OK so I use AKAI MPC software as a vst plugin. It has a hardware controller (MPC Studio). I set it up as an ACT controller but only to control transport.
I've repeatedly set up Cakewalk's metronome not to play during playback or recording, I check both the boxes that enable count-in for playback & recording. But when I hit Play on the MPC, Sonar immediately starts playing. It actually turns count-in off, and turns metronome during playback back on all by itself.
I need my count-n for composing. Please help!!! Thank you for your time!

Just guessing but perhaps the "play" signal from the controller sends "song position pointer" information to Cakewalk rather than a simple transport "play" instruction.  So Cakewalk may be seeing "Go to Measure 1 and Start" rather than just "Play."  I forget because its been a while, but I think song position pointer info is only sent when using MIDI time code (MTC) data, but not otherwise.  If the MPC settings can't be changed to just send start and stop transport messages (without the specific "go to measure X" instructions embedded in MTC), why not add an extra measure at the beginning of the song rather than rely on the malfunctioning count-in?  Is it because you are starting somewhere other than the beginning of the song and still want a count-in wherever you start?
 
 Sorry, I'm rambling.  Good luck

Metronome settings are stored per project. If you want it to work consistently for all projects save a project template with your settings and use that when creating new projects.