Will Nuendo 12 ever get a stable release?

Nuendo
1

Will I ever be able to use Nuendo 12 without having to force quit?
It doesn’t matter what kind of project I’m running-
a huge orchestral template
a new project from a blank slate

Nuendo never seems to be able to quit properly.
And guess what? Even if it does exit all the way after quitting, I am still greeted with a “Nuendo didn’t shut down properly” screen when I open it back up.
I don’t think I’ve seen it start without that window in 6 months.

I am writing today because it failed so hard that I couldn’t even summon the Task Manager!

How is this supposed to be a professional piece of kit?
This is not a dependable software at present.

Using Nuendo 12.0.40 on the latest Windows Pro build.

2

I agree that it needs bug fixes, but this sounds like a problem going on with your system specifically. This doesn’t happen to me at all, nor most people I’m assuming.

Have you contacted Support?

3

That’s not really an answerable question since you are generalizing your problem to Nuendo as a whole. If the question is “Will there ever be a version of Nuendo that doesn’t force quit?” then the answer is yes, there is now. I use 12.0.40 and it doesn’t need to force quit. I can open it up, work on things, close it back down, everything is fine. I’ve done a fair number of projects with it too.

Now if the question is “Will there be a version of Nuendo that doesn’t force quit on YOUR system and hardware?” well that I don’t know, because who knows what is causing it? It isn’t a universal problem, it does not happen on all systems so it is something that is going on with it on your setup. They may incidentally find and fix whatever it is, or you may have to track it down, or you just have to deal with it.

As to what could be causing it? A few things come to mind to try, if possible:

  1. First would be plugins. I did have a problem like that when it first came out. It would sometimes refuse to quit, if it did quit it took a fairly long time. Nuendo 11 had also taken a long time to quit. The culprit in my case was a plugin, BFD3. Turns out I had a really old version, since I didn’t know the company had been sold. Once I updated that, the problems went away, it didn’t need to force quit and quit immediately, rather than lagging as N11 had. So it could be a plugin. I would particularly look at VST2 plugins and ones that are older, that haven’t been upgraded in a long time. Try completely removing them (or removing the search path to them).

  2. Your configuration files/preferences could be an issue if you’ve imported those. There could be something in them causing issues. I’d try completely blowing them away (back them up first since I understand it would be a pain to redo if you don’t have to) and see if that helps. If it does then you either need to manually redo everything, or try to reintroduce the files one at a time until you find the one that is the problem.

  3. Your system could be the issue. Audio interfaces in particular can cause DAW issues, but other system components as well. This one isn’t easy to test if you only have one computer, but if you have a desktop and a laptop, load Nuendo up on the one you don’t normally use it on and give it a shot. Don’t use your audio interface, use the built in one with the generic driver or ASIO4ALL. Change out all the hardware and see if that fixes it. If it does, then that suggests either the hardware, drivers, or software on your system is the culprit.

  4. Your software/setup could be the issue as well. Is your system patched and up to date? You say “latest Windows Pro” but what does that mean? 10, 11? Which release version? Are your drivers current? Your firmware? Does your system show any other signs of issues like BSODs, instability, random slowness, etc? Do you run a virus scanner to help keep you free of malware (Windows has one built in if you didn’t turn it off)?

I know a situation like this is frustrating, but it is the kind of thing that if you want to solve, you probably are going to have to work on trying to track down what is causing it as it seems likely it isn’t something that is purely in Nuendo. I’m not saying Nuendo may not be part of the issue, like maybe other DAWs work fine and it doesn’t, but just that it probably isn’t internal to the Nuendo code, rather an interaction between it and something else on your system.

4

I get where you are coming from, as these are common suggestions, but after 20 years of experience with this software, I have some remarks about them:

  1. No, no and no.
    Plugins that are not instantiated should have zero impact on Nuendo’s ability run or shut down effectively.

See above where I mention this is happening on “a huge orchestral template” or
“a new project from a blank slate”.

If an uninstantiated plugin sitting in a VST folder has an effect on the program running, then the devs certainly need to review some basic elements of software architecture.
No wiggle room on that one. Anything otherwise is absolutely unprofessional.

  1. I’ve been hearing “trash the preferences” for 20 years concerning Cubase.
    It is the go-to suggestion for anyone having almost any type of problem.

I’ve done that over the years, making copies of folders and swapping them out. Starting, and restarting all day moving files around. Mostly with bad results.

When it does work, I have to ask how the devs let it keep happening - again and again for 20 years. Can’t they fix this issue of importing in a fluid manner from a previous version?

At any rate, it is not the culprit in this case because I have not imported, installed a large update or changed any preferences in quite a long time.

