1. What are the root causes of audio dropouts?
2. Is there a way to prevent audio dropouts?
3. What are the root causes of SONAR Platinum hanging and not responding?
4. Is there a way to prevent SONAR Platinum hanging and not responding?
 
Great software, however; these two things drives me insane.

(1) and (2): When the audio dropout flag appears, click on the Help button and try each of the various recommended steps until the problem is solved. At least, that's what worked for me. IIRC it was a setting in preferences.
 
(3) Depends upon at what point it hangs, how often it hangs, and what specifically happens when it hangs. There could be many reasons, but the main ones tend to be driver issues and third-party plug-ins.
 
(4) Update drivers. Also, create some test projects in SONAR where you open it in safe mode and disable all plug-ins. If everything works great, narrow down your search to find the plug-in(s) causing the problem.
 
 

Great!  Thanks for the suggestions.

My system ran fine for me, updated to Windows 10, drop outs started, disabled some things in my devices which helped a little. Checked for a new driver for my graphics card. Drop outs have stopped. I'm no plug in monster, so it's going to be a driver in many cases. So for me drivers are more an issues than plugs, so disabling things or checking for updates gets me running on an off the shelf laptop