Have a 2 1/2 minute song, but the project is bout 8 min. long...how do I change the song length without shortening or otherwise changing the contents? Damn thing's got me baffled. Any help greatly appreciated.

dongreywolf
Have a 2 1/2 minute song, but the project is bout 8 min. long...how do I change the song length without shortening or otherwise changing the contents? Damn thing's got me baffled. Any help greatly appreciated.

Are you saying the song finishes at 2.5 minutes but the now marker continues moving for a further 5.5 minutes duration?

Can you find what data (in any) occupies the remaining 5 and a half minutes.  Can you select all and then check the event viewer for events that occur after the 2.5 minute mark?  Maybe a meter change, maybe a tempo change or an automation event that occurs after the 2.5 minute mark.

thx for the suggestion, I looked in the event mgr and it showed no events past the 2 min 20 time

It would be an event if your project has MIDI, or it could have actually recorded 8 minutes of audio on one of your tracks.  Look for automation envelope notes that are out to the 8 minute end.
 
Glen
 

Drag in the timeline from the intended end of the song to past the indicated end to define that as a region. Choose Cut Special and make sure everything is checked. Most of the time that will delete any stray events. The one exception I've found is if there are two automation nodes placed "on top" of each other; you have to track these down manually.
 
BTW this has come up before and people say "But I don't use automation." However, automation nodes exist whether you've added them or not because that's how SONAR knows how to recall fader positions and such.

This seems to be a common complaint and I believe a popular feature request to add an "END SONG" marker and be done with it. 
I think it happens when your recording audio, not midi, and forget to hit stop at the end, Sonar happily continues on.. I've gone for lunch and come back only to find a 30 minute track!!. 
I think I added a split and deleted the rest. 
 
I don't need the end of song marker because all my songs are toped and tailed in a Wave editor. But I can see it would be very popular with most users. 

you're right, found a couple of automation lanes...now how do I shorten them without starting over? Really appreciate the help

Right click the last node and delete it
 
Repeat as necessary for other nodes/envelopes

dragging in the timeline and using cut special didn't seem to do anything
 

deleted last nodes, lane shows a dotted line after the song,dotted line goes to the end