Cracks and pops when moving Now Time Marker during playback

I think this is par for the course. If you interrupt a digital audio stream at random, you are going to get pops, unless you do something to smooth the transition from the end of the first data stream to the beginning of the next. The Fade In/Out times do this in conjunction with starting/stopping the transport, but are apparently not applied to changes in Now time with the transport running.

This falls under the larger topic of "seamless" audio engine behavior that many users have brought up with reference to SONAR's apparent deficiencies in this area compared to some other DAWs.

I think it's often assumed that you have to be doing something wrong with your audio engine programming to end up with such noises due to discontinuities in the audio stream, but the truth is that some sort of active smoothing would have to be applied in all such situations to get pop-free transitions.

I haven't worked with any other DAWs, but if they are as "seamless" as advertised in such circumstances, they must be doing something like this.