# Cubase - projects suddenly hitting a brick wall



## FredrikJonasson (Aug 31, 2019)

I've been having serious issues with Cubase suddenly refusing to play back projects. There's a second of stuttering, then the project doesn't play back. The meters are going haywire though. I can open the project again, but it will hit the wall in a few minutes even if I don't change anything. I don't know if it's related, but sometimes the pitch of an instrument is affected as well. 

If I try to display an instruments nothing is heard but the metering is alive. It would seem like I have a stressed out computer, but I'm not even close to what it should be able to handle. The only thing that caught my eye is that Cubase's power usage is "Very High". Below is a small video of what happens when trying to playback the project. 

http://fredrikjonasson.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/2019-08-31-15-58-05.flv
I've had this problem before but I've been able to close and open the project every now and then and at least getting something done, but I can't even do that now..

OS: Windows 10 64bit
CPU: i7 7800X 3.5GHz
RAM: 64 GB
Sound Card: RME HDSPE AIO

Anyone?


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## I like music (Aug 31, 2019)

I have no idea if what I'm about to say helps or not. But do you have an additional/gaming video card too? I was having very similar problems, until I switched Cubase to be run with onboard graphics. Suddenly, _all_ my issues disappeared.


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## Kony (Aug 31, 2019)

Are you using external SSDs and, if so, have you tried reconnecting them. Could be a read issue?


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## kleotessard (Aug 31, 2019)

FredrikJonasson said:


> I've been having serious issues with Cubase suddenly refusing to play back projects. There's a second of stuttering, then the project doesn't play back. The meters are going haywire though. I can open the project again, but it will hit the wall in a few minutes even if I don't change anything. I don't know if it's related, but sometimes the pitch of an instrument is affected as well.
> 
> If I try to display an instruments nothing is heard but the metering is alive. It would seem like I have a stressed out computer, but I'm not even close to what it should be able to handle. The only thing that caught my eye is that Cubase's power usage is "Very High". Below is a small video of what happens when trying to playback the project.
> 
> ...



Did you try to create a blank project and import some tracks from your project ?


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## FredrikJonasson (Aug 31, 2019)

I like music said:


> I have no idea if what I'm about to say helps or not. But do you have an additional/gaming video card too? I was having very similar problems, until I switched Cubase to be run with onboard graphics. Suddenly, _all_ my issues disappeared.



That is so strange. Is it possible to set one program to not run from my graphics card? 

@kleotessard This isn't really a project specific problem (even though it was even worse now) so I haven't actually tried.

However for now I found the most simple of solutions - I set Cubase priority to "Realtime" in the Task manager. For now it actually works, but I doubt that's the end of the story. I believe I had that setting on my previous computer where I ran into the same problem occasionally..

About that "Very high" power usage, is that a problem. I don't remember seeing that, but then again I might not have scrolled to the right to see it..

@Kony I have my libraries on a few SSDs, I think I just have Kontakt's default preferences. This problem seems to go deeper than the samples though. Cubase has been pretty unstable and slow. Hopefully the Realtime will be the end of it 

Thank you for your answers!


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## FredrikJonasson (Sep 1, 2019)

Nah the "Realtime" priority only gave me one day, now I'm in the same situation as yesterday. Albeit with some veery small life signs, sometimes I can sort of play an instrument. 

What is strange is that the project runs smoothly for 15 seconds or so, then drops dead..

I did get an error message that pops up every now and then. That's usually no big deal, the project usually works after reopening Cubase. But I believe my problems started again after the attached message (it's actually not the specific message, but the day before).

I reconnected the SSDs (only the SATA cables thoug). Didn't work.

Any more ideas??


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## Kony (Sep 1, 2019)

FredrikJonasson said:


> I did get an error message that pops up every now and then.


What error messages were you getting? Also, have you checked anti-virus settings and exceptions?


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## stixman (Sep 1, 2019)

I had similar issues which resolved after I updated graphics drivers maybe go through your devices in the manager.


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## novaburst (Sep 1, 2019)

It is a guess but I think your ssd is packing up, or you have a very bad ssd on your system


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## benatural (Sep 1, 2019)

Just guessing here...

Does a blank project behave this way? If not, maybe your project is corrupt. Also, if a project isn't the active one, it will behave this way.

