I've got a very odd dropout problem. I've searched the forum but I'm not finding anything that seems to be related. Here's what's happening. If I'm working with a project file and I'm actually working on it i.e. playing/recording midi tracks, editing notes or tracks etc, everything is fine and I can go all night without any dropout. 

However if I allow the system to go 4 minutes without touching the mouse, the audio engine crashes and stops. You can set your watch by it. It happens if the song is playing. It happens if I'm recording audio. It happens if everything is stopped and just nothing is playing. Allow the computer to sit for 4 minutes without touching the mouse and audio will crash.
 
If I go 3:55 and move the mouse just a bit, the clock resets and it'll be 4 minutes after that before audio crashes. Its repeatable and predictable and happens every time. 

For the most part I can work with it. But if I'm trying to record bass or guitar, I can only do it in segments 4 minutes or less. Otherwise the audio crashes. This is particularly troubling if I'm trying to use comping.
 
Has anyone seen or heard of this before? Any idea how to fix it?

Oh sorry, I thought I had my specs in my sig line but I don't.
I'm running an i7 processor with 32GB of RAM. My OS drive is SSD, the audio and plugs are each on separate 7200 RPM drives. I'm using a Berhinger FCA1616 with the USB interface (no firewire on this machine).

Sounds like a Power Saving feature in Windows that needs to be adjusted so that it allows the computer to be idle for a longer amount of time.

I have already disabled every power saving feature I could find.

Are the hard drives "green" with their own power saving features?
How is the audio crashing? Does the the audio engine simply switch off or do you get some error message?
Do you need to reboot or restart Sonar after such a crash or just switch audio engine on?

The drives are older, came over from the previous music machine build, so I doubt they have any green features.
I don't recall the exact message but when it happens I get some sort of they audio engine has stopped dialog.
No need to reboot or restart Sonar. Just click the audio engine button and we're back in business.
 
Here's the thing. It happens regardless of what I have loaded. My default scratchpad project that I usually start with has two plugs loaded, Pianotec and a drum plug. Very lightweight. If I load that project and do nothing, not playing, not recording, just letting it sit idle, audio will stop after 4 minutes. I don't believe I've tried it, but I'm pretty sure I could load a project with no plugs or tracks and audio would stop if I left the machine idle for 4 minutes.
 
Move the mouse at any time during that 4 minutes and audio will stop 4 minutes from that last mouse move.

It's been a while since I've first started trying to diagnose the issue so I don't recall if touching a key on the computer keyboard or a key on the midi controller keyboard or pressing the damper pedal resets the clock, but I could easily do a test of that when I get home.

For a comprehensive system report on your power management settings, try this from a Windows Command Prompt using "run as administrator":
 
C:\Windows\system32>powercfg -energy
Enabling tracing for 60 seconds...
Observing system behavior...
Analyzing trace data...
Analysis complete.

Energy efficiency problems were found. (I have my system set to "High Performance", so these errors get generated and ignored -- the expectation of the test is to find power saving features enabled)

13 Errors
7 Warnings
17 Informational

See C:\Windows\system32\energy-report.html for more details.  (read this file for the results)

 
Reference: https://technet.microsoft...magazine/dd537557.aspx

Something much odder than power saving (after 4 mins?) could be causing this ...
 
I once had an unnoticed MIDI loop going that crashed the audio interface by filling up a buffer (happened exactly 0:58 mins after hitting play in every song) and was caused by turning auto-echo of selected MIDI track on; took 2 weeks to track down ...
 
A little more testing + info would be helpful to give more suggestions to check e.g.
 
"the audio engine crashes and stops" - does this mean you get the toaster pop-up that the audio engine stopped or does it crash the audio driver so you need to restart software or DAW?
 
Are you connected to LAN? WLAN? blue tooth?
 
anything kicking in after 4 mins according to the task manager?

Rob[atSound-Rehab]
Something much odder than power saving (after 4 mins?) could be causing this ...
 