Let’s be real. Nobody running this program should even need to be messing around with the preferences folder shenanigans. Devs need to clean up the back end as we move forward in time. It is part of the job.

  1. I’ve been using the same interface for 5 years now (the Presonus Quantum 2).
    It’s a very standard piece of kit here. It’s not a random no-name brand from Alibaba.
    The drivers are up to date.

  2. Latest Windows Pro 10. I forgot to add the “10”.
    Up to date? Are you kidding me? Windows won’t let me go to the bathroom without updating.

"Does your system show any other signs of issues like BSODs, instability, random slowness, etc? ". Nope. None. Runs perfect otherwise.

“Do you run a virus scanner to help keep you free of malware”. Yes. It checks multiple times a day. All clean.

So,
At what point and after how much cash sunk into a program do you begin to ask if the developers are going to take responsibility to make sure you don’t have to jiggle the handle when you flush?

I’m paying for something marketed as a premium, professional product.
I paid a fee for that. Every time I have to play Mr. Fix-It with this program the perceived value of that product goes down and I do think Steinberg can deal with hearing about it in the public square.

Just take that in to consideration the next time you spend hours/days troubleshooting a product. Not saying you haven’t, but just letting you know where I am coming from.

5

Ok then… Get a new DAW I guess. I don’t like to be glib like this but that seems to be where you are with it. If you don’t want to work to troubleshoot it, then it isn’t likely to get any better. Steinberg can’t magically figure out what is wrong with your setup and it is NOT a universal problem.

If this was something that was a problem that happened to all users, all setups, then yes they need to figure out why. However as I and nogills noted it isn’t universal. So it is something with the interaction of Nuendo on your system, which means you are going to have to work to troubleshoot why if you want it to work.

If you don’t want to do that, then your choices are either to accept it, or to move to something else.

As for not spending time troubleshooting expensive products, you are talking to the wrong guy, I’m IT support for engineers so I spend my time troubleshooting software that is WAY more expensive than Nuendo and WAY less stable. I have plenty of not-so-nice things I can say about Cadence, Dessault, Agilent, Ansys, and others. There are plenty of issues to work around, and some you just have to accept, and it just is what it is because for many of these programs, they are the ONLY thing that does what they do.

I’m not saying it is fun, or that you should like it, I’m saying it is what you need to do if you want to solve the problem. If you want it fixed, you need to identify what the cause is, then report that to the developers. If you just post “This is broken why don’t they fix it,” they can’t help since it is a problem on your setup, not a universal one.

Troubleshooting often involves the user having to work on bisecting the problem and figuring out where it is.

2 Likes
6

Short answer: Yes, the one we are using right now.

Longer: Nothing much to add to the posts above, the ones with that great amount of detail, that someone took a lot of their valuable time to type in order to try and help you.

1 Like
7

I can’t say that everything is going perfectly with Nuendo. But I can at least notice a development towards the positive. The same projects now run much more stable with version 12.0.40 than they did with version 12.0.10.

Nevertheless, I can understand the annoyance. Since we partly use other DAWs in our other studios, I have the daily comparison. And it shows again and again that identical projects are more unstable on Nuendo 12 than, for example, with Sequoia 16. It may be due to our hardware and/or our workflows. But the fact is that no other program crashes as often for us as Nuendo.

I can understand why people would make such a recommendation. But with all due respect, it’s not that simple. :wink:
We use Scenarist here, for example. (That’s authoring software for Blu-rays and UHD Blu-rays.) That software costs a ton of money. (Compared to that, Nuendo is a real bargain.) Add to that the annual support costs. Scenarist has some pretty annoying bugs. And some of them have been there for a decade. I would gladly replace Scenarist if I could. But for the cost alone, I can’t. (The only serious replacement costs another 10,000 euros more.)
Yes, Nuendo costs a fraction of that price. But learning how to use a new DAW takes time. And therefore also money. Not to mention that in a professional environment, the hardware is often matched to the software (and vice versa).

I couldn’t justify switching away from Nuendo if only because Nuendo has some features (such as the integrated Dolby Atmos workflow) that can’t be easily replaced. (At the moment, however, I don’t want to replace Nuendo at all. Because I like Nuendo very much and see, as already written above, a development towards the positive.)

Nevertheless, criticism must be allowed. And not every problem affects every user. Someone who doesn’t use the Dolby Atmos features in Nuendo, for example, won’t be bothered if there’s a bug there. They probably won’t even notice that there is one. However, those who need and use this feature on a daily basis may despair of it.
I’m not saying that you can’t get to a point where switching away from Nuendo to another DAW is the only solution. But anyone using Nuendo to make money from it will then face a dilemma in any case.

