I used to have Cubase 4 and a Delta Audiophile 2496 in a perfectly working setup with Windows XP Home but after upgrading to Windows 7 Professional, Cubase always hangs indefinately when exiting. I have searched the net for days to find a solution but haven’t managed to do so.
Facts:
-EXACT same setup worked with Windows XP
-Cubase does not hang if I disable or uninstall the Delta Audiophile 2496
-I have tried with all the Delta drivers available for Windows 7 (3) including the one I used to use in XP.
-Running the application in compatibility modes and as Administrator changes nothing
-Disabling antivirus software doesn’t change things
-I have verified that IRQ’s don’t interfere
-I have renamed VST folders to ensure that the problem is not with a VST plugin being released
-I have disconnected all other devices that can be disconnected without causing the computer not to work and still no change.
-I have tried to place the Delta card in all available PCI slots.
-When inspecting the process, it seems that a dll named dmusic.dll get about 90% of the cpu when the program hangs but I don’t know if that means that this is where the problem occurs. The computer becomes unresponsive and the CPU load stays on about 90% for Cubase which, however, never crashes, even if it stays like this forever (have tried at most about an hour or so). The error propagates in the exact same way throughout all of these configurations…
Symptoms:
No matter if I close the application with the red X or via the menu, the control panel disappears and then the program freezes. I usually try this by just opening the program and then closing it (not initializing a project) but the same happens even if I open a project first (no matter if I save or not save the project).
I know my setup is old but that is no reason to why it shouldn’t work and I would be delighted, both out of curiosity and because I need the program to work properly, if anyone could help me.
Best regards,
Elias
Sorry to start with the bad news, but Cubase 4 is not officially supported for Windows 7. I would suggest upgrading to Cubase 7.5 which is still supported for Windows 7. If nothing else, I would suggest at least doing the 7.5 trial to see if you have the same issue.
I would also suggest clearing your App Data:
First, please shut down Cubase. Then go to the Start menu, All Programs, Cubase 6, Cubase 6 Application Data Folder. In the top address bar, you should see “App Data (roaming) Steinberg” Click on Steinberg at the top. This will put you in the Steinberg app data folder. Trash any Cubase or Nuendo folder that you see here. This will trash your key commands, preferences, sound card settings, etc. Hopefully it will clear up the problem you are having. Restart Cubase. You will need to reset your audio outputs (Devices, Device Setup, VST Audio System).
Thank you for your answer Chris!
I wiped out the entire contents of this folder but the result was the same (I might add that the install was a clean one to begin with)…
Did some further trouble shooting using the regular Task Manager and the Sysinternals Process Explorer. It seems that whenever the M-Audio Delta Audiophile 2496 is enabled, by the time Cubase has started there is a thread with start address…
dmusic.dll!DllGetClassObject+0xfc2d
…present in the set of threads active within the Cubase process. By the time the application has started, the stack of this thread looks like this:
ntoskrnl.exe!KeSetEvent+0x2a1
ntoskrnl.exe!KeDelayExecutionThread+0x5cc
ntoskrnl.exe!KeWaitForMutexObject+0x393
ntoskrnl.exe!KeQueryHighestNodeNumber+0x264
ntoskrnl.exe!KeRemoveQueueEx+0x990
ntoskrnl.exe!KeDelayExecutionThread+0x5cc
ntoskrnl.exe!KeWaitForMultipleObjects+0x538
ntoskrnl.exe!IoSetIoCompletionEx+0x728
ntoskrnl.exe!IoSetIoCompletionEx+0x495
ntoskrnl.exe!ZwYieldExecution+0xb62
ntdll.dll!KiFastSystemCallRet
kernel32.dll!WaitForMultipleObjectsEx+0x8e
kernel32.dll!WaitForMultipleObjects+0x18
dmusic.dll!DllGetClassObject+0xfaf7
dmusic.dll!DllGetClassObject+0xfc3a
kernel32.dll!BaseThreadInitThunk+0x12
ntdll.dll!RtlInitializeExceptionChain+0xef
ntdll.dll!RtlInitializeExceptionChain+0xc2
… and when I then close the application, this thread soon bumps up from using virtually no CPU at all to using 70-75% of the CPU. However, the call stack of this thread stays the same as earlier. Remaining threads stays at low percentages except one of the main threads that stays at 14 %. No RAM usage changes and the CPU load stays like this (there is free RAM in the system). If I kill the above thread, the remaining threads return like they should and the application exits smoothly (as if these threads are waiting for the dmusic.dll thread to finish before proceeding = deadlock). At the same time, I’ve tried killing other threads resulting in nothing at all happening (of course if I kill one of the main threads, the application crashes) which, to me, indicates that this thread could be the key… Now, this thread is not present when starting the application without the Delta Audiophile 2496 enabled.
