(More info! AFTER RECORDING) metronome clicks on time, accents don't follow meter changes

I'm about to pull my hair out. I've scoured the forums but can't find anyone with my exact problem.

Although I've kept my subscription to Sonar Producer up to date over the years I've been using open source software for recording, but Sonar recently added a couple of features in 8/8.5 that exceed the capabilities of the software I was using. Please bear with me because I'm re-learning Sonar and I'm having trouble with one of the most basic features. It should be a no-brainer, which leads me to believe I have an anti-brain.

My problem: I have several meter changes in a project I'm working on, but the metronome accents for first beats are not following "obediently" as the help file says it should. The beats themselves do line up just fine, it's just that Sonar loses all sense of where the accented beat is located within the measure. Also, once I reach the one of the meter changes and then go back to the beginning of the song, the metronome does not accent the correct beat at the beginning either. (Just for reference, the meter changes are about 100 measures into the song, and consist of one 5/4, 2 4/4's, 3 3/4's and then back to 4/4's. The song starts out at 4/4. I guess i should also mention, too, that there are a couple of tempo changes. The beats themselves do line up even during the gradual tempo changes I inserted, it's just the accenting of the metronome that goes haywire, and even then only after I mess around whether the meter changes are located.)

If I close my project and re-open it the metronome works fine from the beginning, but once I start playing around near my meter changes the metronome gets quite cranky again.

I tried a variety of things including attempting to set the 'Sync' setting to internal, which Sonar will not let me do with either the WDM or ASIO drivers. (That's an entirely different question I have, but I don't really care how it's set as long as it's working. Sonar always put me back to audio sync.) I'm using an Echo Layla24 if that makes any difference.

Thanks for any help!!! I'm sorry this post is so long and I hope it makes sense. Whenever frustration sets in, the words do flow. :-)

John

The meter changes are indeed indicated in the staff view at the points I inserted them. And no, Sonar will not always put the accent on the first beat. My project is living proof. :-) Please note that I've discovered that this problem only occurs after I've recorded some audio. Even just a blip of audio recording throws the metronome off permanently for the session. I hate to have to do work-arounds for something so simple.

I'm going to remove the soft synth temporarily to see if there's something there monkeying with the timing. Thanks for the explanation of the soft synth vs. sync. That makes eminent sense!