# Cubase & stability



## snattack (Sep 17, 2015)

Hi all,

As long as I've been working with Cubase I've had stability issues of different kinds. On PC I was subject to a bad timing problem that system timestamp didn't fix. So I changed to Mac several years ago. Since then it's been unstable and crashing. About 6-8 times/working day, sometimes as much as up to 10-15.

I though it was my Macbook Pro that wasn't enough, so I took a loan and bought myself a Mac Pro 8-Core for a lot of money.

No luck, crashing a lot of this computer too.

The crashes seem to occur randomly. Today it's crashed 3 times in a row when pressing stop after recording. For a while it crashed when I draw automation in the piano roll. Removing and re-adding all 800 tracks in the template solved that issue.

But now I'm done fiddling around. If this isn't solved soon I'll change DAW. Or profession. It's simply not worth this frustration anymore.

So two questions:

1. How are people experiencing Cubase 8 on OSX Maverick?

2. If I'm changing DAW, I guess Logic seems to be the most logical (pun..) choice, I'm not very fond of the layout and concept of DP. What's the experience of working with orchestral scores in Logic?

3. Have anyone experienced Cubase to be more stable on Windows than on OSX? I could Bootcamp Windows on the Mac if that's so.

My current system is:

Mac Pro late 2013, 8-core, 64GB RAM, Maverick, RME UCX, latest version of everything.

3 slaves that works fine.


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## kunst91 (Sep 17, 2015)

First question, are you sure that Cubase is crashing? It's possible that a third party plugin (like kontakt) is crashing cubase. I have experienced audio issues between Cubase and ve pro, but I haven't yet experienced any stability problems on my quad core trashcan with 32 GB ram.

I will say though that I happen to love logic. Set up ve pro along Jay Asher's guidelines and you'll be in good shape.


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## Waywyn (Sep 17, 2015)

As mentioned above it could be everything except Cubase. I mean if you experience crashes on Win but then also on Mac it is most likely a user issue rather than Cubase's fault!

- So it could be a third party plugin which you used on your PC but now also on your Mac
- It could be something stupid such as accidentally installing the 32bit version on a 64bit OS
- You mentioned that readded all 800 tracks fixed the problem which leads me to the question if you e.g. started creating your template in Cubase 7 or earlier? I mean with an "information" of around 800 tracks, it wouldn't surprise me if some error sneaks in!

Also you didn't mention how your computer crashes. Do you get an error message, does it just freeze etc?


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## Gerhard Westphalen (Sep 17, 2015)

I haven't had Cubase crash on my very much and I've seen people running +2000 track projects without crashing. If you do find that it isn't something else causing the crashing as mentioned above, then you could try using a different version of Cubase to see if it changes anything. I've seen large differences in stability between versions of Cubase.


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## Bunford (Sep 17, 2015)

Cubase doesn't generally crash one me. Had one or two glitches, but nothing I would consider a repetitive bug, and that's using Windows 10 Pro too! 

Might be an idea to try Bitwig demo just for testing. Bitwig has a clever feature in that if a plugin crashes it is just the instance that crashes as it somehow loads each element separately, meaning you don't get an entire DAW crash (nor does it crash the other plugs, even other instances of the same plugin I believe) like you do with all other DAWs. Should be a feature all DAWs implement really. Granted it might be a Cubase-plugin specific conflict and Bitwig won't give you any hints, but a thought for you at least for some troubleshooting


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## woodsdenis (Sep 17, 2015)

Cubase 8.0.3 very stable on Mac 10.9.5, I don't have massive templates but use all the standard plugins Waves/Slate/NI/UHE etc


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## alanb (Sep 17, 2015)

I've been using Cubase on PCs since "Cubase VST 3.5 for Windows 95." Certainly since Windows 7 came along, Cubase has generally been rock-solid.

Recently, Cubase Pro 8 was crashing at least once a day . . . and I realized that it was because of jBridge. I used to get "hey, there's a new version" e-mails, prompting me to update jBridge, but I never got one for the latest version (1.73), which includes "compatibility fixes for Cubase 8." The crashes have stopped.

[I wonder whether I still need to use jBridge, or whether Cubase's own VST Bridge is now sufficient on its own.]


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## JCmusik08 (Sep 17, 2015)

Most of the crashes I've had running Cubase 8 on Yosemite came from third party plugins, specifically for me, older plugins. A few months ago, moving transients in the waveform editor was a pretty buggy thing too, but that seems better.


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## snattack (Sep 18, 2015)

Thanks for all responses!

A couple of addons:

- When we're talking "re-adding tracks", we're talking midi-tracks only, not audio or instrument tracks. When Cubase 8 was released, I re-created the entire template, but made the misstake of importing the midi tracks (since I figured "hey, midi's been around since the 80:ths, it shouldn't be resource demaning"). That created a unique problem, that I actually could reproduce over and over again: when drawing an expression curve in the piano roll, Cubase instantly froze up and crashed (with a log).

