Many of us experience the crashing of cubase when use 3rd party plugins in our projects. When this happens , next time you start cubase you get the usual preference screen etc.
It’s like that for ages…Cmon Steinberg you can do it.
Some say that if you activate a second project which contains no 3rd party plugins and you quit from there then cubase is not crashing, thus you start normally next time.
Maybe Steinberg can program a safe quit option no matter the vst’s used.
How should that work if a plugin crashes Cubase?
The best solution for a stable DAW is not to offer any possibilites for loading external third party libraries 
In all seriousness, if a plugin behaves badly, there is not much Cubase can do, unless you run every plugin in a separate subprocess, as e.g. Bitwig does (and I am not sure what possible disadvantages that approach has).
I think the current approach is much better than a few years ago where Cubase crashed and you got no info at all. With a bit of luck it even tells you the VST that crashed.
The big problem here is that cubase also saves it’s settings etc during the quit. And the crash get your project or installation in states where cubase becomes unstable and the only way to recover is to remove the settings. Cubase should keep backup versions of the settings in similar ways as projects.
An interesting observation here is that if I save the project and then close it, it asks me to save it again. And then closing it causes a hang.
I used to get these crashes also sometimes. I think it’s because it takes too long for Cubase to unload all project data loaded in memory before it initiates the actual shutdown. So I’ve now gotten used to first close the open project(s), wait for it to unload completely and then quit Cubase. No more crashes doing it this way. I’m sure Steinberg can find a way to fix this but it’s probably not very high on there priority list?
No… again, this is why a plugin behaves different from how it should…
It’s host related error that should be fixed by the host.
The same plugin is not crashing my proTools or Sequoia.
My reply to you about the solution is on my original post. I am quoting:
So to summarise, if the project can be deactivated just before the quit command is executed then you will get no crash. But it should be internally programmed, it’s not something that user can do.
Workaround would be the option to use an activation of a default project on MACROs.
I don’t have a crash in Cubase 12, but it does just hang after closing the project window, when exiting.
The main menubar hangs around (even though I chose Exit) and is no longer responsible (doesn’t fold down a menu when clicked.)
It seems to be using a full core or more, too.
I don’t have a lot of custom plugins: the NI Komplete suite, Waves OVox, and playing to an RME Babyface. This happens even if opening a blank project and closing it, without loading plugins. When starting up again, license check seems to take longer than normal, and I get to choose whether to reset preferences and disable plugins, or not.
Note that this happens even if I choose “disable third party plugins,” so this is not a third party plugin problem.
Then this is probably a driver issue, try updating all of your drivers including midi devices etc.
Also what happens when you re In a project, if you just go to file and choose EXIT?
When I’m in a project, and I go to File and choose Exit, I’m asked to save. Then, it closes the project window, and then it hangs the main menu bar.
An interesting note: One time, I was looking at the processes that remain in the process monitor, and there was a “checking licenses” background process that came, and then went after a while, and then it actually quit the app. This means that, even during a “clean” shutdown, it takes a long while to close the menu bar, and “checking licenses” is somehow part of that. Given that there’s a new dongle-free license (although I also have the dongle still in the box,) the “driver” that may be having trouble would be the Steinberg licensing driver, which doesn’t have an update available on the Steinberg website at this time. (Also, no updated version of cubase 12 available.)
Meanwhile the only daw that is crashproof is Bitwig Studio with its plugin sandboxing solution.
If a plugin crashes, only that plugin crashes and shows a Reload button in place of the plugin window.
Steinberg, time to steal their source code 
Wow!!! I wish Cubase could do that!
Yea thats a fact for me too
I wish they don’t. It less efficient, but it would be grate to have it as a option for specific plugins.
This is a great idea!
No that cant be I have two Audio interface that are totally different one is firewire and it crashes exactly the same way ? So you can take the driver issue out !
Since this is also an annoying thing, which happens for a while now, maybe this FR might interest you. Would be cool if you could leave a vote there, if thats the case: Solution to crashes by plugins - Sandboxing (Crash protection) - Cubase - Steinberg Forums
Totally with you - I’m at the point with chasing Cubase crashes over the years that more and more of my projects are getting done in Bitwig.
