Should every plugin that worked in C9.5 also work in C10?

I’m starting to think we are too quick to blame plugin companies for plugin incompatibility issues in new releases of Cubase. Isn’t it reasonable to expect that currently supported plugins from current companies should work in C10 if they worked in C9.5?

It seems to me that one of three things must have happened to cause plugin incompatibility issues in C10:

  1. Steinberg notified plugin companies that plugin affecting changes were coming in C10 but the plugin companies failed to react.
  2. Steinberg failed to notify plugin companies that changes were coming in C10.
  3. C10 contains bugs the break some plugins.

I tend to think option 3 is what’s happening here since the plugin companies are supposed to adhere to the interface published by Steinberg. Plugins that worked in 9.5 successfully did adhere to the interface. But I’m on the outside. Maybe I don’t know that I’m talking about. Maybe Steinberg had coded exceptions to the interface that were removed in C10. In that case, 1 or 2 is the answer.

I have not tested all my plugins yet but all the Fab Filter and UAD 2 plugins seem to work ok. These are the ones I use the most. Slate and Melda Productions work too. However, I have found three that I rely on that do not. EW Spaces 2 which works fine in C9.5 but crashes C10. The two Bettermaker plugins I use which control hardware over USB do not work correctly but I’ve (thankfully) found work arounds for them.

I guess maybe as a former programmer, I’m wondering how these plugin problems could even happen in the space of one release. Clearly C10 is the variable here. I did not update my plugins, I updated Cubase. And bottom line… Which company is responsible for the fix? I expect the answer to that depends on which of my three possible causes above is actually happening.

Hello,

out of roughly 80 crash cases I dealt with so far, most issues were due to outdated versions of the plug-ins or licensing system… or both.
So I would rather say ‘none of three’.

As for the actual question, yes, every plug-in that worked on 9.5 should work on 10, but not all plug-ins are the same, or have the same dependencies, use the same resources, etc.
There a few very old, very simple plug-ins (VST2.4 x64) whose behaviour never changed thoughout 6 versions of Cubase - other, perhaps more complex and using advanced UI APIs need more constant updates.

Kind regards,

EW Spaces 2 works for me on C10 so it’s not an issue outright.

Fabio: Thanks for the reply. Totally agree about the outdated plugins. I tried to eliminate the issue of outdated plugins in my post. Guess I was not clear. However I’m glad to hear that nothing radical changed in C10 that would cause plugin issues. Still wondering why Spaces 2 crashes C10 though. I have the current version and the both the current and prior version work in C9.5. Not your job to answer that but I still have a problem.

Manike: Glad to Spaces works for you. However, you are on a mac and I’m on win 10 so I’m guessing the code you are running is different from mine. Perhaps the OS is the defining difference here.

Do you have any crash dumps you could send over? (Documents → Steinberg → Crash Dumps)
We do have many Cubase/EW users, but no current known issue, incompatibility or general problem.
Perhaps external dependencies (if any, maybe ask EW if they use any .NET or Redistributable component) or the UI side? Which GPU are you using?
These are usually pretty easy to see in the dumps.

I believe there is a whole host of problems with projects that worked fine in CB9.5 but make CB10 just disappear on startup.
See: Crashing when loading 9.5 sessions - Cubase - Steinberg Forums

The only thing that works for me is running CB10 in windows 8 compatibility mode. But then you get weird warnings about license manager on startup.

Regards,
Maarten

This is mostly necessary with older Autotune versions - updating it should fix it, too.
(can’t exclude some other plugs can do the same, though)

I’d also make sure that the licensing managers are up to date.

I just tried my projects that wouldn’t load in Cubase 10 earlier with the new release 10.0.15 …

And they now DO load without problems. I don’t know what changed but it wasn’ t something I did :wink:.
(Note: The Soundtoys plugin trick didn’t work for me in older versions of Cubase 10 either)

I can’t find anything in the version history that might indicate this fix, but I’m sure something related must have changed in this latest release.

Do any of you have the same experience with Cubase Pro 10.0.15 related to this previous defect ?

Regards,
Maarten

The question to me is WTH is the plugin sentinel for if it lets non compatible plugins through? Shouldn’t they be Blacklisted if there is an incompatibility? Doesn’t Steinberg set the VST requirements?

Im no programmer but this whole thing is asinine as C10 is the only thing that has changed here

Yes, in a word, Yes, all plugins that worked in 9.5 should work in 10, there is no excuse for that, unless there is a brand new SDK for VST3 or VST2.4 etc, which there was NOT.

Steinberg have gone down the road of throwing out update after update and have stopped caring about compatibility and reliability, C10 was a joke from what I saw on it’s release, it was poorly put together and released and caused a hell of a lot of issues.

And the fact the Steinberg voice on here says no I had no issues, just makes me laugh tbh, people aren’t that stupid to blindly believe Steinberg voices anymore, proof is there all over the internet on how bad the C10 release was. So if plugins have stopped working under C10, then its Steinbergs fault, not the developers.

They need to go back to basics and release more solid versions and less of them, i’d rather wait longer for a version release that was a huge update, than get more n more releases under tested and not offering a whole heap of difference. Obviously driven by revenue.

I’ve not had any plugin yet not working in CB10 that worked previously in CB9.5?