I haven't had this issue since I made sure I turned the M-Audio Axiom off after I shut down Sonar. Knock on wood!

ORIGINAL: J_War

On my rig, I found that the driver for the midisport usb 2X2 wasn't releasing after a crash, and if I unplugged it, sonar would finally be able to close.

This is frightening, i have a midiman midisport 4x4

Will try to learn it to fly next time Sonar crashes, we'll see if it solves the problem

I've always fixed this problem by unplugging the USB cable from my Midisport 4x4, reconnecting and then re-launching SONAR.

Now that I've added a Trigger Finger, I've noticed that I have to unhook both it and the 4X4.

So I guess nobody has figured out a way to do this? Ever since upgrading to S6, whenever Sonar crashes, SONARPDR.EXE stays open and will not close no matter what. Also, I'm unable to shutdown my computer without doing a hard reset (holding down the power button for 5+ seconds). Anyone find a way to close it?

I have an old session that will do it everytime if anyone from Cake is interested in checking it out. In this session, right when it crashes, my Faderport fader will start going from UP to DOWN back and forth forever. Let me know if you can help. The session is not super important, but yeah, I'd like to be able to make some changes to it without opening in safe mode and losing all my plug-in settings-- there are close to 50.

I too saw this problem - right back from Sonar 1.0! Since having Sonar 6 it hasn't happened - yet!
I never had a problem killing it off with Windows Task managers end process though.

I'd warn everybody that in my experience, if you let Windows reinstall USB midi drivers too often - it will soon stop seeing it altogether. M-audio for one, have a Midifix utility to clean out the dead driver references if that happens. This is not the same as Windows simply re-recognising the device (which is what should always happen) - that doesn't re-install the driver, but if it's asking for the driver files everytime, I'd think it must be reinstalling that driver and heading for trouble!

I don't use USB midi much at the moment, I've always used an onboard gameport midi interface for my main controller keyboard and synth. Currently I have two other sets of ports on each of my M-audio soundcards, but they are not currently selected for use in Sonar.

What I thought I'd noticed was, that this thing only happened if I did a lot of keyboard noodling in the session - not just recording the midi but messing about, trying different things. It was as if Sonar or a driver was getting constipated and had buffers full of midi data they couldn't flush. I don't think it ever happened to me if I only worked on audio in a project.

In fact, with all this hassle with midi and USB midi in particular, I've been moving away from using midi at all - have actually started increasing my collection of "real" hardware instruments and recording their audio, not the midi! Incidentally, I don't think its a "bad" soft synth issue, I never used them at all back when I had Sonar 1 (and no VST adapter) but had the crash more often than not, and I was doing mostly midi composition back then.

So, do those seeing this problem play a lot of midi in? Recorded or not.

ORIGINAL: dontletmedrown

ORIGINAL: Psalmist35

Hey Guys,
I may have a simple solution. I never had this problem before until I upgraded to S6PE. I too would have problems with Sonar hanging up upon exit. I'm using both a MOTU 896HD and the MOTU MIDI Express XT. Always have worked fine before. Recently the problem got noticeably WORSE. I attribute this to my recent purchase and addition of my BCR2000, although after reading this thread I will try to isolate the unit and see if it's the culprit.

Anyway, this seems to work extremely well without having to wait 5-10 min.
1. Ctrl-alt-del
2. click the processes tab
3. find the sonarpdr.exe in the list and click it
4. click end process
5. click OK to end if you are prompted.
6. Eurika!
7. start sonar again

Well, I think that is everyone's point. When this problem occurs, it doesn't let you close it. You can "End Process" or "End process Tree" but both do absolutely nothing.

Works for me

MIDIsport 2x2 was the culprit here, too. The computer complained that it couldn't stop it because a process was using it (Windows Catch-22), but I unplugged it anyway, and Sonarpdr.exe disappeared, and I was able to restart the app.
So thanks for this thread and thank you LabDog, et. al. for the solution.
I don't understand why, since the cause of the crash (Battery 3) wasn't being controlled by external midi; I guess just having the 2x2 selected in midi ins and outs does it.
BTW, if Battery 3 has been crashing Sonar for anyone else, try the new 3.02 update--it's early days yet, but preliminary experiments indicte it's helped, at least the VST version.

I sold and/or gave away my MIDISport 2x2 & Uno. However, I get the same problem from time to time with my remaining M-Audio devices: Evolution UC-33e & Keystation 88es. I've actually disconnected the UC-33e for now, since I'm going with a more spartan desk setup to keep my sanity and open up some work space. Even with just the Keystation 88es attached, I occasionally run into this issue. If I power cycle the M-Audio product(s), SONARPDR.EXE shuts down immediately; and I can restart SONAR or shut down my PC just like I normally do.

I've experienced the above when using the M-Audio products with the WinXP class-compliant drivers, and when using M-Audio's custom MIDI device drivers.

Now that I have 1 M-Audio MIDI device (rather than 2 or 3) the occasional requisite power-cycling is less annoying. I've also recently replaced my Delta 44......and SONAR has not crashed a single time with my new RME FireFace 400. So I feel like a resurrected DAW user.

I'm done buying cheap ANYTHING for DAW work. My life is too valuable to waste it on cheap (even moderately expensive) stuff that doesn't work right. To paraphrase my current violin case manufacturer's founder: "We are not rich enough to be able to afford cheap things."

