while other DAW manufacturers have managed to be compatible so quickly, suggests that there might be larger issues in the code base, some of which might lead to changes in the common code. So, communicate!
Now, that is NOT good, because it means there was LOTs you could have communicated to us along the way about the issues.
Being ‘blind’ while waiting on a third-party is one thing, but to know that the issues were on your side, and say nothing, is to rightfully draw the scorn you have brought on yourselves.
I apologise to all to whom I have suggested patience and balance: your intuitions were right, SB deserved it.