A composer’s Cubase kept vanishing at its splash screen while Windows reported an asio.sys error, and I could only get it working until the next restart.
A composer asked me to help with a very unusual problem. When he tried to open Cubase, the loading splash screen would appear and then the program would vanish, with no error message and no other sign that it had opened. He wanted to get on with his compositions, so it was a very frustrating one for him. At the same time, Windows was showing him an error as it started up, saying asio.sys could not be located. I was certain the two things were related.
Watching the splash screen
I connected to his computer by remote desktop. He sent me a picture of the error message, and behind it I noticed an ASUS driver updating utility. As I know it, ASIO stands for Audio Stream Input/Output and is to do with the audio drivers on the system, so I thought it was likely Cubase was running into an error with its audio engine and shutting down.
To test that, I ran Cubase and watched the splash screen, which shows the parts of the program as they load, such as the VST plugins and the video engine.
The moment the splash screen got to the audio engine, Cubase disappeared.
So I was fairly sure the audio engine was what was stopping it. I did some research online and found other people talking about this asio.sys error appearing after ASUS updates. I also noticed he hadn’t installed his Realtek audio drivers, and I wondered whether Windows was missing some components it needed.
Reinstalling ASIO4ALL
The first thing I did was reinstall ASIO4ALL. It’s a universal driver that’s about 25 years old now but remarkably still works, and it gives ASIO support to almost any Windows audio device. He was already using it, because his Tascam US-4x4HR interface wasn’t working with his version of Windows and Cubase, and for some reason the Tascam drivers weren’t working.
Once ASIO4ALL was reinstalled, Cubase opened. He loaded his recordings and played them back, and he was delighted. I wanted to check it was a permanent fix, though, so we restarted the computer. The asio.sys error came back as Windows loaded, and Cubase failed to open again in the same way.
He could reinstall ASIO4ALL every time he turned the computer on, but that didn’t feel like an acceptable solution to me. After more research I installed the Realtek drivers that ASUS recommended for his sound card, because I thought they might add background components that were missing and get rid of the error message. They didn’t. I then disabled the Realtek sound card so it wouldn’t interfere with ASIO4ALL recognising his Tascam.
Where we left it
By then we’d reached the end of the hour. We knew where the problem was happening, and he had a workaround, which is to reinstall ASIO4ALL before opening Cubase. It adds about a minute to his setup time. We hadn’t found a way to stop the error coming back.
Before we stopped, I looked at options for turning off Windows file integrity checks. I couldn’t find the right setting, and I was wary of causing other problems. It was a very specific issue, and I felt we could probably fix it without disabling Windows security components, which wouldn’t have been good practice anyway.
Thinking about it since, we could have tried installing ASIO4ALL as an administrator, in case it’s something to do with administrator rights. I’m going to suggest that as the way forward the next time I work with him.
He was satisfied that we’d found where the problem was and that he could carry on working with minimal fuss, without buying new equipment or needing any major repair. I wasn’t fully satisfied, because the error message is still there, so I’m marking this case as unsolved.
If Cubase vanishes while it’s loading, watch the splash screen as it goes. The last thing it names is a good clue to where to look.
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