- When we're talking plugins: in this current template, the only two effect plugins I use are Fabfilter EQ and Altiverb, both in x64-versions. The instrument plugins I'm using are Kontakt, Reaktor and Omnisphere.

I use quite advanced midi routing with Transmidifier and the IAC-driver, and I'm wondering if that's the case, that Cubase aren't proofed to handling a lot of midi-in-signals at the same time.

Today I'll remove all third-party plugins, disable ASIO-guard (which has been enabled due to the fact that the latest versions of Cubase and VEP is "supposed to" handle this) and try again.

I'll keep you posted.


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## snattack (Sep 18, 2015)

Report: I removed (not just disabled) ALL third party plugins and instruments, disabled ASIO-guard, removed "reset on stop", etc. Despite this, Cubase crashes. Today I managed to work for 30 minutes, then: boom. And all it does is processing MIDI to/from VEP now + midi ins from the IAC-driver/Transmidifier (which other people use without problem).

The crash randomly occures when playing back, and then pressing stop. I have "constrain delay compensation" on, I will try a while without it on and see if that keeps it stable.

*EDIT: *Tried without constrain delay compensation as well: no luck. Also ruled out any specific channels.

I'm tired of this now, if I'm about to rebuild the entire template file from scratch, I might as well change DAW, it takes as long time either way, and the probability of solving this with a new template in Cubase seems less likely. Therefore, I'm planning a switch to Logic or DP now. Anything I should know? Pros/cons?

EDIT 2: Some progress, perhaps. I turned off Auto Save, and since then Cubase haven't crashed. Autosave was set to every 2 minutes, as a result of previous problems with drawing automation, and I suspect that pressing stop at the same time as auto save saving was the culprit. I'll report back next week.


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## alanb (Sep 18, 2015)

(1) I believe there are a few threads, elsewhere on VI-C (perhaps also on the VSL website), discussing specific Cubase/VEP issues.

(2) Have you searched/browsed through/posted in the Steinberg forums?

http://www.steinberg.net/forums/

(3) If you live anywhere near one of these events, going there might be a great way to get ideas/solutions:

https://www.steinberg.net/en/newsandevents/events/club_cubase.html

Greg Ondo (who leads the ones that I've attended) really knows Cubase inside and out.


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## snattack (Sep 19, 2015)

alanb said:


> (1) I believe there are a few threads, elsewhere on VI-C (perhaps also on the VSL website), discussing specific Cubase/VEP issues.
> 
> (2) Have you searched/browsed through/posted in the Steinberg forums?
> 
> ...



Thanks for response. 

1. I've been through every imaginable thread dealing with issues from Cubase 7 and up on OSX, no luck, and nothing similar from what I've found.

2. I'm in Sweden, and I'm probably one of the very few in the country working with templates of this size, probably the only one in combination with Cubase, otherwise I'd have loved to visit one of these events.

The issue is NOT resolved. Still crashing. I've ruled out:

- Autosave
- Any workflow-"ticks" (like clicking somewhere on the wrong place that would trigger this)
- Constrain Delay Compensation

Also, add the tempo-track-bug (which, from some Googleing, I guess depends on Cubase & Kontakt in combination) which means that I now have to resign from a large TV-gig. Even if I would have been able to work with the spikes occuring in the tempo track, I wouldn't be able to bounce since I need to do the bouncing in real time.


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## Daryl (Sep 19, 2015)

When you updated Cubase, did you allow it to rebuild all Preferences from scratch, or did you import the old ones?

When you playback at a high buffer, do you still get spikes? Do you have tempo synced patches in Kontakt? Are you using tempo ramps?

D


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## snattack (Sep 19, 2015)

Daryl said:


> When you updated Cubase, did you allow it to rebuild all Preferences from scratch, or did you import the old ones?
> 
> When you playback at a high buffer, do you still get spikes? Do you have tempo synced patches in Kontakt? Are you using tempo ramps?
> 
> D



Trashing prefs is one thing I haven't tried actually, I will try that. I just install Cubase 8 when the 7.5 installation was still on the computer, and therefore it was probably using the old prefs. The downside is that all my 80 custom named IAC-channels will be gone in the process, but I'll try it anyway.

I've tried it on several buffer sizes, almost no difference. The spike occurs both when jumping and when using a ramp, but the spike is shorter when jumping. Yes, I'm using external tempo sync in the Kontakt patches I need. Since I'm using many of Orchestral Tools' libraries with pre-recorded runs and runs builders, I need Kontakt to sync the tempo, so if that would be an issue, I'd have to change DAW anyway.


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## brett (Sep 19, 2015)

What's the nature of the crash? Messages etc?

Is this a template issue? Ie if you start a blank project and work for a while (annoying I know) does if crash within 30 mins ?