You could also try deleting Users\*\AppData\Roaming\Steinberg\Cubase x

You should make a copy of it first though cause it'll have all your preferences.


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## José Herring (Sep 1, 2019)

FredrikJonasson said:


> I've been having serious issues with Cubase suddenly refusing to play back projects. There's a second of stuttering, then the project doesn't play back. The meters are going haywire though. I can open the project again, but it will hit the wall in a few minutes even if I don't change anything. I don't know if it's related, but sometimes the pitch of an instrument is affected as well.
> 
> If I try to display an instruments nothing is heard but the metering is alive. It would seem like I have a stressed out computer, but I'm not even close to what it should be able to handle. The only thing that caught my eye is that Cubase's power usage is "Very High". Below is a small video of what happens when trying to playback the project.
> 
> ...


You might have to deactivate the Steinberg Power Scheme or filddle with Asio Guard. I'm on 9.5 still so I don't know if Power Scheme is still in version 10, but in the past that created chaos on my system.


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## Jdiggity1 (Sep 1, 2019)

my latest two 'solutions' for fixing stuttering and sluggish performance include 1) Running as Administrator, and 2) Setting Asio-Guard Level to High


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## FredrikJonasson (Sep 2, 2019)

So I did the following which made my project temporarily run smoothly again:

1) Ran Cubase as administrator
2) Set ASIO guard level to high
3) Mad sure Steinberg Power Scheme was turned off

Then a couple of hours later BAM, Cubase refuses to co-op once again.


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## colony nofi (Sep 2, 2019)

If you want to try get your system running smoothly, its probably going to take a fair bit more than just changing some settings - by the sound of it anyway. It may take a bit.

Indeed - I would suggest you be as thorough as possible.

Document every step of the way. If it ends up being something that SB HQ/Support need to solve, having a document of when / what you did and in what order is extremely helpful and will get you going again much quicker.

This is by no means covering everything - but I'd say it would cover 75% of the types of problems you are seeing. Call it differential diagnosis.

Diagnosis attempt 1 : Issue with your graphics card. Be it the card itself, the drivers, interactions with realtime processing etc. I'm inclined to think this has a 1 in 3 chance of being your issue.

Possible steps to diagnose this : Simply take the card out your system. Use onboard graphics if you have them, or borrow a card from a friend that you know is generally cool with interactions with DAWs. I'm not up on these things these days, but it shouldn't be that hard to track something down. Definitely uninstall all the old drivers. Doesn't help? Still don't put the graphics card back in. Leave it out for the next steps.

Test your SSD's. Run drive health diagnostics on them. A really simple first step is just looking at what a disk speed checker is reporting. Most that are connected via SATA will be around 500MB/S read and write, give or take a bit. If they're reporting low - definitely look into it closer. IF the drive is 99% full, you can sometimes get some strange slowdowns like this too - but you'd probably have noticed that already. Test BOTH your SSD's for projects and for samples.

I know its simple - but look at your soundcard's buffer settings. The AIO is fantastic (I have one here in an older machine) - but just double check you haven't accidentally had it set to something super low / different to normal.

Backup and then remove all your preferences. The whole lot. Restart cubase. It is surprising how many issues this solves. Yes - it is a pain if that works - as you have to rebuild things bit by bit (importing old prefs that are safe / figuring out what prefs caused the issues - or simply just building it all from scratch again)

Remove cubase entirely from your system - every last bit - and reinstall. Again - it shouldn't help once you have trashed your prefs, but it can. I've seen this help more on windows than OSX though. 

Start a new clean session. Make it fairly small - then open some sort of system monitoring, and start fiddling with ASIO guard / audio priority again. You should be able to tell quite quickly what is working and what is not. There are also some pretty clued up folk on the steinberg forums who can help with settings depending on the types of things you do with projects.

Double check kontakt isn't your issue. So build a project using other synths etc - omnisphere, Diva etc - things that are a little stressy. You'll get a feel for if they are stressing your computer or not. About 20% under the stress point, add a konakt instrument - something which stresses your system a bit - and then start mucking around with the settings. It is always possible something has changed in there by accident. If it feels like kontakt is a problem, its worth removing it and reinstalling. Then perhaps ask some kontakt folk here for their recommended settings for your type of system. I remember the first time I was trying to get kontakt sorted on an OSX system, it took forever to figure out the best settings.