I once had an unnoticed MIDI loop going that crashed the audio interface by filling up a buffer (happened exactly 0:58 mins after hitting play in every song) and was caused by turning auto-echo of selected MIDI track on; took 2 weeks to track down ...

That's interesting. I do have a bit of a complex midi path going. I use an ancient motor fader cakewalk control surface. So Sonar needs to be able to both talk to it and listen to it which would mean a midi loop issue could be possible.
 
However I don't think that's the problem. Reason being the midi path routes from the control surface through my old Roland controller keyboard before hitting the input of Sonar. And the fluorescent display on the Roland just plays hell with my bass and certain guitar pickups. So if I'm trying to record bass or guitar parts, I have to shut the keyboard off or else I end up with display noise in the track. No power to the keyboard = no midi thru.
 

A little more testing + info would be helpful to give more suggestions to check e.g.
 
"the audio engine crashes and stops" - does this mean you get the toaster pop-up that the audio engine stopped or does it crash the audio driver so you need to restart software or DAW?

The toaster pop-up thing. No need to restart software or DAW. Just hit the audio button and everything works again. Just frustrating when you're trying to record and you have to do it in chunks of 4 minutes or less. Especially if you're on a roll with comping.
 

Are you connected to LAN? WLAN? blue tooth?

Wired LAN, no wireless card, no bluetooth. One of the first things I tried was disabling the LAN. No change.
 

anything kicking in after 4 mins according to the task manager?

Nothing that I can identify. When I open performance monitor and wait with the machine sitting idle. The CPU performance graphs are more or less flatlined and then there's a spike at 4 minutes when the audio engine stops. But I have no idea what's causing the spike. 

I tried running the powercfg command suggested above. I didn't copy the results to the share drive so they're still downstairs on the music machine. But I believe there were about 12 or 13 errors. The first one had to do with the display or something similar being set to not turn off. The second had to do with USB suspend being disabled. And them most of the rest had to do with USB devices not being able to enter suspend because USB suspend is disabled. 

I can post the actual results after work if anyone wants to see them.
 

As of right now, I'm not using any PCI slots on that machine. Monitors are using on-board video etc. I'm thinking about just popping a half height PCI-E USB card in it and using that for the audio interface only. The card would be about $20 and in theory, it should place the audio interface on its own isolated buss. So in theory, it might protect the audio I/O from whatever kind of memory burst is happening at 4 minute intervals on the main USB buss. I figure for $20 and the time it'll take to pull the CPU out of the rack, its worth a shot.

JohanSebatianGremlin

Rob[atSound-Rehab]
Something much odder than power saving (after 4 mins?) could be causing this ...
 
I once had an unnoticed MIDI loop going that crashed the audio interface by filling up a buffer (happened exactly 0:58 mins after hitting play in every song) and was caused by turning auto-echo of selected MIDI track on; took 2 weeks to track down ...

That's interesting. I do have a bit of a complex midi path going. I use an ancient motor fader cakewalk control surface. So Sonar needs to be able to both talk to it and listen to it which would mean a midi loop issue could be possible.
 
However I don't think that's the problem. Reason being the midi path routes from the control surface through my old Roland controller keyboard before hitting the input of Sonar. And the fluorescent display on the Roland just plays hell with my bass and certain guitar pickups. So if I'm trying to record bass or guitar parts, I have to shut the keyboard off or else I end up with display noise in the track. No power to the keyboard = no midi thru.

 
Are you sure? MIDI is voltage and depending on how it's wired internally the signal might be present at the MIDI thru. A quick check unplugging the cable cannot hurt ...
 
 

JohanSebatianGremlin

Rob[atSound-Rehab]
anything kicking in after 4 mins according to the task manager?

Nothing that I can identify. When I open performance monitor and wait with the machine sitting idle. The CPU performance graphs are more or less flatlined and then there's a spike at 4 minutes when the audio engine stops. But I have no idea what's causing the spike. 

 
Have you ever tried LatencyMon? It's quite good at listing what causes a CPU spike ...