I agree with trashing prefs. Or even a fresh cubase install (rename old prefs folder so cubase doesn't find it)

I never realtime bounce for the tempo issues but if you raise the buffer, switch 'ext' off on kontakt instances where you don't need it and (very important) spread the CPU load across multiple instances of kontakt (and play as I've recently discovered) you might have a win


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## Daryl (Sep 19, 2015)

snattack said:


> Trashing prefs is one thing I haven't tried actually, I will try that. I just install Cubase 8 when the 7.5 installation was still on the computer, and therefore it was probably using the old prefs. The downside is that all my 80 custom named IAC-channels will be gone in the process, but I'll try it anyway.


OK, you should never update Cubase without rebuilding the Prefs. The advice has always been:

Remove the Custom Data folder
Update, allowing Cubase to rebuild all of this
Replace the KS and other files you actually need from the "old" Custom Data folder. Leave the rest as vanilla.
D


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## kdm (Sep 19, 2015)

Like Daryl suggested, save your key commands file, templates files, and you can save each of your VST connections tabs as presets as well. I don't know if this varies for OSX but based on the PC path, you will find these in the user settings data folder/prefs folder for Cubase 8 under "Presets/ControRoomPresets.pxml), but that is one that can be suspect in corrupt prefs scenarios. For the others, same path - Presets/KeyCommands, Presets/Logical Edit if you have LE presets you want to save, etc).

Tempo sync isn't a problem, tempo ramps are, but you would run into that issue in playback (distorted VI audio during tempo ramps). In most cases with crashes like this, it is preferences pulled from an older version, and I do know for certain that C7 to C8 had significant changes that could in fact cause problems when using older preferences. 

Another potential problem is that often a project or template becomes corrupted as well, most likely as a result of older preferences. If after deleting prefs, you still have issues with crashes, try a blank project just to compare. If that works fine, export your other project tracks as a track archive and import that into a blank project and see if the crashes are gone. It's a pain, but sometimes it's the only way. The last resort I've had to fall back to a few times is completely rebuilding my template, but try all of the above first.


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## snattack (Sep 20, 2015)

I'm tremendously grateful for all help.

When I updated to Cubase 8, I followed a tip from a JunkieXL-tweet that recommended a complete rebuild of the template file when migrating from Cubase 7.5, so I did just that.

I did then re-create all audio channels, but exported the midi channels to a track archive, and imported that.

That caused problems. On some of the channels, drawing automation curved in the pianoroll window caused Cubase to crash instantly. I could reproduce it several times.

As a result of this, I rebuilt most of my midi channels, which seemed to solve that problem.

I will try trashing prefs this week and see what happens, but if that doesn't solve the problem, it's not worth rebuilding the template AGAIN, with the risk of the problems not going away. I will probably change to Logic then.

Regarding tempo ramps: is that a fact, that ALL people have problems with the tempo tracks in Cubase? The tempo tracks doesn't cause any crash in my setup, but it results in a realtime spike (short jump in realtime performance during a tempo jump, longer continous distortion during a ramp).


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## kdm (Sep 20, 2015)

Sorry you are having so many problems - very frustrating for sure. I've had the same happen - having to rebuild a project, and template, because some bug propagated through tracks into the next projects. That is something I really wish Steinberg could fix once and for all. I did also rebuilt my template for Nuendo 7 going from 6.5. 

Tempo ramps - it is a real time loading/spike problem as you noted. In bigger projects, it results in distorted audio. In small test projects of one or two tracks it usually doesn't cause distortion. It's been there for a long time. It doesn't happen in Digital Performer on the same project, same system, so this is a Steinberg/Cubase problem that desperately needs to be solved.


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## Vin (Sep 21, 2015)

Very frustrating. I've heard from many people about having problems with Cubase 8 - that's one of the major reasons why I'm still on Cubase 6.5. Logic would be the most logical (I know) alternative for you, probably. Or DP, maybe. However, if ultimate stability and optimized CPU usage is crucial for you, give Reaper a whirl - it destroys all of the other DAWs in that regard in my experience. I've been looking into switching, but can find the time to learn it properly right now.


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## snattack (Sep 22, 2015)

Update then: I trashed prefs. This resolved the issue with the tempo track, but the crashes still continue and it added a problem with a slight lag everytime I select a menu with the project file open.

I'm now checking out both DP and Logic as an alternative to Cubase. They both have their strenghts and weaknesses, but DP seems more fit for just composing for film and has amazing features for this, but Logic has SkiSwitcher2 and smoother midi handling it seems. Despite which, it now leans toward leaving Cubase for good.


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## Mishabou (Sep 22, 2015)

Why don't you reinstall the OS and just CB8 and take it from there.

I use CB8 on a cylinder 6 core Mac Pro doing pretty big sessions with lots of VIs and scoring to picture via my AJA Kona 3G card. I've had zero problem other than sometimes CB looses connection to my AJA card. It happened 4 - 5 times in the past 8 months but no crashes at all. Just real snappy and super solid. 

Not saying it's flawless on every system configurations but definitely worth investigating. 

I also have DP, Live and Logic x installed on the same computer, mainly to open client's sessions. They all work fine, very solid and reliable.

I've used all the apps mentioned with the RME UCX, Apogee Ensemble Thunderbolt and Avid HD IO 16x16 (in core audio mode).


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