The PC I run SONAR platinum on (this is the latest update ignore my sig) is surely an adequate spec.  I don't run any other software to speak of on this PC other than Sonar.  But i've been using SONAR since SONAR 6 and STILL it crashes regularly for no apparent reason.  I don't own any other apps that do this.   Today's crashed project is just a sketch project and consists only of two very short simple audio tracks (guitar and bass), a drum midi track and a piano midi track. That is all  No plug-ins or FX whatsoever on any track or bus apart from a pro channel preset clicked on the bass and gtr parts, and no editing whatsoever.     Second time in a week it's done this.
 
For the last 5 minutes all I'm seeing at is the all-too-familiar whited out screen and a revolving buffering circle.   All on this simple miniscule sketch project.   Not too long back I tried to load in some audio tracks from a demo project provided by Sound on Sound magazine, SONAR just could not handle it, so I gave up.  So now I'm extremely wary of doing anything of any complexity, and pressing Ctrl+S every few seconds in the hope of not losing too much.
 
How can I stop this happening?  What causes it?  Thank you.

What is your audio interface/sound card, and have you installed the latest drivers for it?

I agree with you that you PC has more than enough resources to run Sonar smoothly.
 
It sounds like you have some PC related conflicts. Jon D inquired about your audio interface. Probably the first place to start troubleshooting.
 
BTW - my PC specs are somewhat less than yours and Sonar handles projects large and small nicely.
 
Looking forward to hearing back from you here on this issue. Hang in there!

Could it be using a configuration from a previous version. If so, it might run better if the program was started with the Platinum default values. Also make sure the rest of the PC is up to date.

You should reach out to our support team and we can try and trouble shoot. You get free phone support with your product. 

Drive(s) have developed bad sectors?
 
Use windows chkdsk c: /r where c: or d: or whatever is the drive you want to check (run as admin)
 
Or download HD Tune and scan the surface via the errors tab.
 

Check your RAM as it may be defective.  RAM errors have, in my experience, been a source of otherwise undiagnosable errors.  I am pasting below what Jim Roseberry told me about one of his machines which was out of warranty (He's is GREAT) when I was having similar problems and he was absolutely right.  Bad stick of RAM replaced and the problem went away.
 
If the problem persists, the most likely culprit is a single bad stick of RAM.  Download MemTest (freeware available on the internet) and burn it as an ISO image file (to a blank DVD-R). This will create a Memtest disc. Boot the machine with this disc and let it run thru all 8 tests. It’ll take a while…
 
The background will be blue (that’s normal).  If any errors are found, they’ll be reported in the bottom half of the screen in bright red.  If an errors are found, there’s a bad stick of RAM.  To find the culprit, test each individual stick with it installed in the slot furthest from the CPU (closest to the outside edge of the motherboard).
 
If the machine fails to boot/start with one stick installed in the outermost slot, you’ve found a defective stick. When Memtest is running, if any errors are reported, stop the test… as that stick is defective.

Platinum was crashing on me for a straight week and I couldn't figure it out. Then I found out by me plugging my Octa-Capture in a USB 3.0 port on my  computer, it was causing Sonar Platinum to crash.  Once I removed the Octa-Capture back to the USB 2.0 port, the crashing stopped.   May Sonar Platinum was getting back at Roland...  LOL. 

Actual crashes seem to be from things like hardware incompatibilities, lack of current Windows and/or application maintenance, flaky plugin behavior, or background service interference, etc., rather than globally failing code in Sonar itself.  
 
Were some common problem with Sonar code be out there causing problems, there would be huge numbers of folks posting about crashes in the forums, so the fact that this is not occurring is a good indication that crashes that ARE taking place are localized to a given system.
 
I have had flaky behavior too, as was reported above by someone, when I plugged my audio interface into a USB 3 port, and like with the earlier poster, that set of crashes instantly went away when I plugged the interface into a USB 2 port.  
 
I would start with making sure Windows is up to current maintenance, then check software and firmware levels on the audio interface, check the port being used to plug in the audio interface, check the Windows Event Viewer to see if some sort of hardware event is occurring in conjunction with crashes, try a temporary suspension of antivirus software to see if that is an issue (or add relevant Sonar paths to the antivirus software's exclusion list), make sure I don't have sharing issues where Sonar and some other application (or Windows) is fighting over access to the audio interface, and look at things like the sample rate setting matching the sample rate Sonar is set to use, and that I am actually using the intended ASIO drivers for the audio interface, rather than ASIO4ALL, etc.
 
There are a number of things to work through, in debugging things, but it is hopefully fairly easy to go through and test out each area of potential problem until something is discovered that will cause Sonar to start running without crashing.
 
Hang in there, and keep posting as you are working through and looking at things and trying things, so that we can provide additional guidance where possible to help you get through this.
 
Bob Bone
 

Many thanks for these replies. They all give me something to look at/consider. Apologies to respondents for not acknowledging sooner but I've been travelling and still haven't had a chance to sit down and go through them. I hope to do this soon - will probably come back with more queries afterwards.

Thanks again.