Even if it is in use … For years I’ve been wishing that plug-ins in Nuendo would run in a “sandbox”. Then Nuendo wouldn’t crash along with it every time a plug-in hangs again. (I am aware that this function is associated with disadvantages. Therefore, the user should be able to disable it or limit it to certain plug-ins, e.g. to keep latency under control for large projects.)

8

Plugin sandboxing has been high on the request list for many years - SB know about it they just don’t have the resources/inclination to implement it unfortunatley

9

I can certainly understand that, as I said I do IT work for engineers and there are plenty of programs out there where you have no choice. There is one thing that does what it does. However when you are in that situation you have to accept that and work with it. That doesn’t mean you don’t ask the vendor to try and fix things, but you accept that to make that happen, you are going to have to bisect the problem and give them useful feedback to do so, and that even then they may not. I remember when Agilent steadfastly declared that Windows 10 sucked and so their software would only work with Windows 8 for some of their high end hardware.

It’s not the criticism that got me, it is the unconstructive way it was done. His original post was one of “This is a universal problem with the software,” when clearly that is not the case, and then the refusal to try anything on his end to try and figure out why he has a problem that others don’t. That is not useful, and criticism like that to a company doesn’t help. For developers to fix issues they have to be able to figure out what the issue is and when that issue occurs on your platform but not on theirs, you have to help troubleshoot the problem.

I know it sucks, but it is how it works. Flaws in code don’t show up in some bright red line that they just ignore, it is subtle and hard to find, particularly when it is an interaction between multiple pieces from multiple vendors, as with plugins. So you have to work on trying to find out what the issue is, then report it if you want anything done, not just declare the software to be bad and that they should just fix it, as though they know what the solution is and just won’t implement it.

I mean I had the same general issue: Hanging on exit. I posted on the forum, seeing if others had it, which they did. Plugins were listed as a common culprit. Took me a bit, since I used BFD3 in all my projects, and since it didn’t always hang on exit. However once I removed it, problem was solved. In my case, I was able to start using it again after migrating to Inmusic and getting a new version, but even if I hadn’t, I’d at least know what was causing the issue and be able to let Steinberg and Inmusic know of the problem so hopefully they could find a solution.

Telling a company “When I load project X, with plugin Y, and then have it do thing Z causes an issue,” is productive. It doesn’t mean they will know what the solution is, but at least they know where to look for the problem. Saying “This software is broken and you need to fix it,” with no details is not productive.

It would be nice. I’m guessing it is a pain to implement and/or has other issues because it seems like very few DAWs have it. What I would like is three choices for plugins:

  1. Native loading, the lowest latency and least CPU, but it means if they are unstable it’ll likely bring down the DAW.

  2. Universal sandbox for ones that are suspect. This would load all the “universal sandbox” plugins in their own separate process, kinda like doing a VEPro setup. More overhead than DAW native, but not too bad since it is all in one other process. However if one dies, everything in that container is going down with it. Does mean the DAW could just auto-restart the container though.

  3. Individual sandbox, for real problem children. This would have the most overhead, and you wouldn’t want to do it with every plugin, but it would allow for real isolation of the plugins that are real gremlins, but you just can’t live without.

I think it would be a great feature to have, but I also understand that it may be something that is fairly difficult to implement well.

2 Likes
10

number 27 on the request list:

There were a couple of these polls with similar results. The features were ‘pre-selected’ by Steinberg so one would assume that they picked features that they felt were achievable ?

either way it’s a good idea.

for same of completeness here’s an earlier poll that didn’t include sandboxing - I include it because it’s fun to see the results :slight_smile:

11

The first time I used N12 it hung on close for me too. so, I force quit, then reopened and immediately closed (without opening a project) and it closed without crashing. Launched it again and opened the same project as before and it closed with no hang. Been fine ever since.
One other thing to check - any inserts in your control room strip? Those stay the same regardless of template etc…

12

I’m running N11 and N12 on my PC and have to say, that N11.0.41 is running super stable and like a charme, whereas N12.0.40 is crashing and buggy without heavy loads (sometimes empty projects)…
So I’m still stuck to N11, because N12 is actually not reliable for me.

13

I have also observed this problem. Especially when we are working on a project on the laptop, it is really horrible. :scream:

14

Hmmm… no such problems, here.
N12 runs stabil, does not crash and is not doing any other funny things, either.
But I must say that I haven’t done any really huge projects on it, yet.

15

In our case, it is due to Dobly Atmos. As soon as the Atmos renderer is deactivated in the project, the peak load goes down immediately.