No there's no need for hubs. My ASUS board has like 18 ports or something, plus ports in the front. I couldn't use the ones that I have if I tried. I use less than 8. I disabled half of them, mostly USB3 I think.

My case is a Fractal Design R4. That has USB ports and my mouse is connected via that, so that might be similar to a cheap hub. It just connects direct to the motherboard though, so is that even similar to a USB hub? But I've had issues with it connected out the back so that rules that out. I think I moved it out front for a stronger signal. And I tried with those ports disabled before and had issues.

I don't have a wired mouse handy, but I think I've tried that before and had no joy. I'll dig one out and try it, but its not easy working with wired these days. Got so used to the lack of wires ;)

 

1. audio device in usb 2.0 port.
2. Disable all WI-FI network devices (if present) in network adaptor settings. It might also be worth while temporarily disabling your ethernet adaptors too while you're at it - just to be sure - though note that for WAVES plugins to work an ethernet port needs to be enabled or WAVES will crash...
3. No wireless mouse / keyboard - or indeed anything wireless. Enable USB3 and plug mouse/KB into those if you're short of connections. For diagnostic purposes, try connecting only from the back of the PC initially, just in case the issue is due to the case R4 USB connection.
4. If the above conditions are met and that doesn't resolve the problem, then it's almost certainly a dubious USB chipset driver. Check your motherboard manual for the USB chipsets and get the latest/most stable versions - not from the ASUS site - but from the chipset manufacturer directly...

 

...oh and if there's a built-in sound card, disable it in BIOS!

 

Yeah thanks. I've already been through all of that and troubleshot it. I came to the same conclusion but the shop couldn't emulate the USB dropouts or spikes and they concluded there's nothing wrong with the USB, which leaves only the eLicenser. I'm still not convinced its not the USB, but there's never anything showing up in the various applications that I've run.

I've heard of those dongles being faulty before, so maybe I've always had a crap dongle. I'm going to be trying Ableton from here on and I'm wondering if I should totally remove eLicenser software when I pull the dongle so that it can't interfere with anything. I'm hoping the dongle is the issue.

 

Yeah, it's certainly possible that the steinberg dongle is the culprit... but you mentioned DPC spikes occuring even when your computer was idle - that in itself is highly suggestive of a dodgy driver somewhere in your system. Of course you could always purchase a decent PCI USB card, then disable all motherbaord internal USBs and throw everything through the USB card as a last-ditch bid for sanity?

Good luck in your quest for operational stability dude!

 

So if you´re done latency test with DPC checker or latencymon, what was the result? Could you provide screenshot? If the dropout occur, it will give you some info at least. I have a latency on usb3 driver, which is above normal, but I don´t use those ports, I have early usb3 chip on motherboard, which even needs specific drivers downloaded separately and still they suck

 

Cheers. Yeah, that might not be a bad idea if the motherboard USB turns out to be the culprit. Not sure how it would handle USB then and if it would make any difference, but its certainly worth a shot as a last resort.

Can't see it being a driver issue really, even though that's what's been checked because that's how it sounds. I've formatted the PC several times since building it and had various configs, so I just can't see it being drivers. Seems to be hardware to me. Its almost certainly related to USB in some way. Still doesn't explain these green screens, but hey, I'm done with Cubase now I think. Hopefully I won't need to load it again now.

Cheers for the input.

 

I can't remember. This was last year, several times. It was checked at the shop and they couldn't see any issues in it. There wasn't an issue with NVidia and I swapped that for AMD and still no issues.

Yeah that was the strange thing. I had the dropouts and spikes and they never showed up in LatencyMon or DPC. Think I tried something else as well, I forget. I probably have some shots knocking about in my emails, but its pointless finding them because that wasn't the issue.

Its definitely not USB3 because its disabled on my motherboard. I've done various configs on that and turning off 3.1 made a massive difference to general stability but it hasn't done away with these spikes. I don't think I've ever had a session open for a while and not had the Average Load/Real-Time Peak turn red. Made a few tweaks in the USB options as well, I can't remember what they are called, but they made no difference.

As a note, I've had 32-bit Cubase open for a while now and it is showing no signs of doing those crazy spikes. Feels really solid actually. There's no VSTs open or anything, so maybe I need to hammer it to check it like that, but usually it would have red-lined by now in 64-bit.

The green screen thing feels like its an extension of these issues I've been having all along. I'm probably going to try my Launchkey at some point without the Cubase dongle plugged in and see if that has issues, but I'll probably stick with stability at first to see if these issues continue in Ableton.

I also wondered if the green screens are related to overclocking. My CPU is made to overclock and its on pretty light for its ability, but maybe its on the limit when I had Ableton and Cubase open at the same time.

 

I just notice you have win10, right? It´s full of issues with this years updates, have you tried to downgrade to 7? Possible to make dual boot? Also disabling overclocking may be worth to try. I know how frustrating it is, been there couple of time over 20 years..
Try this also to see how many FLS slots those software eats.
http://planetnine.jp/wp/2018/03/25/fls-checker/

Windows 10 is limited to 128 slots per process, (i.e arturia plugin can eat up to 30 slot for one instance), if those slots get filled the program will crash.

 

This looks great. Wasn't aware of this. I'll give it a look. I have had these issues over time. You can tell when you've hit the limit because it won't open any more vst's so this is a possibility for the green screen.

