Thanks.
im not familiar with the differences between the USB cables that you mentioned.

I think the cable Was broken. But the one I replaced it with was really old, so maybe that worked in my advantage.

Also not familiar with the new M model. What does that refer to?

And yes? I would like to know why it worked. I tried to upload the photos I mentioned of my settings but it didn't work. Pictures from my iPad, I think JPEG. if anyone can advise me on how to upload that would be great.

I  changed basic receive channel to omni.
local control is off on the motif. But in cubase preferences, midi thru active is set to on.

Also I did something in midi device manager - I think motif had to be installed as a device, and in the audio settings where you can set up a external instrument, there was also some parameter.

Addendum two previous post:

I think in the audio settings it was that an audio device wasn't selected.

Inspector settings :

Utility settings on the motif:

Midi port set up:

If things are working and you're not sure what changed then even seeing all of your current configuration isn't going to shed light on what needed to change or what you need to pay attention to.

I think next time if you have an issue it would be good to capture as much as possible before while "broken" before making changes so the progress can be documented.

The Cubase inspector didn't show the track that uses Motif as your tone generator.  Pianoteq being a modeled piano was shown which is a software VSTi.   This is more for feedback for the next time if you encounter a problem.

I think the cable Was broken. But the one I replaced it with was really old, so maybe that worked in my advantage.

It makes it more likely that it was a USB2 cable which is what you should be using.

Also not familiar with the new M model. What does that refer to?

I was referring to the new Montage M models which are an upgraded replacement for the original Montage.

And yes? I would like to know why it worked.

Not picking on you - just standard advice for anyone:

1.  ALWAYS make, keep and test backups of your work to minimize the risk that you will lose data when things happen. This particularly applies before you apply OS updates to the instrument and before you make global changes that aren't overridden by a performance or voice.

2. Make sure you document any global instrument settings that you change. Some settings will get reset to a factory default when you initialize an instrument and if you don't have a log of what settings you had been using you won't be able to return those settings to the values you had been using.

I  changed basic receive channel to omni.
local control is off on the motif. But in cubase preferences, midi thru active is set to on.

Now that you have it working the way you want you should:

1. document the settings you know are important

2. test the settings you have questions about to see if they affect things. So confirm it works - then change that receive channel from omni back to what it was when things didn't work. Does that break it? If so then put it back to 'omni' and make sure you document that.

Now turn local control ON and see if that breaks it - you will likely hear the problem you had before. Document your results.

If you changed midi thru active to on set it OFF and see if things break. Document the results.

Also I did something in midi device manager - I think motif had to be installed as a device, and in the audio settings where you can set up a external instrument, there was also some parameter.

You didn't mention if you read Bad Mister's article about how to set up external instruments. You might want to recheck it against your own config now that you have things working.

As others have said - you need to keep track of what config changes you make to the instrument so that, if necessary, you could take a different instrument and set it up the same way. If you don't write the changes down you are likely to forget them months down the road. 

Man, you guys are so right about documenting stuff. And not just with Cubase.
a few weeks ago I was trying to fix an old door lock, and I forgot to take pictures before I took it apart!

don't need to tell you how that went.

I appreciate all the help.

OS updates sometimes change settings too.

Man, you guys are so right about documenting stuff. And not just with Cubase.

The main reason I know I need to do that is because I've been bitten too many times myself!

My worst experience was when an OS update changed some default settings without any warning. I not only didn't know what changed but even if I had known I hadn't documented what settings I had been using.

To add insult to injury there really isn't any way to 'regress' to the previous OS version so you can examine what you had done.

When I got my Montage M8X the first thing I did was try to visit every possible screen and get a picture.