If it’s not ‘crashing’ then some sort of hand-shake is supposed to happen that isn’t. Sadly, it can take a LOT of time hunt it down (at least with my limited knowledge in what tools might be out there that can insert debuggers and make logs of everything).
It could be a ‘dongle’ issue. It could be a plugin issue. It could be a driver issue. It might be an OS service or a hardware issue. It could be a ‘bug’ in Cubase itself. Who knows?
If system logs and such aren’t very helpful, then the thing to try is a gradual process of elimination.
Step 1: Reinstall eLicenser. Try your dongle in different ports. Always try that first! In my experience over the years, this can fix a LOT of issues with Steinberg hosts.
Step 2: If you can, try a different audio interface. Even if your only option is to try the included Steinberg WMD>ASIO bridge with your motherboard’s bult-in audio interface. If that worked, then you can figure the issue with your interface or its drivers.
Step 3: Disable ALL third party plugins. If your problems go away, gradually add them back ‘one by one’ until the problem comes back.
Another option that might save some time is to set up a fresh system drive. As in…either set up a dual boot situation, or physically swap the drives (don’t format/over-write anything…keep your current setup so you can dual boot, or shove it back in the sled and keep using it). Personally I keep at least two system drives anyway. I use one for ‘testing’ the latest and greatest updates/upgrades BEFORE I install it on the ‘stable’ system drive.
Anyway, starting with a fresh system from square one and ‘slowly’ installing the stuff you want to use one bit at a time can help sort out if it’s a given plugin or piece of kit that brings things to a grinding halt.
Yep, it’s a time consuming pain the butt, but what else can you do other than sending it to someone with the knowledge and tools to insert proper diagnostic tools? I’m assuming Cubase probably has debugger flags and such that will force it to ‘log’ every single thing it does…but I personally don’t know how to activate them, or what tools are needed to view and interpret the logs!
It might be that filing a support ticket eventually leads to someone from Steinberg giving instructions on how to enable some debugging modes and submit various ‘logs’. In some cases they might even schedule a remote session and ‘do it for you’.
There is a place under ‘support’ in your My Steinberg account to file ‘support tickets’.