SONAR X1D is making me VERY ANGRY!!

I'm so mad I could spit!! What does it take to get STABLE SOFTWARE these days? I've been with Cakewalk since it's DOS launch before SONAR was but a glimmer. I had issues with version 6 so I VERY reluctantly moved to X1 and don't mind the interface IF IT WOULD JUST STOP TRUNCATING MY FILES RANDOMLY!!! I have Windows 7 Pro and build 534 of X1D but almost invariably when I'm editing a new MIDI or CWP file it JUST DIES on me after about an hour or two of work and often I don't even have an auto save file even though I have auto save on. Furthermore, I get a "recovery"file that's only 1K...
 
    Blue Bayou (Recover 13-11-17-21-56-14-745)
 
Yet won't load because it says "Oops! Sorry!! We truncated your file!!! In fact we truncate your file and trash your hard work AS OFTEN AS WE POSSIBLY CAN!!!"  WTF? REALLY? Is this what I get for DECADES of loyalty to this stupid shaky product!
 
UN-B-FREEKING-LIEVABLE!!
 
So do I finally wise up and jump ship to Pro-Tools or something else? Or is the crappy instability designed into the product so I have to fork over more $100s to get X2 and X3 and WTF ever!!????  Or do I just have a bad build and some kind soul out there will take mercy on me and lead me to a download of build 535 or something?
 

Sonar X1 is now 3 years old. For $150 you have Sonar X3.
I've had X1, X2 and X3 and I've never had this although you have my sympathy.
Then again I've never had autosave enabled (I don't trust it, not even Microsoft products got this to work properly) and my system is stable. What I do instead is save frequently under a different file name and use the keyboard shortcut CTRL-S.
 
If it's really pissing you off that much please backup, wipe your PC clean and reinstall Windows, run the latest Windows updates and drivers, then install X3C. It's probably a couple of days work for you but I suspect it will be worth it in the end (and please update your footer so we at least know what system you are running).
 
Cheers....

 X1D was a stable release and the chances are about 98% that its your system and its configuration that is causing the problem. So, perhaps if you were a little more specific about your system and your setup then someone could help

I'm very strongly of the belief that 1) Sonar is way to picky about system configurations, and 2) something about Sonar's save routine makes it easier for projects to get corrupted than it should be. See these recent threads (there's a lot of input from Craig in the first one):
 
http://forum.cakewalk.com/X3c-project-corruption-AGAIN-m2929795.aspx
 
and 
 
http://forum.cakewalk.com/Exceptionally-frustrating-X3c-experience-m2923620.aspx#2923913
 
If you search these forums on "corrupt projects" or "can't open projects" and other similar keywords, you basically end up with a whole lot of posts around this subject going back years, and a lot of responses that basically say 1) "doesn't happen here, must be your system," 2) "that's why I never use autosave," 3) "that's why you have to use autosave," 4) "you have to Ctrl+S to save regularly," and most of all: 5) "it's your fault for not backing up your projects more regularly."
 
I just don't see that much energy on other DAW forums I frequent around these kinds of issues, and it's all over this forum. If Sonar's not directly at fault for all of these corrupt projects, then it's certainly not doing enough to prevent these issues IMO. I'm of the personal opinion that this is an area that deserves some major attention before X4, as there's just so many reports of similar problems for something not to be wrong.

Has anyone NOT had a file that was fine during the last session but won't load anymore? I've had that problem with all the X series, across a couple of PC builds. It's not the hardware. Something  glitches and then the file is no longer usable. It doesn't happen very often to me, perhaps once a year, and has not happened yet with X3.
 
My own theory is that I have to close the project before I exit Sonar, instead of just hitting save and then exit. I've been doing this since it last happened in X2 and so far no more corruption.

I would like to point out, without claiming there is not some issue occurring, that many times things that are attributed to being Sonar's fault end up being caused by other factors, and it is potentially unfair to count posted threads as being conclusive just from unsubstantiated claims.
 
