VSTs changing overnight without user input

Hello,

I’m relatively new to recording. I recently started learning Cubase and ran into a problem. I’ve been working on a track for a few days now, and today when I launched Cubase I received an error message that said “The application was terminated with an error while executing the following file: /VST3/Opus.vst3”. So I quit Cubase, relaunched and there was no error. Then, I started playing my track and noticed that the instruments sounded different. Something was off. When I compared it to the WAV file I bounced the night before, I could tell that volume / expression of certain instruments were higher / lower, panning was off and that some effects I used such as reverb weren’t sounding the same. As far as I could tell, the automation values hadn’t changed. I didn’t make any changes to the track or software between the time I saved / closed down yesterday and today when I first opened it.

I did some brief research and was told(by AI) that this is a common occurrence with VSTs / MIDI, and that the best way to avoid it is to freeze every single MIDI track at the end of the day and render it in place. That doesn’t seem like a solution; more like a workaround. Is this actually normal behavior? Now I get the feeling that I can’t trust my software. What 90 Expression sounded like yesterday now sounds like 120 today. Yesterday, 2 + 2 equaled 4, but today it equals 5.

I even error checked my computer and found nothing. It seems to be isolated to Cubase / Opus. Does anyone know what happened? If so, how can I fix it and avoid it in the future?

Thank you.

People doing research using AI adds a new layer to providing support to other users… The info could be old, wrong, out of context… or plain crazy. The advice you received sounds like it’s from 1994, though it would work!

The error dialog might have also listed the crash log file path. Can you find it? maybe in ~/Documents/Steinberg/Crash Logs/ maybe it contains useful info, but probably just says that it was Opus that crashed. Anyway, that’s what your troubleshooting should flow from.

Opus might have lost some settings when it crashed, possibly changes you made before the crash.

Maybe the Opus devs or tech support have more ideas

I opened a ticket with EastWest to see if they have any feedback.

I didn’t make any changes to the instruments within Opus itself. All changes I made were done with the Editor within cubase.