Do you have any other periferals connected to your computer via usb or PCIe? What are they? Remove them one by one and see if you can identify one that is causing issues with your DAW. Have you recently added a new PCIe card or USB device? I'd start looking there.

So many variables - and it only gets deeper from there (and yes, if none of these help, you do start getting into looking at other possible os issues / maybe reinstalling windows / looking into your bios setup etc.

If the sessions as they are have worked before, then something *has* changed on your system.

Oh - more things to try. In sessions you can get going - does freezing tracks help bring things back to life? Is it kontakt / other synths that are the straws breaking the camels back? Start by freezing your most recently added tracks. And go backward. Maybe you really have just got to the edge of what your system is capable of? 

Hope this helps in some way.


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## novaburst (Sep 2, 2019)

I think your head must be spinning about now with all these different suggestions when it comes to help this forum is very good.

May i ask you to do something just to rule out your ssd

Remove them all apart from the one cubase is on, do a simple test project and see how stable it is, if this works start adding your ssd one by one testing there stability or if they are failing, until all the ssd are back, 

While you are doing this please turn asio guard completely off, and set your sound card to a basic 512 that should give you about 5 or 6 milli seconds this should not take long for you to do

Also please understand that with windows 10 it is recommended you have the latest hardware that is available if not then the very latest drivers

Good luck


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## AllanH (Sep 2, 2019)

this happens to me sporadically as well. Here are the most common culprits I've found

1) msmpeng.exe kicking in for no apparent reason (Microsoft security). This happens even when CPU is 50% or higher. Effect: stutter, halt, no play.
2) Firefox interfering with audio. This sometimes happens after I've played a YouTube video. Effect: clicks.
3) software_reporter_tool.exe scanning my drive. This is Chrome deciding to inventory my PC. Effect: stutter, halt, no play. Cannot be effectively be stopped with Chrome on my PC.
4) Microsoft updates downloading and/or installing in the background.
5) I would also turn off indexing, and follow all the good posted windows 10 optimization techniques.

I would suggest you fire up task manager and click "open resource meter" to see if anything is going on with your system.


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## novaburst (Sep 2, 2019)

AllanH said:


> this happens to me sporadically as well. Here are the most common culprits I've found
> 
> 1) msmpeng.exe kicking in for no apparent reason (Microsoft security). This happens even when CPU is 50% or higher. Effect: stutter, halt, no play.
> 2) Firefox interfering with audio. This sometimes happens after I've played a YouTube video. Effect: clicks.
> ...



All these can be solved by just pulling your ethernet cable out one of the first things you should do if you have production issues is to test everything off line that stops incoming data and outgoing data.


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## colony nofi (Sep 2, 2019)

novaburst said:


> I think your head must be spinning about now with all these different suggestions when it comes to help this forum is very good.
> 
> May i ask you to do something just to rule out your ssd
> 
> ...


This is very good advice from my perspective and is super easy!


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## colony nofi (Sep 2, 2019)

AllanH said:


> this happens to me sporadically as well. Here are the most common culprits I've found
> 
> 1) msmpeng.exe kicking in for no apparent reason (Microsoft security). This happens even when CPU is 50% or higher. Effect: stutter, halt, no play.
> 2) Firefox interfering with audio. This sometimes happens after I've played a YouTube video. Effect: clicks.
> ...


I personally didn't go down this route because it felt like things had worked in the past and suddenly didn't - which put these further down the list. However, having it spelt out - this is a great early place to start. Like @novaburst has mentioned - just unplug your computer from ethernet or turn off WIFI. 
If that solves it, you can grab a simple network sniffer and figure out what software is doing what / causing the issues.


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## germancomponist (Sep 2, 2019)

And do not forget: Sometimes it is broken hardware. Very often then when it always needs some time before the crash comes in.


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## Josha (Sep 2, 2019)

You may also want to check stuff with the sound card. The fact that the meters are still going, and the change in pitch makes me think Cubase is sending sound and it's not getting through. Try resetting the card from within Cubase, then try reinstalling the driver or re-seating the card (taking it out and putting back in to ensure good contact). 

