NI Komplete Kontrol Key won't play in Cubase 9.5 anymore

i have a native instruments komplete kontrol s49 mk1 on cubase 9.5 on a macbook running high sierra.

until recently all has worked perfectly but lately i’ve noticed that my keyboard won’t play any notes in cubase.

The transport buttons work as they should and i can browse as normal but when i hit the keys nothing happens…actually that’s only half true as the DAW registers midi data coming in (i can see it in the little midi signal meter) but the signal seems to get lost on the way to whichever instrument is open…

this is only an issue in my DAW and the keyboard works just fine when KK is open in standalone mode…which leads me to believe it’s a cubase issue

for the record i’ve found the threads on restarting the NIHardwareAgent app on login on the NI site so that’s not the problem…

anyone else been experiencing anything similar? got any fixes? not being able to play the keyboard is a huge PITA…

cheers in advance