I May Have Solved the "End of Song" Mystery

I encountered the situation tonight of "select all" and having the ending extend past the song. This is no new thing, so I just selected the region in the timeline and Cut Special, including automation. But...it didn't work, which was odd because it almost always worked as expected.
 
I started looking for events, and it seems the issue of not being able to erase occurs if two nodes are in the same automation curve and located at the same time (i.e., one drops down immediately to the other, no time interval at all). They won't be erased as described above. As soon as I separated the nodes so they weren't on top of each other, delete worked as expected. Can anyone confirm?
 
 

Kalle Rantaaho
Sounds like a good candidate for one cause of the problem.
I have encountered the never-ending-song phenomenon in projects that have no automation.

As far as I can tell SONAR is always recording automation, even if it's just a straight line - I believe that's how it knows where to restore fader values when you open a project. For example, if you set a fader to -6 at the start of a track, SONAR will write an automation value of -6. You need to enable the Write automation only if you want to deviate from this static value. Try this:
 
1. Create a new project.
2. Insert an audio track. 
3. Start recording.
4. Stop recording.
5. Unfold the automation lanes, and you'll see automation has been written for the current fader and pan positions, and an automation node has been inserted where you stopped recording.

mgh
I wonder if tempo alterations post the end of the song also affect things?

If there's ANY data (marker, automation, tempo change, whatever), SONAR assumes it's part of the song and therefore, the song isn't over until it hits the last piece of data.
 
The most common way a song goes beyond what I want is if I let record run too long while doing a take. Stopping record places an event, which SONAR assumes is where I chose the end to be. I've always been able to get rid of extraneous events by cutting, except now I've found a situation that doesn't recognize cutting. I'll alert the Bakers to it.

It needs fixing for sure. I do agree though we do need an end of project marker facility, even if it's just an option, although I would have thought those who have left Sonar in favour of using fruity loops probably wouldn't give a crap at this point...

GMcT, I thought you were leaving us and had said goodbye.  If not, I'm glad you are hanging in.
 
I have never found people here to be abrasive and most of them are open-minded about other DAWs.  I use Sonar because I have been with Cakewalk a long time and know it, it has a Staff View, and has a lot of bundled content.  (Plus I like the VS-700 Studio, although it is now out of production.) If I had to change DAWs, I certainly could, but it's like going from Mac to Windows or vice-versa: a big change unless there is a good reason.
 
I have run into a couple of know-it-alls here, but not very many.  Most people here are really nice.  If, however, someone comes in spewing insults towards the product or the staff--which happens at times--it is not going to be well-received. After all, this is a Cakewalk-sponsored forum with mostly satisfied users.
 
No one here is brainwashed, though, there is plenty of honest criticism and lots of constructive suggestions.
 
For the record, I have had a large number of difficult problems but most were related to a faulty installation or a system configuration problem.  And most DAWs will sometimes crash due to a VST issue.  Plug-ins in any software can be tricky.

GMcT
Why don't the developers just add an End of File/Project feature?
The documented workaround of placing Now Time at the end and selecting what you want rendered is laughable considering this touted as a "full-featured professional DAW".
 
Oh dear, no doubt all the Sonar zealots, including people marked as new users (like me) who seem to know everything about everything, will castigate me for that comment.
They usually tell you that either your computer is a piece of junk or else they imply that you are an idiot for criticising their beloved DAW.
That's why I've given up on the forums: too much vitriol.
Apologies to the decent people who are constructive and genuinely try to help people. You are in the minority, but are very much appreciated I assure you.

I had some frustration with this issue as well, but finally figured out that, as Craig has pointed out, Sonar will render up to the last event in the song. It took me a while to understand that automation events count as well. I have experienced spurious placement of automation events as well, so I'm glad that Craig has found a way to repro the issue and get it looked at, thanks for that Craig!
 
By the way, yours is the only vitriol I see in this thread. 

While this is all an entertaining thread in a pointless sort of way, I started this thread with a request for someone to confirm whether the double/stacked automation event is what prevents "cut automation" from sometimes deleting spurious data. Fixing this would eliminate needing to "play detective" while you're waiting for feature request 45,391  to be implemented. 
 
I'm still waiting...to quote myself:
 

anderton
Can anyone confirm?

Thank you! I always appreciate solution-oriented people. 

