Midiboy

xwaveform
.. I have a Brand new computer  i7 processor  16 megs of ram thing of upgrading to 32  baaa blaa blaa

Assuming you meant 16 Gigs of RAM.    Sorry.  Someone had to. 

Yeah, it was going to me too! :D

I think the very first sentence of the OP sums it up for many. While the professional/hobbyist point is obvious, the other is people who "get off" on IT, versus folks who just want to track and make music. When a limited time window is available (esp. hobbyists), it is incredible overhead to place on the user to figure out "what just happened?" I honestly do not know how a professional could make money and deal with this.
 
I also feel there is also a wide disjunction in the "monthly updates." Monthly as a payment option does not require monthly updates. The payment option is no different than buying a car... pay outright or finance, it is not linked to the car itself. That is a flaw in the model that "forces" one-a-month updates - this can lead to untested code as well as content that "is there" but not used.
 
For me, updates which reduce workflow time are everything. A reduction to getting point a->point B from 30 minutes to 10 minutes would be a god send; but with a limited window, turning a 1 hour a day slot into "install this, figure out that" may detract all time from tracking. I am beginning to feel the time overhead from the current monthly update cycle as well. If not "tied to the hip" to the forum, there is not even a heads up of what to look for. That pairing is almost required to minimize impact, so I often worry for folks using SONAR who do not read the forums... how are they to know?
 
 

 
First off thank you to almost everyone who chimed in. there was some useful stuff in there. I didn’t expect such a large conversation from a rant. A rant that was not “totally invalid”  I have used Cakewalk since it was a dos program so I do know my way around. And my statement that it is the most unproductive time I have ever had with cakewalk is true. Yes I realize there is always more to learn and I more than likely made mistakes myself however It was not “painless” I have rolled forward and back experimenting several times trying to figure what worked and what didn’t. Taking up much time I could have been working. My problems started when the only thing that changed was an update no other software or hardware changes and a simple “painless roll back” wasn’t so painless. You have no Idea what problems I had Vastman or the hours of “thinking” and troubleshooting I have worked on to fix this. I have no need or to desire to explain my reasons why or why not I decided to update something. I am not stupid as you insinuated. Talk about flaming arrgont incorrect attacks. I was not wrong I was stating something that happened to me. I have nothing to apologize for.
 
A program I have used for 20 some odd years has of late been giving me problems, more problems than in the past. This is a true statement about my experience is it really that difficult to see?
My title “No more monthly updates for me” Pretty freaking simple I am not going to update every month. how is that flaming or arrogant or incorrect. It was merely a statement And I clearly posted it was a “rant” which meant I was frustrated…  and was gonna to rant a little..
To which most people responded with a general yes we have been there we feel your pain or try this and some helpful hints. Most people did not attack me and call me arrogant and stupid. I personally thought your post Vastman was pretty rude and it was not shut down so I am responding once. Done
 
I thought it was nice Craig  Anderton replied he didn’t seem to take it personally. And I appreciate he took the time to reply. He is right as technology moves forward stuff like this will only get harder. I do appreciate the work the folks at cakewalk do. I haven’t stuck with them for 20+ years for nothing. And this is the first time I have ever posted a rant on here.. Im sure no one has ever don’t that before ;)
 Thank you to every one again for the ideas and help.. new ideas to research and try and stable for the moment
Joe

Have you decided which version to stop at.

I think back to the mess that was Soanr X1 and I felt much worse back then, but now I've got to admit it's been smooth sailing. Sorry to hear of your plight but there must be something going on besides Sonar.

I know that's probably hard to hear but I know from my previous experience that with some setups Sonar seems to expose one weakness after another and it is manifest as Sonar problems because that's how the symptoms become evident. All thE best.

I am on Jamaica Plain for the moment. did some editing tonight and so far so good. there still is the crashing thing usually when opening files. but my audio is clean no pops. I can say that in the last month I read a thread about adjusting the amount of processors used i limit mine to 4 that helped a bunch of noise issues. reloaded basic video drivers. tried a different audio interface the list goes on.. it seems like there  are about 1000 places something can go wrong and give you hell. i have visited a few hundred of them maybe. and for now am stable.

Doktor Avalanche
Whilst I agree that the OP is experiencing issues probably unrelated to Sonar here (I strongly urge him to start a thread or something), I'm pretty gobsmacked at the number of people here who keep up with the roll back arguement as though it somehow eradicates all issues in a moment, and that somehow this is one size fits all solution suitable for all. The more I hear it the more I feel it's being used as an excuse, it's just a workaround facility after all. The out of the frying pan into the fire and beta tester arguement still exists and is not a figment of peoples imaginations.

