No audio output

I have a UR22 and AI7 successfully installed, so when a friend bought the UR44 and had trouble getting cubase to run, I offered to help.

The UR44 works fine when windows media plays anything, as the unit is selected as the default sound device.

Inside AI7, the active input channel and stereo in channels all show a signal coming in and the channel records the signal.

Nothing comes out the output channels.

I have checked and double-checked that the device setup for VST audio system has the UR44 selected, and that the input and output are properly assigned. I have checked to ensure that the VST connections for input and output properly have the UR44 assigned. Still, no output signal shows on the stereo out channels and no audio through the UR44. (I also changed everything over to the generic on-board asio sound with no change in results)

I have made sure that the orange monitor button on the tracks with audio are active. I have made sure that the track’s input and output are properly assigned to the proper input and output. And still, no audio output and no output signal.

NOTE: When cubase ai7 first opened up after successfully doing the registration and authorization process, the track’s left-hand “menu” did not open/collapse like it should so I uninstalled and re-installed cubase. After the re-installation, the ‘menu’ operated properly and then once I hit Play there was sound for about 1 second and then it stopped.

I have tried everything I can think of, searched the forum and can’t find a solution that works. I have narrowed the problem down to cubase ai7 and not the UR44.

Is there something I’m missing? If all of the ‘easy’ setup settings are seemingly correct, what could be causing the lack of output from cubase?