Guitarpima
I don't think so. I think Sonar is just broken. I've had projects with no automation and still have the problem. 

See post #3. I already addressed this, but I can understand how signal sometimes get buried by noise.

teego
Hey Craig, just to be clear I am confirming that you can't delete the automation out there past the end when it is on the same time and curve without moving one of the nodes. I can't really confirm that you have solved the mystery yet, although I think you may be on to something

Well, thanks to your help, I consider it progress to have a confirmation on one reason why you can't delete the "end of song" automation. Doesn't mean there aren't more, but I haven't found any yet. It would certainly be helpful if there was just this one reproducible issue. That can often lead to a fix.
 
Again, props for assisting instead of complaining.

Anderton
I encountered the situation tonight of "select all" and having the ending extend past the song. This is no new thing, so I just selected the region in the timeline and Cut Special, including automation. But...it didn't work, which was odd because it almost always worked as expected.
 
I started looking for events, and it seems the issue of not being able to erase occurs if two nodes are in the same automation curve and located at the same time (i.e., one drops down immediately to the other, no time interval at all). They won't be erased as described above. As soon as I separated the nodes so they weren't on top of each other, delete worked as expected. Can anyone confirm?
 
 

Craig . . . I have had this issue many times, and have even tried your solution of "Cut Special", including automation, with no success. For me it seems unrelated to overlapping automation events. Usually I have an automation that turns to a dashed line and goes hundreds of bar into the future . . . I know it sounds kinda`sci-fi, but I have come to the conclusion that this happens usually in older projects (many pre- Sonar X series) being re-opened into newer Sonar versions, since I haven`t noticed it yet in projects started in Platinum.
 
Many of these older projects have hidden tracks, and when I un-hide them and look for automation data past the end of a project, there are those darn dashed automation lines again. Is there any other way you know of to cut or curtail them, or should I just live with it, like I always have done ?

noynekker
Craig . . . I have had this issue many times, and have even tried your solution of "Cut Special", including automation, with no success. For me it seems unrelated to overlapping automation events. Usually I have an automation that turns to a dashed line and goes hundreds of bar into the future . . . I know it sounds kinda`sci-fi, but I have come to the conclusion that this happens usually in older projects (many pre- Sonar X series) being re-opened into newer Sonar versions, since I haven`t noticed it yet in projects started in Platinum.

 
I rarely open older projects, but will check out next time. Don't forget that a tempo change gets counted, too.
 

Many of these older projects have hidden tracks, and when I un-hide them and look for automation data past the end of a project, there are those darn dashed automation lines again. Is there any other way you know of to cut or curtail them, or should I just live with it, like I always have done ?

I don't know of any specific way, but I'm curious about why this occurrence is rare for me yet common for other people. Whatever the difference is could be a clue. Maybe it's because I have the habit of hitting the space bar when the song ends. 

fwiw: I've seen the same problem, but almost never use ANY automation at all.    And have confirmed often enough that there are not any 'real' events far out in time. 

williamcopper
fwiw: I've seen the same problem, but almost never use ANY automation at all.

 
See post #3.
 

And have confirmed often enough that there are not any 'real' events far out in time. 

See post #22. Next time this happens, put the project on dropbox or something and ping me. I've yet to see a project where there wasn't something (e.g., tempo change) telling SONAR it's end of song.
 

I agree wholeheartedly with Afrodrum. I would like to have a simple, one-click End of Song marker.

I truly appreciate all the effort it takes to come up with various workarounds. Workarounds are definitely preferable to having no solution at all, so many, many thanks to all those who put in their time and are so generous with sharing their discoveries and wisdom.

Wouldn't this be great, though: Whenever and for whatever reason, you decide that a certain spot should be the end of a song (at least, for now: you may wish to use an extended version at a later time), you click "End of Song". Done! Now, on to whatever you feel like doing next! What a nice feeling😀

I repeat, the workarounds are invaluable and much appreciated. It's just that, sometimes, I feel like my memory is packed with everything I have going on at my job and my life feels very stressful. I don't like to admit it, but I don't want to have to memorize any more workarounds. For those who work all day or very frequently with Sonar, I guess that isn't so much of a strain.

In my situation, though, the clearer and more obvious, the better. I guess, in sum, I'm calling myself a moron 😜

LJ