Hi Everyone,

I'm a 25 year user since Cakewalk 3.0.

I've read for over an hour here, have tried many things suggested and I have a virgin, fast Windows 7 Pro 64 Bit computer with nothing in it except Sonar Platinum and Adobe CC Creative Suite for editing video. I upgraded the Sonar Platinum in Sept, but haven't upgraded to the current version, Jamaica, I think I saw it called?
 
I have I7 Proccessor, 16 Gigs of fast RAM, SSD boot drive and several 1 Terabyte internal drives all setup for audio/video optimization.
 
I have a jazz trio and a vocalist all perfectly recorded with nine takes in a long single project. I copied the last take to a new project and worked an entire day mixing using all native plug in's, Melodyne Singletrack and so on.
As I edited, I saved a new version ever half hour or so, version 1,2,3....and am up to version 19.
 
All was well until I moved a bus fader that was set by my assistant mixer, and I noticed UNDO wouldn't put that back, so I tried to REVERT but there were no revert points, so I closed it. I then noticed that the original project was still open (the one with 9 takes that I pulled the last take from). I closed that too.

I then tried to open the current project again, and it just either hangs with nothing happening or I get an hour glass with OPENING PROJECT hanging forever until I open task manager and force a shutdown. The original project opens, other projects open, and I was able to go back to Project Version 7 after Melodyne was in and open that, but any of the projects saved after that will not open, and of course those are the one with all the edits and Plug Ins assigned that I need to export the finished .wav file.
 
Have RUN as Administrator, have Shift Opened Sonar, have Shift opened the Project, I tried manually loading Plug Ins and tried skipping a few plug ins and changed them not to scan on startup, all with no success. One weird thing happened while choosing to skip all Plug Ins when I opened the most recent Project file. They all skipped, but I then got a dialogue box that said something like, "You have two silent buses, they will be re-routed when...." This only happened once out of a dozen times I tried not loading certain plugs in when opening the project in Safe Mode, and when I clicked OK, nothing happened and the project didn't load and Sonar hung again and I forced the program to shut down.

I did notice that the Aud.ini file dialogue box is completely blank, but I don't know if that's an issue. I'm on the road and can't call tech support during the limited phone hours they are available, and then I'm stuck for the weekend.

Any suggestions would be appreciated as I really can't think of doing anything else. My main question here is, do you think I can eventually get the most recent project open somehow and I should feel as upset as I am because with some troubleshooting it will be possible? I mean, I see all the edited .wavs in the Audio folder. Holding my breathe.

Thanks.

The Aud.ini will be blank as all it contains at this point are any edits you've made to it - the original Aud.ini is still on your system and fully populated.
 
Try locating it and deleting it.

Thanks. So I'm not sure I understand you though.
 
You said the Aud.ini will be blank, but then you said it contains at this point "are" any edit you've made to it.

So, "find" the original Aud.ini file (how or why would it have changed location?) and delete it IF it's populated? And if it were populated, and had the edits in there, why delete it.
 
Sorry, I don't follow.

I think you mean the 'Cakewalk.ini" dialog, and it will be blank if no additions/changes have been made. That's normal. And if other projects are running fine, (including v7 of the one in question), then there is no need to reset any initialization files.
 
If skipping all plugins on opening in Safe mode, doesn't get it, I think the Bakers will need to look at it. Send 'em version 8, and they might be able to fix it. It might help if you can give them some idea what new plugins went into that new version. I'm not really sure what capabilities they have in this regard, but they'll want to know about any situation that can corrupt a project to the point of not opening.
 
Also, It would be worth seeing if a different SONAR installation can open one of them, as it could be something about you system or a plugin installation issue. You won't need to move the audio to the other machine, just the .CWP, and it would probably be best if that machine doesn't even have any of the 3rd-party plugins that might have caused the problem (although it kind of sounds like it's not the plugins at this point). You could accomplish this yourself by installing just the base program on another machine if you have access to one.
 
Other than that, it sounds like you covered the bases, and you need to take it to the Bakers.

Jerrycast
My main question here is, do you think I can eventually get the most recent project open somehow and I should feel as upset as I am because with some troubleshooting it will be possible? I mean, I see all the edited .wavs in the Audio folder. Holding my breathe.

It does not sound promising. If the project refuses to open in safe mode (holding SHIFT while opening the project) and loading only the audio, the only thing I can think of is to rebuilt the project from the wave files.
 

Jerrycast
I did notice that the Aud.ini file dialogue box is completely blank, but I don't know if that's an issue. I'm on the road and can't call tech support during the limited phone hours they are available, and then I'm stuck for the weekend.

Are you sure about this? The Aud.ini entries are displayed in Preferences > Audio > Configuration File. It should always have something in it, there is even an option to reset the file to defaults on this screen.  On the other hand, the Cakewalk.ini which may be viewed using Preferences > File > Initialization File is normally empty. It will only show values added by the user. I don't think I have ever seen an empty Aud.ini. I am not sure how SONAR would react to an empty Aud.ini. Both ini files are located in your user directory. While not necessary, if you wish to review the files at the OS level:
Press the Windows key + R to bring up the run window
Enter %appdata% to display your user AppData directory in Windows Explorer
Navigate to Cakewalk\SONAR Platinum
 
At this point you should be in your SONAR Platinum User directory. This directory contains both ini files and a bunch other files and directories. You can click on the ini files to open them in a text editor.
 