I've always found it funny when you ask cakewalk support about just about any problem, they point to the other vendor, and in all fairness to cakewalk the other vendor points to them,.... maybe they should actually communicate with each other in order to produce a more reliable product, for us the consumer......the ones who stuuuufffff their WALLETS!!!!!!!

ORIGINAL: Ognis

On my rig, I found that the driver for the midisport usb 2X2 wasn't releasing after a crash, and if I unplugged it, sonar would finally be able to close.

I remember Cakewalk made a reply to a thread just like this, and they said the same thing as you just did, pretty much. That it's not Sonar itself, but some 3rd party plug that isn't releasing , and the plugs wont show in your task manager. Maybe try getting an "after market" task manager, like (I think this is the name) TaskMan Pro, and see if it shows plug-ins running though it, and when it seems that Sonar has crashed, and won't exit, look for the plug in that causing the problem, and you can go from there.

Find the PID of Sonar (task manager) and go to a cmd prompt and kill it. I think this bypasses all this plug/unplug nonsense.

Unfortunately this isn't going to work as long as the Midi Gridlock, I like to call it, is occurring. I've actually tried this in the past with a few process killers and none were able to accomplish it.

Some sort of midi information (in these units) is trying desperately to complete its operations to and from the host, thus forcing Cakewalk's software process' (in this case) to remain active in the attempt.

Until that gridlock has been alleviated, nothing can make the process shut down completely. This leaves what I've found to be the most logical solution in shutting down the midi hardware in the chain, as oppose to rebooting the entire system.

LabDog

ORIGINAL: vanceen

ORIGINAL: stratton

On my rig, I found that the driver for the midisport usb 2X2 wasn't releasing after a crash, and if I unplugged it, sonar would finally be able to close.

I found it better to reboot after doing so, but at least Windows was the able to restart a lot more quickly without having to kill or wait for SONAR to close.

Same here.

If I unplug my Midisport 4x4 and my Trigger Finger, it kills the process.

And I recently discovered that if I open E-MU PatchMix and attempt to switch from internal clock to external clock source on my 1212m this is usually enough to "release" Sonar and allow it to die gracefully. Not always, 'though! But faster than rebooting, so worth trying.

I like to call the midi gridlock bug "midi constipation". It isn't limited to USB midi ports.
BTW, I'm under the impression from various readings about the Windows WDM audio system, that most of the code involved between the application and the "real" port driver is all Microsoft code. In WDM, Midi is a part of the audio system.

Dave Rich posted:

sudo killall sonarpdr.exe ?

oh -

that's how you'll do it in the linux version ;)

There is nothing at all magic about Linux or "Linux Audio." In fact, if SONAR was ported to Linux and if it used Jack, and if Jack still has mlockall() in it and you have certain hardware drivers, then you'll have to use your power switch if it locks up because killall could take a month or two to execute. The end result may be file system corruption. Yes, this happened to me using Jack and "Linux Audio."

Regards,
Dave Clark

P.S. There is, however, something magic about TruePianos, and I thank Dave Rich for publicizing it. It's the most fun I've ever had playing anything on a computer.

I stand corrected, got in touch with John via phone support, super nice guy, extremely helpful, got all problems solved, did complete uninstall including cleaning of all cakewalk entries from registry, after backing up registry....of course, then reinstalled, and did the same with emu 1212m, everything appears to be working correctly now, clue.... if you use a registry cleaner program, please exclude all cakewalk files as well as any sound card drivers from scan list. Thanks again to John at cakewalk support for all your help, YOU ROCK BRO!!!!

ORIGINAL: stumpbroke1

I've always found it funny when you ask cakewalk support about just about any problem, they point to the other vendor, and in all fairness to cakewalk the other vendor points to them,.... maybe they should actually communicate with each other in order to produce a more reliable product, for us the consumer......the ones who stuuuufffff their WALLETS!!!!!!!

ORIGINAL: Ognis

On my rig, I found that the driver for the midisport usb 2X2 wasn't releasing after a crash, and if I unplugged it, sonar would finally be able to close.

I remember Cakewalk made a reply to a thread just like this, and they said the same thing as you just did, pretty much. That it's not Sonar itself, but some 3rd party plug that isn't releasing , and the plugs wont show in your task manager. Maybe try getting an "after market" task manager, like (I think this is the name) TaskMan Pro, and see if it shows plug-ins running though it, and when it seems that Sonar has crashed, and won't exit, look for the plug in that causing the problem, and you can go from there.

ORIGINAL: stratton

On my rig, I found that the driver for the midisport usb 2X2 wasn't releasing after a crash, and if I unplugged it, sonar would finally be able to close.

I found it better to reboot after doing so, but at least Windows was the able to restart a lot more quickly without having to kill or wait for SONAR to close.

If you were female, I would kiss you. I just tried this on my machine and it worked! I've been noticing something similar. A couple of times after Sonar crashes (which is still more often than it should be), it locks up and simply will not die. It did it a few minutes ago and I found this thread after a search. I read your advice, reached down and unplugged my USB MIDI adapter, and Sonar immediately shutdown.

Thanks!

With all the killing of things in this thread, i thought OJ had stopped by!