Hey Guys

Why is it that everytime I launch my Cubase Pro 14 a process called Microsoft Edge WebView2 which is using the EXE file msedgewebview2.exe tries to make a remote connection to 8.8.8.8 which is Googles DNS servers. What is this for and why would this need to do it? I have all inbound and outbound connections monitored before anything is allowed apart from whats on my allow list.

Can I block this outbound request going to 8.8.8.8?

I have also noticed that when I load certain VST plugins this same program and process Microsoft Edge WebView2 & msedgewebview2.exe tries to make remote connections to various IP Addresses is this the VSTs trying to call home?

Firefox is my default browser I have never used Edge to browse anything although it is installed on my machine.

Would it be ok to just block msedgewebview2.exe from making any external connections or am I better off just allowing what I know I want to get out and blocking the rest as I am doing.

(Windows 10 22H2)

Many thanks and Happy Holidays

 

One of your VSTs or VST3 is causing this I believe

Can't remember exactly which plugins require Edge Webview
One I'm sure about is ARTURIA plugins I don't know if all of them requires or just a few new ones
When you install the latest Arturia Bundle doesn't matter which one VSTs or Instruments Synths Keyboards...it will install MS Edge WV in the background
so all the time you start Cubase the plugin scanner triggers Arturia or the specific plugin you have installed which needs the extension

You should have "Everything" on your PC it's like Spotlight on MAC if you search with Everything "edge webview" it'll show you
"C:\ProgramData\Arturia\Shared\x64\WebView2" so Arturia definitely using it

 

certain VST uses webview2 as internal browser.
For example Waves StudioVerse

 

It's an engine to run web content (html, css, java script, etc.) inside of a program.

You can block this permanently as webview should work offline, I'm blocking it as well and I never had issues.
It might just want to update itself everytime a plugin/DAW calls it but I'm not sure completely.

 

Steinberg hub section on the main menu also uses webview2 to display latest news/articles, if you don't use any plugins that utilize webview2 disabling steinberg hub will stop running it when starting cubase.

 

Thanks guys

really appreciate you taking the time to reply.

I will block the application and see if it has any adverse effects on anything.

 

I cannot answer as to where it goes after that or what it exactly does other than confirm because 8.8.8.8 is a DNS server if you do an nslookup and it's Google.
Easiest way to test because you can remove it easily enough is to put into your hosts file - blocking in a firewall can occasionally stop it communicating. Doing a loopback won't stop it sending, it just won't send it outside.

#webview block
127.0.0.1 8.8.8.8

 

The windows HOST file only allows blocking DNS hostnames and not IP Addresses so this would not work.

Thank you for the reply it was a great idea..

 

Correct you can possibly do it another way which is to use a firewall and set a rule for all traffic to that IP address to be redirected locally rather than blocked?

 

@StormChaser I did not think it was good idea to block the google dns server - I did a host lookup to confirm it was one and the same. It is.