Audible crackling with cursor movement over VST GUIs - referred to Cakewalk Support

I have posted about this before, so please accept my apologies. I am about to send this to Cakewalk support, but bearing in mind the backlog I have read about, I wanted to “copy in” the forum community. 
 
Issue: In many Sonar Platinum projects, I am experiencing audible crackling/interference when my mouse cursor moves across VST GUIs.
 
System: This is a new HP all in one 27 inch PC. I have had it four months. Windows 10, Intel core i7 6700, 16GB RAM. Two graphic adapters – AMD Radeon R7 A360 and Intel HD Graphics 530. Audio interface is a Focusrite 1^st generation 6i6.
 
The machine was bought off the shelf, but I have tweaked it in accordance with Focusrite’s suggestions here (1 to 6 only – not done any “Advanced optimisation”):
 
https://support.focusrite.com/hc/en-gb/articles/207355205-Optimising-your-PC-for-Audio-on-Windows-10
 
Background: About three weeks ago I bought my first ever Waves plugins – L1 Limiter and Greg Wells MixCentric. I noticed the crackling sound as I moved the cursor over these two plugins, so I contacted Waves technical support. They took control of my machine remotely for two hours, and tried a complete reinstall of both Waves Central and the plugins in question. Both graphic adapters’ drivers have been updated to the latest versions. They tried disabling one graphics adapter and then the other. They ruled out interference from my remote mouse. We have tried increasing the buffer size on the Focusrite to very high levels (10ms+ and 442 samples).
 
The problem has got worse, in that the crackling now often happens with non-Waves plugins – e.g. the Sonitus range. The problem is NOT there if used in a very simple project, e.g., if I export a single mixed wav to a separate project and then use the two Waves plugins to master it, there is no crackling whatsoever. However, in a project with say 5 or 6 audio tracks, Addictive drums and EZKeys running, and a few effects,  then the problem is there. However, the performance indicators in Sonar show very little CPU usage, and only about 25% of the memory is being used.
 
Finally, in the last few days I have downloaded Tracktion 5, with the sole purpose of testing this issue in another DAW. I have imported a project from one of the Sonar projects I was having these issues with, into Tracktion. The problem does not exist in Tracktion.
 
Thanks for reading. 
 
Bill
 

First, undo 'optimization' 3. Set processor scheduling to "Background services".
 
This is a long-ago discredited tweak (including by Cakewalk CTO, Noel Borthwick). Audio drivers do not run as services, and nothing SONAR does or uses runs as a service. This is actually giving priority to Windows and 3rd-party services that have have nothing to do with audio streaming or running applications like SONAR.
 
Two other thoughts if that alone doesn't cure it:
 
- Does disabling Always Stream Audio Through FX in Preferences stop it?
- Does it happen if you toggle the audio engine off by the button in the Transport module?

Thanks - I have gone back to Waves regarding the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributables.
 
Brundlefly - tried all of your suggestions to no avail, but thank you anyway. 

slyman
+1
I had (or maybe still have?) this issue and I've noticed it in one particular project where any VST GUI I would opened to tweak during playback was producing these crackling noises, getting worse when moving the mouse cursor anywhere on the GUI. I started by disabling all FX and turning plugins one by one, testing the cursor issue between each effect (Lots of those were Waves effects, by the way).
 
Turns out the culprit was TH3.  As soon as I enabled it, the crackling started again. I deleted TH3 plugin, played my project about a dozen times, adding more plugins and tweaking them. Did not have this issue since on any other projects (knock on wood). That was 5 days ago, right after I installed both WIN10 Anniversary AND the new Early Access update.  Never had this issue happening before. 
 
At least, now, I know I'm not the only one............
 
EDIT: I must add that I've only used TH3 on that specific project.  

OMG - bingo!! Just disabled TH3 on my project and the problem has gone away. Only a quick test but you seem to have got it spot on. And now I know I'm not going mad and not the only one. Thanks so much Slyman!

Try reinstalling TH3.
 

My go to guitar amp sim is S Gear but it doesn't have a bass sim, so that's where I use TH3. Will try a reinstall, thanks pingu. Will also drop a note to Overloud.

Sir Les
 
So try that out, and put back the th3 plug in and see if it continues to do so, if you want to try?...and see if it clears any....No harm in trying this out as it did solve my problems back in the day....Same thing was kind of going on...And some said to change my mouse..And that did not solve it...you can turn off hdmi through windows "control pannel/system devices...and or through the App for the video card i believe...
 

Hi, Sir Les (fellow Montrealer!)  Thanks for your feedback.
My onboard audio is disabled (BIOS). I doubt the High Definition Audio controllers are the issue here.   
Marshall and I have different systems/motherboards/hardware and such, and removing the plugin seemed to get rid of the problem on the spot for the both of us.
I think it's a plugin issue, but I agree that it may also be a combination of TH3 and some other setting/plugin we may have in common. Would be a pain to compare notes and troubleshoot, though.......
For now (for me anyways) the solution is simply to avoid using TH3, as I always did before.

Sir Les
 ...Try turning off the HDMI Audio device and use the Audio ASIO for your Audio device...and then Try your Plug ins again.

As I thought, I got home checked my System Devices in Device Manager and my disabled onboard card does not support HDMI Audio as there are no controllers listed in there. As a matter a fact, I have no audio related controllers listed period, therefore no option to select "Audio ASIO device".
 
Merci quand même, mon ami.