Again, I am not saying there isn't a potential bug in Sonar causing some difficult to reproduce corruption, I am just saying that unsubstantiated claims should not be relied upon to be factual.  There are a lot of folks with old hardware, maintenance-deficient operating systems, and all kinds of mixed 32-bit third-party plugins running in 64-bit Sonar, and I have seen quite a few complaints turn out to be something related to things like the above.
 
Anything that can be provided to Cakewalk Technical Support that would assist them in figuring out how something got corrupted would be extremely helpful, and even if the issue ends up being caused by some factor external to the Sonar code itself, having some idea of the cause would still go a long way to reducing or eliminating the problems from continuing to occur.
 
Bob Bone
 
 
 

Funkybot
I'm very strongly of the belief that 1) Sonar is way to picky about system configurations, and 2) something about Sonar's save routine makes it easier for projects to get corrupted than it should be. See these recent threads (there's a lot of input from Craig in the first one): http://forum.cakewalk.com/X3c-project-corruption-AGAIN-m2929795.aspx and  http://forum.cakewalk.com/Exceptionally-frustrating-X3c-experience-m2923620.aspx#2923913 If you search these forums on "corrupt projects" or "can't open projects" and other similar keywords, you basically end up with a whole lot of posts around this subject going back years, and a lot of responses that basically say 1) "doesn't happen here, must be your system," 2) "that's why I never use autosave," 3) "that's why you have to use autosave," 4) "you have to Ctrl+S to save regularly," and most of all: 5) "it's your fault for not backing up your projects more regularly." I just don't see that much energy on other DAW forums I frequent around these kinds of issues, and it's all over this forum. If Sonar's not directly at fault for all of these corrupt projects, then it's certainly not doing enough to prevent these issues IMO. I'm of the personal opinion that this is an area that deserves some major attention before X4, as there's just so many reports of similar problems for something not to be wrong.

FWIW, I had numerous instances of project files becoming corrupted in Pro Tools.

My truncated files happen when I'm repeatedly crashing on the same bug. I'm not saying who is at fault for the bug. Like touching the fader on the second monitor on the second Tuesday of the month after your first beer. You crash, relaunch still drinking your first beer and crash again... And again.. .because your doing the same thing and hoping for a different result you get punished with corrupted files. Yes?

When I've been crashing on a project, I backup the project files before relaunching, just in case.

Funkybot
I'm very strongly of the belief that 1) Sonar is way to picky about system configurations, and 2) something about Sonar's save routine makes it easier for projects to get corrupted than it should be. See these recent threads (there's a lot of input from Craig in the first one):
 
http://forum.cakewalk.com/X3c-project-corruption-AGAIN-m2929795.aspx
 
and 
 
http://forum.cakewalk.com/Exceptionally-frustrating-X3c-experience-m2923620.aspx#2923913
 
If you search these forums on "corrupt projects" or "can't open projects" and other similar keywords, you basically end up with a whole lot of posts around this subject going back years, and a lot of responses that basically say 1) "doesn't happen here, must be your system," 2) "that's why I never use autosave," 3) "that's why you have to use autosave," 4) "you have to Ctrl+S to save regularly," and most of all: 5) "it's your fault for not backing up your projects more regularly."
 
I just don't see that much energy on other DAW forums I frequent around these kinds of issues, and it's all over this forum. If Sonar's not directly at fault for all of these corrupt projects, then it's certainly not doing enough to prevent these issues IMO. I'm of the personal opinion that this is an area that deserves some major attention before X4, as there's just so many reports of similar problems for something not to be wrong.

The Sonar X series indeed seems picky about computers, in particular older computers. Sonar "X" seems to have much fewer problems running on newer computers. Also staying as much 64bit as possible seems to help... at least from what I have read in threads about people having problems. I would absolutely upgrade to X3 and my next computer WILL be a Studiocat. I wanted to have it by now but circumstances... had other ideas.
J

Just saying my experience. I've seen truncated files. Project files I couldn't open. Not in X3, but in the past. And usually around me beating my head against something that was causing a crash.
 
I know I'm not crazy. :-) Well, pretty sure.
 
Cake has all the dump files... sometimes 10 in a row... as I try to learn to stop doing the thing I'm doing.