I haven't used Sonar 3 in a few months. I tried Sonar Platinum and found no reason to upgrade as this is a hobby and I generate no funds to support it. Sonar 3 has been an excellent program for my needs. However, I tried to mix a piece today and the mix went great. When I tried to make a wav file of the resulting mix, Sonar 3 crashed completely to desktop. I am at a loss as to what is wrong. I re-installed sonar and tried again with the same results. I am on Windows 10 Professional 64bit with 12 gigs of RAM and a i7 CPU. Nothing in the system is different than in the past with the exception of a new graphics card (Radeon RX480 with 8 gigs of GPU RAM).
Any suggestions? This is not a good thing to happen.
 
Rich

Start troubleshooting by opening a new project and put some audio on a track (doesn't matter what or how long) and then export it. First step is to determine if the problem is project-specific or system-wide. 

I tried importing some other tracks of audio and then I tried using audio loops from my library. They all play fine in Sonar. When I go to export, the program crashes. It doesn't seem to make any difference so I don't think it is project specific. I started with a new project each time.
 
Thanks for the suggestions, though.
 
 

I wonder if you have a permissions problem to the folder to which you're trying to write.
 
Two things that could be used to check:
 
1) Run Sonar as Administrator, then try export.
 
2) Try exporting to a different folder, perhaps one that is definitely under the Documents folder for your currently logged on user, or any folder to which you have Full Ownership.

 That didn't help. I also noticed that PerfectSpace was not found and listed as missing from my computer. But, it is in the VST plugin folder. When I did a manual plugin scan to make sure it was being found, my VST Plugin count when from 120 plugins to 96 plugins. Something strange is going on with my computer. Of course, Cakewalk no longer supports Sonar X3 (though I bought it in 2014 after having bought Sonar 7, Sonar 8.5, Sonar X1, and Sonar x2). How much money do I have to pay them to get lifetime support? ARGHHH!

lets go through a few of the settings.
 
1-Bit depth
Note: You control the bit depth of all rendering operations (bouncing, freezing, applying effects) in Edit > Preferences > File - Audio Data, in the Render Bit Depth field. The default value of 32 is the best for most situations. See Bit depths for rendering audio for more information
 
2-64-bit Engine.
If you don’t usually run SONAR in 64-bit mode in order to save CPU, you can turn 64-bit mode on when you export audio by enabling this check box. Remember to turn it off after you export your audio, if you don’t want to use it during tracking or mixing.
 
3-Bouncing to tracks
you can always try a test: rendering within sonar by bouncing to tracks:
https://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=SONAR X3&language=3&help=Mixing.45.html#1098466
 
I say give bounce to tracks a shot because I believe it uses the same engine as export does.
so if you DONT see a problem with bounce to tracks, it might just be a something in your export settings.
 
have you tried going in to windows event viewer and looking for the crash result ?
what are you using for a soundcard Rich ?

Who said Cakewalk no longer supports X3? They may no longer sell it, but I'm fairly sure they would help with a problem. If not, you can always get help in this forum.

Hi - Rich936. :)
 
Lots of folks have multiple versions of Sonar installed, and they do live happily installed alongside of each other, so there are still lots of folks using one or more versions of Sonar.  I tend to like to finish working in projects using the same release I used when a given project was first created.  (certainly not a requirement, just my personal choice there).
 
I am wondering if you have and 32-bit plugins getting loaded into projects running in 64-bit Sonar on your computer that are failing.  LOTS of folks found their systems running with far more stability once they moved to using nothing but 64-bit plugins in 64-bit Sonar.
 
32-bit plugins running in a 64-bit Sonar require the loading of 'bridging software' to work, and whether that is the bridging software that comes freely with Sonar, called BitBridge, OR a 3rd-party bridging program such as JBridge, things can get quit flaky and unstable using ANY kind of bridging software, so I would suggest you look at your VST search paths in the Cakewalk Plugin Manager and see if you are including any folders containing 32-bit plugins that are getting loaded into these failing projects.  You would also see either BitBridge or JBridge using Task Manager, if any 32-bit plugins are indeed being used in a 64-bit Sonar environment.
 
For any project I absolutely would require any 32-bit plugins, I would do so either after testing any of those plugins to make sure they seemed stable, OR I would build the project using a 32-bit install of Sonar.  Lots of folks install Sonar in both 64-bit and 32-bit, and that creates no conflict.  I have deliberately moved to doing any new work only working with 64-bit plugins, and my system runs WAY more stable than it did when I was bridging.
 
You may also do a Reset and a FULL Rescan of your VST plugins, which was a requirement at some point in either X1, X2, or X3 (cannot recall when that was mentioned, but I did do that at some point in the past).
 
You might also consider seeing if opening a project that had been failing in Sonar's 'Safe Mode' and skipping the loading of all of the plugins results in eliminating the crashes, as that would indicate one or more plugins loaded into that project are failing for some reason when allowed to be loaded.  (do NOT save the project if you skip the load of the plugins, just close it without saving if you have skipped loading of the plugs when testing project stability).
 
One additional thing to look at would be to go into Preferences to see if the option is checked for Sonar to use the 64-bit Double-Precision Engine, and if it IS checked, try removing that check and clicking on Apply, then seeing if THAT makes things export properly.  I believe that was recommended for folks to do if they were having stability issues when exporting.
 
Anyways - I would suggest you give the above a shot and see if that helps.  I will circle back to this thread when additional responses are posted, later this afternoon and then either tonight or tomorrow, to see how things are working at that point.
 
Bob Bone
 

daveny5
Who said Cakewalk no longer supports X3? They may no longer sell it, but I'm fairly sure they would help with a problem. If not, you can always get help in this forum.

I believe they did stop supporting X3.
its no longer an option on their technical support list.
 

Yes, support for SONAR X3 expired 31 Jan 2016.