SOLVED: Persistent Dropout Issue

One more piece of information: The dropout occurs at the same point in the song even if I solo a single track (any track, including a blank one). Quite strange...

Hmmm, thanks Bob. I went and installed LatencyMon, ran an analysis and played the song through twice (with multiple dropouts as expected.) I'm not sure i know much more after viewing the LatencyMon stats. key metrics:

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Your system appears to be suitable for handling real-time audio and other tasks without dropouts. 
LatencyMon has been analyzing your system for  0:10:54  (h:mm:ss) on all processors in the system.


Highest measured kernel timer latency (µs):           180.929632
Highest measured SMI, IPI or CPU stall (µs)           6.159307
Highest DPC routine execution time (µs):              596.156015
Driver with highest DPC routine execution time:       nvlddmkm.sys - NVIDIA Windows Kernel Mode Driver, Version 306.97 , NVIDIA Corporation

Highest reported total DPC routine time (%):          2.826032
Driver with highest DPC total execution time:         Wdf01000.sys - Kernel Mode Driver Framework Runtime, Microsoft Corporation

Total time spent in DPCs (%)                          3.893148

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While one could argue that my video driver is causing some latency, that truly does not seem to be a problem as most of the time, I can record and playback projects with no issue. The only problem I have is that for certain projects, I get dropouts at approximately the same points in the song. I'm starting to wonder if this is not hardware related at all. Maybe some bug/issue with the project/audio files themselves?

There are some effects that can apparently cause some issues - if memory serves, Perfect Space might be one of those - something about look ahead processing.

Can you disable the Nvidia driver?  That should put you into basic video mode, but may be worth testing to see if that helps.

Bob Bone

Thanks to all of you who made suggestions. I tried all of them to no avail, but finally figured it out today. I focused on the fact that the dropouts were occurring at predictable intervals, then zeroed in on the tracks that had data at those intervals. That eliminated about a quarter of the tracks. I then looped the song over one of these dropout intervals, then soloed tracks one by one. The dropouts continued regardless of which tracks were active/inactive. 

But upon deeper review, I noticed that some of my audio clips in tracks that had data at the dropout intervals were permanently showing a status of "busy". I then decided to "bounce-to-audio" each track containing such clips and VIOLA! That solved the problem. It makes sense that my wave files were somewhat corrupt, considering the audio dropouts were occurring in generally the same places every time. The only thing bothering me now is why this happened. Regardless, at least I know what the fix is going forward.


Thanks again, all!

baudze


Thanks to all of you who made suggestions. I tried all of them to no avail, but finally figured it out today. I focused on the fact that the dropouts were occurring at predictable intervals, then zeroed in on the tracks that had data at those intervals. That eliminated about a quarter of the tracks. I then looped the song over one of these dropout intervals, then soloed tracks one by one. The dropouts continued regardless of which tracks were active/inactive. 

But upon deeper review, I noticed that some of my audio clips in tracks that had data at the dropout intervals were permanently showing a status of "busy". I then decided to "bounce-to-audio" each track containing such clips and VIOLA! That solved the problem. It makes sense that my wave files were somewhat corrupt, considering the audio dropouts were occurring in generally the same places every time. The only thing bothering me now is why this happened. Regardless, at least I know what the fix is going forward.


Thanks again, all!

This is what I was going to suggest (Bounce to Clip)


Ive had a few songs with ALLOT of Slip Editing and on all these songs, they would get to and drop out at the same point each time.  For me I found that Bouncing those tracks took care of it.  


Sorry I was late to the show  

Overall I believe it is a combination of memory intensive FX/plugins and a load going on in each track just creating a bottle neck 

Along the lines of what Robert and Charlie are getting at

baudze


Mike, at least I now know my machine is not the only one exhibiting this behavior! 

Im sure many have experienced it,  I fell onto it cleaning up bleed on drum tracks when I got bored and decided to split Beats into Clips along with the FX I had running on all the tracks. 


This is when I decided to go to the Audio to Midi track conversions on my Live recordings for Drums. 


If I remember right, the Control Bar on Console View didnt indicate any problems as far as CPU load, Memory Usage, and Load on the HDD. Everything looked good but Sonar would just "STOP" dead in a certain spot everytime I hit play.  Usually would make it to like the 2 minute mark.


Im kinda watching to see if its cleared up in X2,  but then I dont work with tracks like that now so no big deal.  

Glad you fixed it. I've never been tempted to use RAID on my DAW computer because I always believed it added unnecessary overhead. Good for you for sticking with it and finding the culprit. A lot of people would have just blamed it on Sonar. 

This thread makes me proud to be a member of this forum. And a very happy new year to the OP. Well done indeed.