Steinberg Library Manager crashing during Setup

Cubase
,
1

The setup program (Setup.exe) of Cubase 13 (Windows) calls up the Steinberg Library Manager (Steinberg Library Manager.exe) to check VST sound libraries (.vstsound) and update them if necessary. If the path to the Setup.exe file exceeds a certain length, an error occurs and Steinberg Library Manager.exe crashes. This is caused by exceeding the maximum 256 characters allowed when passing a parameter string from Setup.exe to Steinberg Library Manager.exe, apparently for the purpose of creating a log file. If the path length is shortened sufficiently, the error no longer occurs.

Offending parameter string example:

\\QNAP\Studio\Apps\Steinberg\Steinberg Cubase Pro v13.0.41 (Editor, DAW)\Setup\Additional Content\VST Sound\VST Bass Amp Content" -supportanyfamily -CreateInstallInfoFile "C:\Users\ASM\AppData\Local\Temp\Steinberg Cubase 13 Setup Log\VST Bass Amp Content.log

Apart from Cubase, all other Steinberg setup programs that use Steinberg Library Manager are also affected.

2

The length limit of 256 is a historic setting, that for some reason is still the default in Windows.

However, it can be changed by a registry entry, as documented by Microsoft

Maximum Path Length Limitation - Win32 apps | Microsoft Learn

What I don’t know is when this old limit is enforced and when a system is automatically enabled for long path names. I have recently installed two new Windows 11 machines and both have no problems with long path names out of the box.

3

I already had LongPathsEnabled=1 in the registry and no other problems with the length of paths. I also think that in this particular case it is about the length of the parameter transfer string between two applications, i.e. a programming or compilation problem.