I know that I might not get any response here but I wanted to give it a shot anyways 
I will now try to install Cubase 7 to see if the problem persists.
Have a good one!
Exact same behaviour is unfortunately experienced with Cubase 7.5… Same thread hanging and same behaviour, only now the call stack is slightly shorter but still basically the same. Tried with both Cubase 4 installed simultaneously and without Cubase 4. Will try a clean install (without any Cubase installed at all) but I suspect the same result.
Same thread with the same starting address hangs but now with a slightly different call stack (now using Cubase 7.5):
ntdll.dll!KiFastSystemCallRet
kernel32.dll!WaitForMultipleObjectsEx+0x8e
kernel32.dll!WaitForMultipleObjects+0x18
dmusic.dll!DllGetClassObject+0xfaf7
dmusic.dll!DllGetClassObject+0xfc3a
kernel32.dll!BaseThreadInitThunk+0x12
ntdll.dll!RtlInitializeExceptionChain+0xef
ntdll.dll!RtlInitializeExceptionChain+0xc2
I would suggest clearing the App Data once more to give C7.5 a fresh start with the test. Also, I would suggest contacting MAudio on the Delta to verify your version/drivers/support.
Cleared the folder and still same behaviour.
I’m already in touch with M-Audio but they can’t say much more. It seems that the presence of the Audiophile card causes Cubase to execute code that involves calls to methods within dmusic.dll causing the problem, now can you tell me anything about when Cubase accesses dmusic.dll and the purposes of these calls?
I will continue to work on the M-Audio end of things to see if they can think of something…
Best regards,
Elias
I’m sorry but that is not an error I have personally seen before. I’m guessing this is your post with them, but just in case: http://community.m-audio.com/m-audio/topics/setup_with_windows_7_cubase_4_and_delta_audiophile_2496_hangs_when_closing_the_application
Here was the first Google result I found on dmusic.dll
http://pcsupport.about.com/od/findbyerrormessage/a/dmusic-dll-not-found-missing-error.htm
I would expect that if you have set the ASIO driver to the Delta, then Cubase would no longer be addressing Direct X Full Duplex. I hope this information is helpful.
SOLVED!
Thanks Chris! That is indeed my thread and the other post is about a different error (where the dll itself is missing).
Problem lies within Device Setup → MIDI → MIDI Port Setup where Cubase automatically adds entries when the Delta Audiophile 2496 is enabled in the system. 2 inbound connections and 2 outbound connections are added with inbound and outbound connections for device names DirectMusic and Windows MIDI. Now, the inbound connections can be turned off by unchecking the box in the column in ‘All Inputs’ which makes the state column for the inbound connection in question change from Active to Inactive.
When trying to uncheck the box for the inbound connection with device name DirectMusic, the computer freezes in the same way as it does when I try to close Cubase and nothing happens. Now, if I manually kill the thread within Cubase that I previously talked about (with start address within dmusic.dll), the unchecking of the box works out and I can continue as usual. NOW, Cubase closes fine and can be restarted and closed again without any problems (this is true as long as I don’t activate this connection again) and the dmusic.dll thread is never present among the threads of the Cubase process.
My take on this is that when I start Cubase, the dmusic.dll thread hangs which doesn’t show immediately since this thread is a background thread. When I either try to close Cubase or try to modify the settings for the resource that is connected to this thread, the computer freezes. It is therefore my conclusion that an error exists somewhere in the communication with the inbound MIDI connection for the DirectMusic device in the Audiophile 2496 card, and when this hangs, Cubase is bound to freeze up sooner or later. This applies both to Cubase 4 and Cubase 7.5 in a Windows 7 32-bit Professional environment with a M-Audio Delta Audiophile 2496 sound card.
My problem is solved but it would still be interesting to assist in further troubleshooting or hear what might cause this problem. Furthermore, it would be interesting to know whether this is a problem occurring just for me indicating that my Audiophile 2496 has a corrupted MIDI port, or a problem that should result in some fix of some sort.
Thank you!