Funnily enough I upgraded to Windows 10 on advice from the shop. They said that the Windows 7 that I insisted on using wasn't supported any more and 10 would be more stable. I tried it and some issues went away.

Yeah its a nightmare to format again and start again. I'm not doing dual boot. If I had a spare drive I'd probably have a go with Ableton but I really don't think it would help in general. 10 might have loads of issues but whatever this is its not the cause because it happened under 7 as well.

Does this also relate to Ableton's internal plugins?

 

It really depends on how they are coded

Little info from steinberg forum about FLS:

FLS = Fiber Local Storage. It's not really necessary to know what it means (I don't) but only to understand that in MS Windows there are a maximum of 128 FLS Slots per process, and with respect to this discussion, Cubase takes up some slots itself then each unique plugin (VSTi or FX) can take up one or more slots within the Cubase process as well. Therefore there is a hard limit to the number of unique plugins that you can utilise in Cubase. I say 'unique' plugins because only the first instance of any plugin takes up the slots, after that you can use that same plugin as many times as you like.

I have problems because I have quite a large collection of plugins which I like to use within all my project (e.g. UAD, Soundtoys bundle, Arturia bundle, etc.).

It's not one plugin per slot because some plugins take more than one slot, and the worst one I've found is Arturia AnalogLab2 which will take up 28 slots. Waves is the best for me because it takes up only 2 slots ever no matter how many plugins I use.

The 128 limit was designed by MicroSoft and it's been there for many years. It looks very unlikely it'll change so it's down to the software developers to find ways around the problem. I personally think it's only really come to light recently because Steinberg have dropped the 32bit bridge and therefore all plugins now take up slots on the main Cubase process as opposed to say 1/2 the plugins taking slots in the 32bitBridge process (at least, that's what I'm seeing in my setup).

It effects every DAW not just Steinberg, and Steinberg have recently reduced the number of slots Cubase takes for itself so they're being pro-active in trying to help the situation. They say this is done by dynamically linking the DLLs instead of statically linking them. Plugin manufacturers can do this as well, and some are doing this faster than others.

Hopefully the more noise about this subject then the more the developers will streamline their software in future updates to help avoid the limit.

Some more reading:
https://www.gearslutz.com/board/mus...e-your-experiences-here-188.html#post13221268

https://www.gearslutz.com/board/mus...ws-pro-production-fls-limit.html#post13146442

 

A great many issues have multiple possibilities but in saying that, a common one is Cubase not releasing the ASIO driver, along the lines of what is above.
Here is a screenshot of where to change it to release the driver. Also check if there is a new driver for your graphics card. I generally take the smallest path to resistance first, before going for the one I think might be the worst. It could be anything, but I would hope it is not a proprietary component failing and a driver or a setting first as the starting option. If you have a later version of Cubase, setting the ASIO guard to normal or high also minimises potential difficulties with ASIO when opening multiple programs at once that use it.

 

Didn't know about any of this. Thanks for showing me. Its a possible cause of my green screens and plugin failures. Makes total sense and would explain why it keeps falling over.

This could actually be a good thing for music if Microsoft want to shoot themselves in the foot by crippling its users. Its not bad enough that the future generations are moving to Android tablets and phones, but they seem to want to lose their laptop/PC customers as well. Numpties...

If Windows 7 is to be the final compatible platform and 10 is just not usable, it means that all future software plugins will work properly, instead of having to be compatible with umpteen variations. Unlike OSX, which only works with the previous 2 or 3 OS updates, you're looking at compatibility for 20 years or something. Online is another matter, but that's what your other computer is for. ;)

I've always thought its better to stick with the older and out of date version and would still be on XP if that was properly 64bit and fully compatible with everything. If Windows 7 is well supported by Developers at their end, but not supported by Microsoft who have decided to stop messing about with it and finally leave it alone, surely that's a good thing for stability?

I'm giving serious consideration to moving back to 7, but it means remembering all the locations where I've saved sample libraries and presets I've made etc. Guess I need to do that as a backup anyway, so maybe I should just do it...

 

Again, a possible cause of the green screen crash. I want to plug in my dongle and check this out but I'm ready for Ableton today so it probably won't happen unless its nagging at me out of curiosity. Thanks for the recommendation.

I'm on Cubase 8.5.30 btw, so its a later version. I've tried the Normal settings before. Don't remember this release box though or ever testing it.

 

I'm having issues with the same Cubase but with Komplete Kontrol. But I think your problem is with the component that is supposed to prevent crashing of VST's. I don't remember the name but someone here might help out. When I first set up Cubase I turned it off because of some advise on another board. Never had the problem you do.
Just something to check. Good luck.

 

@Infidel, plugin sentinel?

 

I'm on 8.5. Sentinel comes in at 9.0 and above.

Cheers

 

I have kept each version since 6 on my computer for plugins that jbridge simply won't load and there are not many but still ones I like because 6 is in pure 32bit, even though I use 64bit by default.
So here it is in Cubase 8.5: - I had not loaded this for a while. It is substantially slower loading than 9.5, both are 64bit.


I kept 8.5 because it loads both 32 and 64bit plugins.
Version 9.5 is probably faster because unless through jbridge, it rejects any 32bit VST.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Apr 12, 2018

Have you tried turning on/off the ASIO guard in Cubase?

 

That's a good point SineWave. It's possibly worth trying the rewire in Cubase too for Ableton to see how far the problem goes.