KILL ! KILL ! Kill Sonarpdr.exe !!!

sounds like you need to eliminate the crash problem if you can...might be time to add a little ram or a faster hard drive....the cheapest thing may be the ram..have you updated the operating system ...also cakewalk has a memory fix on support downloads for win xp..is your cpu fan working? case fan? power supply big eneough for your computer?

ORIGINAL: andyj

sounds like you need to eliminate the crash problem if you can...might be time to add a little ram or a faster hard drive....the cheapest thing may be the ram..have you updated the operating system ...also cakewalk has a memory fix on support downloads for win xp..is your cpu fan working? case fan? power supply big eneough for your computer?

It's something i always had with every version of sonar
I've a Pentium 4C 3Ghz with 4Gb ram and the disk drive is a WD Raptor 10000 rpm sata etc...
My pc is working fine, in fact as i use midi + audio at the same time it's more likely i get midi loops which is why i guess the process remains in memory for 5-10 mins...
Still IT DRIVES ME CRAZY cause i loose precious time waiting to be able to launch sonar again

I never struggled with that..LOL, maybe it's that simple..maybe not.

If I get a crash and Sonar's MIDI I/O is still there in the (you got that too..right? then you also see the sonarpdr.exe task still running)
I simply launch it again..it comes up as usual. Then I just exit it

Maybe in your case the task is still "stuck" there..it's never the case here. If there are differences between how bad it's stuck I would say it must be a combination of other things -the soundcard's drivers, MIDI drivers, ASIO or WDM ..

Yes i have the MIDI I/O icon bottom right of the screen
To remove it, i start sonar 5 then immediately shut it off and that remove the MIDI I/O icon of sonar 6 but that doesn't remove the sonarpdr.exe process unfortunately...

BAH ! BAH ! BAH ! lol

To remove it, i start sonar 5 then immediately shut it off and that remove the MIDI I/O icon of sonar 6 but that doesn't remove the sonarpdr.exe process unfortunately...

ok so that's what I suspected..here it does remove that process. no need to wait.

(I could be nasty here and say you launched Sonar 5 and then see the midi icon of Sonar 6.. haha)

ORIGINAL: Honest_Al

To remove it, i start sonar 5 then immediately shut it off and that remove the MIDI I/O icon of sonar 6 but that doesn't remove the sonarpdr.exe process unfortunately...

ok so that's what I suspected..here it does remove that process. no need to wait.

(I could be nasty here and say you launched Sonar 5 and then see the midi icon of Sonar 6.. haha)

relaunching usually works for me too. there are occasional crashes when it wont. and it really does take quite awhile to kill the process. sometimes i just reboot. even THAT takes awhile sometimes!

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.

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.

This is definitely the fault of your midisport, I've answered this question in past threads. USB midi devices, especially M-Audio's have a tendency to trap Sonar's process into midi gridlock should it ever crash.

The best way to free the process is to shut down or unplug your midi interfaces or controllers, then power or plug them back up.

It's the 4x4, Blame Midiman , even so, I wouldn't fret over such a thing, it's nothing to power down or unplug a USB midi device and power it up again. Much easier and much less intrusive than a system reboot.

Wait till you run into the audio card that looses its ability to play audio after Sonar crashes, this until you disable/reenable it via the device manager. (Echo Audio Layla24 issue)

LabDog

Just kill sonar and unplug your midi 4x4's usb connector then hook it back on, Sonar will shutdown after that. It's an issue with all midisport devices.

ORIGINAL: dstrenz

In Sonar 4, turning off that midi monitor icon in options was the only thing that would allow me to kill the process in taskman. It's been off ever since here.

At last, I hope your right. If someone has a receipt to crash/hang, this is something to test, and could have been easily overlooked by the developers.

As to having to reboot, if you CTRL+Shutdown in task manager, Window will blink off quickly. There is no down side to doing this, if you have made no configuration changes, like installing a new program.

The reason I mention the Ctrl+shutdonw in task manager is that when Sonarpdr.exe hang on my machine, it takes a moment more than forever to shutdown while trying to close the apps.

2. If in a hurry, download FREE Process Explorer from sysinternals.com. Whenever Sonar (or any other app.) hangs just start Process explorer, select the offender (Sonar) choose kill process and you are done!

Actualy i've tried several progs to kill the process, it won't work. I will try process explorer and will let you know.

It's the 4x4, Blame Midiman , even so, I wouldn't fret over such a thing, it's nothing to power down or unplug a USB midi device and power it up again. Much easier and much less intrusive than a system reboot.

You're probably right, i'll try that out the next time i experience a sonar crash.

In Sonar 4, turning off that midi monitor icon in options was the only thing that would allow me to kill the process in taskman. It's been off ever since here.

Will try that too.

The reason I mention the Ctrl+shutdonw in task manager is that when Sonarpdr.exe hang on my machine, it takes a moment more than forever to shutdown while trying to close the apps.

When that hanging process problem occurs, there no other choice than waiting until it closes by itself...

Anyway, i'll try the above suggestions and will let you know.
Thanks everyone.

I blame Microsoft for this, honestly. Any real operating system allows you to kill user mode processes reliably. It is just silly that a process like Sonar can somehow put itself into a state that the host OS can't kill the child process.

Yes, I know that many drivers run in privileged mode in the kernel and so can do bad things to the whole OS. This is a design flaw in Windows, IMHO. (And yes I know they did it deliberately to improve performance, but it doesn't change what I'm saying - I'm tired of not being able to kill processes reliably in Windows).

Grrr. :-)

Without "privileged mode" we might sit here waiting for a sound everytime we hit a note on a midi keyboard. I would think there must be a method for Sonar to detect it has disappeared off the screen, and for Sonar to kill the connections.

Sonar doesn't work on any other platform, and I have never had this problem with it's main competitor (edit) running in the Windows OS.

Exactly, in this case, the sonarpdr.exe will close only when it is released from the midi gridlock caused by the USB midi interface/controller (the 4x4).

I've found M-Audio's devices to be especially notorious in causing this gridlock and it can only be stopped by taking them out of the picture...thus shutting them down or unplugging them.

-LD

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.

Yep that's the prob unfortunately, you can "End Process" or "End process Tree" hundreds of times if you want to, that's just plain useless

It is not just m-audio

Glad to hear it's not a only midiman / m-audio behaviour