OSX Hang: Cubase hangs when storing preferences in Dropbox

Cubase
1

For a long time now:

  • Cubase hangs on quit every time
  • Cubase hangs on session open sometimes
  • Cubase hangs on session close every time

I want to have a real-time backup of my Cubase preferences, so I used SymLinks to make that happen - which works just fine for a dozen other applications I use. To illustrate:

  1. Create a SymLink of the “~User~/Library/Preferences/Cubase 6” folder inside of your DropBox folder.
    OR, vice versa:
  2. Move your “~User~/Library/Preferences/Cubase 6” folder inside of your DropBox folder and create a SymLink of it in “~User~/Library/Preferences/”.

I discovered that all of these hangs appear to have been happening because of a confliction with DropBox’s file system hooks. SymLinks in general are not what crashes Cubase because you can SymLinks the Cubase 6 prefs folder to any other location on your computer. But when it’s SymLinked to the DropBox folder, that’s when you get these crashes.

I deduce this is a bug on Steinberg’s end, because as stated above, I have successfully used SymLinks inside DropBox to store preference files/folders for many other pieces of software - so why not Cubase?

I also keep all my session files (*.cpr) stored in my Dropbox, and I have a suspicion that I have suffered additional instability and hangs/crashes when opening and/or saving session files.

2

And are we to deduce that because Cubase works pretty well with thousands of systems without dropbox that therefore it must be a dropbox bug?
Have you also contacted dropbox on the issue?

If anyone is to fix it it’s better not to make your mind up what is causing it without definitive proof from other users with the same software ie: both Cubase and dropbox. As you’re the only one so far most people will deduce that absolute proof it’s Cubase is not there yet.
A question mark after BUG? will get you more answers.