ORIGINAL: Storm

it sounds more like a memory leak from an application do to bad programming versus heat problems.

Did this software install a service behind the scenes? Anything? Sorry I don't know what CEntrance is so I'm guessing. but sometimes bad programming can have memory leak and slowly eat into any available resources.

I don't believe so. CEntrance is a single executable file. It doesn't have an installer, so it's not running under normal conditions. All it does it run a loopback test on your audio equipment to determine the actual latency in your card. That will allow you to make the best adjustment to the manual offset in your advanced audio settings in Sonar.

ORIGINAL: rcrees

You didn't answer Cj's question as to what else you have running on your system (connected to the Internet? Virus checker?). I'd also like to know your system specs (memory, processor, operating system). You may be pushing things with 3,4ms latency. There is a very simple to use "latency checker" available out there that, when running, will show you where your problem lies at the moment it occurs. Do a search here for Latency Checker. As I said, it's simple to download and use.

Rob

Oops, I missed CJ's question about the other stuff. This PC is connected to the Internet. I'm running Avast antivirus, but I've always had that running and never had a problem with it. I can disable it when doing audio work to see if that makes a difference.

This PC has a Core i7 920 processor and 6 GB of RAM. I'm running Vista64 and Sonar 32-bit. It's absurdly fast. I hardly ever see the CPU meter budge much at all in Sonar.

Something must have changed, but I can't figure out what it is. Things were working fine until I did the loopback test. Before that, I had zero problems with the audio, at least that I recall. I can't say that with 100% certainty.

In fact...Hmm....now that I think about it, I think I *did* have one instance earlier in the day before I did the loopback test. That might just be a complete coincidence and a red herring.

I did reprofile the card...a few times. I'll re-seat the card and reinstall the drivers first thing tonight. I still think I'm going to buy another card today just in case. I can always take it back if I don't need it.

it's interesting that after having my PC off all night, I had no problems listening to any project this morning. It will be interesting to see if turning my PC off more often seems to help.

Ah, the joys of PC troubleshooting! :)

I do appreciate everyone's help and input!

Okay, I reinstalled my drivers and rebooted. I was still having issues, but I'm discovering new clues. I some stuff with Windows Media Player and VLC through the card and it worked with no problem whatsoever. The I launched Sonar and added Omnisphere. I think part of my problem is being caused by Omnisphere. I'm noticing that the disappearance of audio is happening during patch changes. But this time, instead of restarting Sonar, I simply reprofiled my card and that brought the audio back.

Weird. I suppose I should contact Spectrasonics about that issue. If patch changes in Omnisphere are trashing my audio, that's got to be an issue with Omnisphere, right?

I think the problem is with a plugin that isn't programmed very well to cooperate with Sonar.

I have the EMU 1616M PCI with audio dock.

I have a strange issue where I can open a song and hit play and I immediately get this super loud screeching sound, loud enough to ruin monitors and ears. It does show up on the meters as totally spiked red lined signal. It lasts about 5-10 seconds then fades out. If I stop and restart the song then it will all play normally after that. If I close Sonar and restart it, then open a song the screeching will happen again, but only the first time I hit play. If I have Patchmix muted then I wont hear it, but it still spikes the meters.

Thru trial and error and a process of elimination, I have discovered that this only happens on tracks where I have the BBE Sonic Maximizer plug inserted. If I remove BBE from that track, save, and restart, the screeching noise does not happen. If I re-insert BBE, save, and restartm the screeching noise returns. I had the same problem in Mackie Tracktion with BBE. If I dont use the BBE plug, there will not be any screeching noise.

I try to stick with only the most popular most well known plugs, and so far no other plug has given em any problems. I would say your issue is not caused by Dimension at all, and it is not an EMU problem. I think it's a problem with a bug in a plug.

Well, I'm having a little bit better luck. I disabled my antivirus real-time scanner and disabled a few odd services that I don't need. I also noticed that two of the crashes I had earlier had something to do with Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Redistributable. I checked my Add/Remove programs (or whatever it's called in Vista) and saw that I had three versions of this installed: one 64-bit version and two different 32-bit versions. I uninstalled the earlier of the x86 versions.

Then, since I noticed that I had lots of problems when changing patches, I've made sure to wait for a patch to completely load prior to playing any keys or attempting to change to yet another patch. That seems to have solved that particular problem.

The remaining problem is that many of my SONAR windows are empty/translucent when I have Omnisphere running. For example, I just went to add EQ to an Omni track. This was made fairly difficult by the fact that the graphical EQ window was empty--nothing but the border! It was completely transparent and I could see what was underneath it. This is not an Xray issue. I have Xray turned off.

*sigh* Well, at least I'm making progress! I can at least play my instrument now. Sort of.

EDIT: I spoke too soon. After typing the above message, I went back to SONAR and tried once again to add EQ. The normal EQ window opened, but the song wouldn't play. The audio engine had stopped and would not restart.

*sigh* x 2