That said, I doubt the ini files are the source of your problem. If you wish to reset the Aud.ini, you can by renaming it then run SONAR. The re-personalization you performed (holding the SHIFT key while starting SONAR) only replaces missing files. It does not overwrite or reset anything. To perform a full re-personalization you need to hold the CTRL+SHIFT while starting SONAR. This will overwrite all the files in your user directory from the master copy in ProgramData.

Thanks, everyone. Spent time with tech support and you all were correct, if the above troubleshooting wasn't working, it was a lost cause. We spent yesterday remixing the entire project.
I never had a problem with X3e, and tech support tried, but gave us elementary troubleshooting (like run a virus check)....they told us that under Idle System Process the CPU number was 99 percent and this could be a virus. I'm surprised that I was told that as from what I have read, that's the number you want in that column. They meant well, though. We were told to defrag our boot drive and also, from what I've read, SSD drives won't benefit from that.
My mixing mate and I suspect that the additional buses we added for the drum and piano sidechain (we had two AKG C414's on the piano) are the culprit, OR, the plug in bit rates weren't playing nicely with my Presonus Firebox which has drivers from about 5 years ago, and nothing newer. We unplugged the Firebox and was able to open verision 8 of the mix (we had 19 versions), but nothing newer, and we started remixing from version 7 just to be safe.
Scary to think that this could happen again even though I backed up like every 4 minutes to different drives and off site, which doesn't help corrupted projects that are saving normally  and NOT telling you that they will never open again.
We actually didn't take chances and we just exported "stems" of each already process wav file from each track and I mixed from there doing minor things (like vocal volume envelopes), before exporting and mastering in another program.
Thanks again to you all and I'm thinking of going back to X3e as I've got a dozen projects to mix over the next few weeks and am a bit afraid of what could happen. My friend is telling me his Reaper program is so very stable, cheap and has free updates, so I'm looking at it for certain situations as an alternative. Take care.

Here we go again. Sonar Platinum, huh? Just spent hours with a cast of 5 people recording two lavalier mics and one shotgun mic for a total of 3 audio tracks on a simple 25 minute video shoot on a high end laptop, specs all top notch, no virus software and no other software except Adobe CC suite.
Got home from the studio and tried to open the project to create a bundle to open on my home computer, also running sonar, won't open, not in Safe Mode. Beyond frustrating.
Any ideas? After 25 years, I may be bailing on Cakewalk if I can't remedy this.
Thanks.

Jerrycast
Here we go again. Sonar Platinum, huh? Just spent hours with a cast of 5 people recording two lavalier mics and one shotgun mic for a total of 3 audio tracks on a simple 25 minute video shoot on a high end laptop, specs all top notch, no virus software and no other software except Adobe CC suite.
Got home from the studio and tried to open the project to create a bundle to open on my home computer, also running sonar, won't open, not in Safe Mode. Beyond frustrating as I'd have to bring everyone back and reshoot. Expensive and time consuming.
Any ideas? After 25 years, I may be bailing on Cakewalk if I can't remedy this.
Thanks.

You recorded the session on a laptop running Sonar and now it won't open?
 
If your project is as simple as 3 wav files on different tracks, why not just copy those tracks and put them on your studio computer hard drive?  
 
Then deal with the other problem.  

Thanks, Brian. Will do that. It's just that I can't figure out why this is happening. I had a pretty good audio guy running the laptop (he's a Reaper user) and all looked well to him during the session. 
 
I have an 8 channel Presonus Audiobox at the studio where we shot the video. Now the laptop is home, not connected to an interface, and of course I get the warning when Sonar boots.

Since I ignore that message and continue, and am now not connected to the Audiobox, could that be the problem? I'm going to take the laptop back to the studio and hook it to the Audiobox before booting Sonar to see what happens. It shouldn't be, but who knows with computers, so I'll try it.

I do have a smaller Presonus Firebox here at home, but I didn't want to confuse things by trying to hook that, so I'll try the studio interface first and report back.

Thanks again man.

Jerrycast
Thanks, Brian. Will do that. It's just that I can't figure out why this is happening. I had a pretty good audio guy running the laptop (he's a Reaper user) and all looked well to him during the session. 
 
I have an 8 channel Presonus Audiobox at the studio where we shot the video. Now the laptop is home, not connected to an interface, and of course I get the warning when Sonar boots.

Since I ignore that message and continue, and am now not connected to the Audiobox, could that be the problem? I'm going to take the laptop back to the studio and hook it to the Audiobox before booting Sonar to see what happens. It shouldn't be, but who knows with computers, so I'll try it.

I do have a smaller Presonus Firebox here at home, but I didn't want to confuse things by trying to hook that, so I'll try the studio interface first and report back.

Thanks again man.

Not having an interface connected can certainly be a problem depending on your "on board" sound device.  
 
Some laptops have built in sound cards that can work with sonar, others do not.