A scheduled stability release (on some sort of cycle with post regression) will simply extinguish all those arguements and will send a pretty good message to people that they don't have to upgrade every month.

Anyway let's see what happens in December. Well I at least know what will happen now...So I am wearing a 64 bit precision bullet proof vest and a helmet.

That's exactly how I felt, to me it was an open license to release half baked goods, and we have certainly seen evidence of that, Start Screen anyone ? everyone knows the others as well as I do. The 'BETA' tester feeling was strong. I didn't like the monthly updates myself after about the first 3 or so, then I found something I liked infinitely more than Sonar Platinum and jumped ship. I still keep my eye on proceedings though.

Doktor Avalanche

I stated out of the frying pan into the fire and beta tester arguement still exists and is not a figment of peoples imaginations. This is a customer perception outside of software development.

Where is the quote from this 'Neil' person please....

'Neil is saying that a scheduled stability release will not extinguish the arguments,'

...This is a paraphrase. I'm not sure that statement exists please prove me wrong.

I see discussions around it from Noel but nothing really specifically related to this point IMHO. Considering I wrote my point afterwards hardly surprising either.

Yes, a paraphrase of a longer comment by Noel (I type too fast, I thought Noel and Neil came out, apologies Noel!) intended to let you know that the point you made had already been addressed. Here is the relevant quote from Noel:
 
"On the other hand I find bug fixes to existing features relatively more likely to introduce unwanted side effects."
 
which seems to answer fairly well a comment you made later in the thread:
 
"A scheduled stability release (on some sort of cycle with post regression) will simply extinguish all those arguements and will send a pretty good message to people that they don't have to upgrade every month."
 
I hope that clears things up for you. Damn me as a skeptic, but I'm quite certain you didn't really need the citation; you knew exactly what I was saying. You are, after all, a Doktor. 
 
All just my opinion. As I said, the monthly updates work very well for me, and I sympathize with those for whom it is a pain.

And I'll ask again: what defines a "stability release"?  Unless *all* bugs are eliminated in it, it'll still generate heat.

Vastman
This argument might hold water if rollbacks were not so painless....
 
THEY ARE FRIGGIN' PAINLESS!!@!@!!!!!@!@!@@!
 
IMO, this "rant" is totally invalid, has NOTHING to do with rolling updates and I just find it incredible that people cannot use their brains to decide simple things like:
 

• do I want to update this month?  yes/no   (please stop trying to take away my right to say "YES!" as updates are always fine on my system and you can say no!!!)
• "oh, i think there's a problem with this new update"... take 2 minutes and rollback and see if it's the update... yes/no... hmmmm... am I gonna be a helpful person and report it in the proper forum??? yes/no
• before ranting about how everything is cakewalk's fault... take a moment and check in here... usually they have nothing to do with Sonar/rolling updates.  
• apologize/change your flamingl, arrogant, and incorrect attack/headline/post when you're wrong...

Thanks, Dana! That's pretty much word for word what I was thinking as I was reading through this thread.
 
Cakewalk has provided us with the best (currently) avenue of bug fixes/updates. It so easy to take it or leave it. If you like updating each month (I do), GREAT! If that doesn't work for you, than DON'T! What's so hard about it? You're not going to miss out or get left behind with no way of catching up. When you're ready, just update to the latest version. Sonar isn't going to stop working because we don't update.
 
I know studio owners with a steady flow of clients, who are using a 10 year old version of a DAW, on a computer that's 3 or 4 generations behind. It hasn't slowed down their business or adversely effected their workflow.  If it works, it works!

One more comment. New features are often an investment. It's easy enough to say "I'm losing time learning this new feature" but if it saves you time long-term, then you've invested in a better experience going forward. Aux Tracks and Patch Points are a good example. I estimate it would take someone 30-60 minutes or so to figure them out. So have you lost an hour, or does the time that Aux Tracks and Patch Points save you in the future offset that hour by quite a bit?
 
Or...take a more mundane example, VoxTools. You might think "I don't want to spend the time learning what an FX Chain does." But if you spend 5 minutes to run through each of the modules, and realize that the de-plosive module is a drag-and-drop 5-second solution to get rid of plosives, that will also save you time going forward.
 
The concept that having new features slows down professionals has not proven true for me. My workflow with SONAR just keeps getting more and more efficient. Yes, I had to spend time learning the features, but it has been time well-spent.