Also are you looking at task manager and perfmon to what's using CPU and RAM? Are either of them climbing steadily before it drops out?


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## erica-grace (Sep 2, 2019)

Disable AVAST, AV shield, and close all five instances of Chrome. Also make sure that you don't have anything running in the background, like toolbars (think, Google, Amazon, shopping, weather, etc.) windows update, etc.

Also make sure that you still have your ASIO soundcard selected, and that Cubase has not defaulted to the generic low latency driver, or the DirectX full duplex driver, etc.

Finally, disable the print spooler service from the services applet. Sometimes, unfinished print jobs get stuck there, and can wreak havoc on CPU and RAM.


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## FredrikJonasson (Oct 14, 2019)

Thank you all for your very thorough answers! I'll give this more time when things cool down a bit. If I remember correctly, I opened an earlier version of the project that hadn't crashed and it somehow kept working (not that it is very taxing but still). I'll get back. 

Oh one more thing that perhaps should be added to the equation - if I have worked on a project taking up, say, 20% of my CPU and RAM it very seldom manages to close. I have to force quit it via the task manager most of the time. Light projects works fine though, and this was exactly the same on my old rig. This might be worthy of it's separate thread..


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## playz123 (Oct 14, 2019)

Having to use Force Quit is a problems that has been reported numerous times in the past on both PC and Mac and with various versions of Cubase. Sometimes, after leaving Cubase alone for a long period of time after trying to close it will lead to success, but often not. It's definitely annoying. Some have suggested it's because Cubase isn't letting go of the RAM it accessed, but AFAIK no definitive cause is known. It happens sometimes, with some projects, or sometimes it happens and sometimes it doesn't. Perhaps if they ever completely recode the program, that issue will be addressed.....at least we hope so.


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## Kony (Oct 14, 2019)

I've recently encountered the long closing time in Cubase - it is to do with releasing RAM and only started happening when I have SCS in a project. For some reason, it takes longer to release the SCS RAM which is weird as all libs have been batch resaved. If I have a 64Gb project open for example, and then close it, it will release the RAM quickly until it gets to about 10Gbs (presumably when it gets to unloading SCS). It then only takes a few minutes for the project to eventually unload all RAM and close.


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## playz123 (Oct 14, 2019)

Kony said:


> I've recently encountered the long closing time in Cubase - it is to do with releasing RAM and only started happening when I have SCS in a project. For some reason, it takes longer to release the SCS RAM which is weird as all libs have been batch resaved. If I have a 64Gb project open for example, and then close it, it will release the RAM quickly until it gets to about 10Gbs (presumably when it gets to unloading SCS). It then only takes a few minutes for the project to eventually unload all RAM and close.


Well and good, but that also doesn't explain why the same project will close properly one time and, with the same plugins, SCS or not, not close properly the next time. That is really why releasing RAM is not considered to be the definitive answer, and it suggests it's also due to some sort of 'quirk' with Cubase itself.


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## Uiroo (Oct 14, 2019)

Might be bullshit (and maybe someone said this already) but it kind of sounds like the issue I once had with cubase when I didn't realise that Cubase and my audiointerface had different sample rates.


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## Kony (Oct 14, 2019)

playz123 said:


> Well and good, but that also doesn't explain why the same project will close properly one time and, with the same plugins, SCS or not, not close properly the next time. That is really why releasing RAM is not considered to be the definitive answer, and it suggests it's also due to some sort of 'quirk' with Cubase itself.


Agree with you - I hadn't realised that was the nature of the problem for others. It only happens when I have SCS loaded for some reason (other SA libs are okay). It's not really a problem for me as it usually only takes max 5 minutes to unload.


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## NYC Composer (Oct 14, 2019)

Uiroo said:


> Might be bullshit (and maybe someone said this already) but it kind of sounds like the issue I once had with cubase when I didn't realise that Cubase and my audiointerface had different sample rates.


This. When you said the pitch sounded different, this was the first thing I thought.

For some reason, Cubase and my old MOTU interface would always lock sample rates, and my Babyface Pro doesn't. Caused me hours and hours of grief until I realized it. Make sure the project and the interface are both at 44 or 48 or whatever.


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