Even I am not ready to type the convoluted answer to my problem…wow, just wow.
Ok, here goes-
The first thing to troubleshoot my problem was to look for changes in Windows, including updates. There had been a few minor things, but I am on 1803 and because I am running Windows Pro, I can choose to not update till the update is cleared by MS for everyday business use.
Next I opened Task Manager and began checking the Performance tab. This is when I narrowed down to an Ethernet spike that occurred at the same time my brief freezes and stuck notes were occurring. I quickly wrote to Steinberg along with sending them a dump file. They were very helpful and offered great suggestions ranging from checking network drivers to directly pointing me to help on MS’s website. But this was still a no-go but it got me to thinking…
This time, while running Nuendo I also had the Resource Monitor open and the Network tab checked. As Nuendo played through a track, suddenly the Ethernet spike showed up and a new process appeared as having activity: dasHost.exe
Now I know this has to do with device association, but why is it pinging my network? I decided to filter the results and check the address that it was pinging (usually your computer, or remote website or IP address). It was pinging an address on my local network. But WHAT?
It was pinging my Sony TV. Smart TVs are fantastic. Now what? Then I remembered several items that I had seen (and overlooked at the time) in the setup menu of my TV related to network settings. One in particular caught my attention: Remote Operation. I ran down and sure enough it was enabled. I disabled the Remote Operation and ran back up to my studio.
Hours later no hiccups or any issues within Nuendo. So…if you are having issues and you have a smart TV on your network, it might be worth a look. But it fixed my problem.