almost every project if worked on for a long time, oddities to occur.  its not the actual SAVING function that is wrong, just weird things happen like the OP said.  Strange GUI artifacts, and other odd things.   Too varied to really describe.

I'm convinced that the Achilles heel of Sonar is its hosting of synths. I've found that it's the synth heavy projects which become corrupt over time, at least for me. Especially if you're constantly adding, removing and replacing synths and doing things like using the MIDI out of one synth to drive another, e.g. using Jamstix to drive Battery etc. I just think there is something about all of this back and forward routing and rerouting and connecting and disconnecting synths which makes things screwy.

sharke
I'm convinced that the Achilles heel of Sonar is its hosting of synths. I've found that it's the synth heavy projects which become corrupt over time, at least for me. Especially if you're constantly adding, removing and replacing synths and doing things like using the MIDI out of one synth to drive another, e.g. using Jamstix to drive Battery etc. I just think there is something about all of this back and forward routing and rerouting and connecting and disconnecting synths which makes things screwy.

agree!  100%

The only times I have ever had issues and I mean way, way back was because of the synth rack for one reason or another. Sometimes my fault, like opening a project that has an old Kontakt version. Just one example. But for the most part I don't have too many issues with this and I am constantly "Saving as", Definitely helps.

It's not Sonar, in most instances it's older plugins that cause the instability.  This unfortunately is the digital paradigm, and one I'm still figuring out how to solve.  If I wasn't a broke student, I would have kept my last two computers, so I could access older projects this way...if I wasn't a broke student.
 
My suggestion is always freeze tracks after finishing a mix, however, this doesn't get you around the buses, and I tried to bounce entire stems and tracks...ugh what a nightmare.
 
Sonar is pretty rock solid, a couple of gremlins here and there, but humans design tech in their own image meaning, there will always be gremlins.
 
Ben

+1 on the idea that the synth heavy, midi out enabled projects are the one that act weird when opening older versions of Sonar.
 
However, I find, as well, that rebuilding them with newer versions of Kontakt etc. are worth the time.
 
 

sharke
I just think there is something about all of this back and forward routing and rerouting and connecting and disconnecting synths which makes things screwy.

I wonder if the midi code being the oldest part of the software has anything to do with it.
(or was it completely replaced at some point ?)
 

I have projects from Sonar 7 through every iteration... old plugs??? This is the only problem I've had... if a problem arises (I've deleted all 32 bit plugs) I disable all plugs and figure out the offending thingy... or often I just start over remixing/better plugs as things have changed sooooo much and I'm better at using tools...

Paul P

sharke
I just think there is something about all of this back and forward routing and rerouting and connecting and disconnecting synths which makes things screwy.

I wonder if the midi code being the oldest part of the software has anything to do with it.
(or was it completely replaced at some point ?)
 

I've often wondered how old some of the code is. I bet some of it is 20 years old plus, lol. Not that there's anything wrong with that, unless newer code is not playing nice with it. 

sharke
I'm convinced that the Achilles heel of Sonar is its hosting of synths. I've found that it's the synth heavy projects which become corrupt over time, at least for me. Especially if you're constantly adding, removing and replacing synths and doing things like using the MIDI out of one synth to drive another, e.g. using Jamstix to drive Battery etc. I just think there is something about all of this back and forward routing and rerouting and connecting and disconnecting synths which makes things screwy.

 
Your big assumption is that the fault lies in the SONAR code. There is nothing super special about "hosting synths" as compared to hosting other plugins. Most definitely not as far as resaving and reloading project files. Saving and loading a project a thousand times has no effect from SONAR's point of view. What is more likely is that one or more of the plugins have issues leading to data corruption. Remember that a plugin can corrupt the heap and cause all kinds of unexpected behavior. If the problem is only happening with synths then its far  more likely that one of  your synths is causing the instability than SONAR itself.
 
And the the premise of older code somehow being bad is a myth. In software, if anything older code (assuming it was designed properly) is more time tested and newer code is more liable to have problems :) The code with virtual instruments and plugins however is fairly new and is constantly being updated every version so its very current.
 
The bottom line is a DAW hosts plugins and they run in the same process space as the host. Its a delicate ecosystem and the smallest bug in a plugin can cause a disastrous effect if it ends up corrupting memory. The only way to track down problems like this is through a process of elimination. If you are experiencing problems in only a certain project eliminate plugins one by one by removing the and saving multiple versions of the project. Then when you find a stable version that doesn't exhibit the problem start reintroducing the plugins till it has problems again. You will most likely find the problem that way iteratively. At that point you can report it to Cakewalk and the plugin vendor and we can try and find the root cause.
 
Hope this clarifies that the assumption that a DAW is somehow responsible for and can address every possible error condition is flawed.