Troubleshooting "Starting External Devices"

[Brian]

I started having Studio Pro 8.0.3 hang at boot on WIn 11 25H2 "Scanning External Devices...". No new hardware but some changes in VST's. I tried disabling ARA support and then wiping the settings folder (user/roaming/fender or thereabouts). I can't decipher in the error logs where the catch is. Suggestions?

 

[Brian]

I am back in business after a couple hours of troubleshooting. Thank you @sintil8 for the suggestion re: MIDI loopbacks- I did uninstall those a few weeks ago with the 25H2 update changes. All I can figure is that there was possibly an issue with USB devices going to "sleep" and not waking up. I always end my day shutting off my PC, but last week I set up a new remote backup service that is extremely slow uploading, so I left my PC on 24/7 to get it to catch up. During trouble shooting SP8, I rebooted several times, but I never shut down "cold". Once I did that, Studio One worked fine.