So you're saying there's a display issue only when tracks height is minimized or very small? There's a known issue with waveform drawing where the project tempo is changing rapidly. Possibly this is another manifestation of that?
 
EDIT: BTW, "silence" is the lack of audible sound; that doesn't necessarily imply a lack of signal in the audio data. Given the minimal information provided, we all reasonably assumed the pictures were accurate, and "silence" was the audible result of how the file data were being processed.

I'll check out whether tempo changes have an effect ... I do use a lot of "drawn" tempos in the tempo track ...  just now downloading the Everett fix, to see if things are better with PRV & Controllers ..

brundlefly
So you're saying there's a display issue only when tracks height is minimized or very small? There's a known issue with waveform drawing where the project tempo is changing rapidly. Possibly this is another manifestation of that?

 
You nailed it again! 
Bounced a MIDI track without tempo changes and the waveform representation on a minimized track was a smooth line.
Added a ramped high resolution tempo change and the waveform looked just like the image in the OP.

Yes, confirmed too:  I deleted all tempo changes and got a smooth picture, zero line, same project, no difference in the audio at all.
 
My original tempo changes were not dramatic, but were 'drawn' in the tempo window ...
 
Bug, correct?
 

What happens if you right-click on the clip > associated audio files > recompute pictures after making the tempo changes? i'm not sure how to reproduce the issue, or I'd give it a try.

Well ... in this same project, it seems to slow everything display oriented to a crawl, and then shows the same picture ... adding injury to insult.     Now making a track larger/smaller takes a few seconds to display!   [edit] ok exaggeration, but a good 3/4 of a second to do a display thing that should be instant
 
 

williamcopper
Bug, correct?
 

 
Yes. Here's Dan Gonzales confirming the Bakers are aware of it:
 
     http://forum.cakewalk.com/FindPost/2904033
 

Yes, a bad one in some ways:   in an all-audio project, experimentally I deleted all tempo changes up to a point --- the project played flawlessly up to that point, then when the tempo changes began again, playback became weird, the display failed to keep up.    This is a project for which the tempo changes make no difference, it's all audio.    So yes I could delete all tempo changes, but it is one of a group that are all in sync by way of tempo change ... so I don't want to delete the tempo changes in the final mix!

Playback becomes audibly or just visually "weird"? I wouldn't worry about any visual weirdness if it sounds right. And I wouldn't expect removing tempo changes to cause problems unless you've altered the default clip time bases, (causing sync issues when tempos are deleted) or have stretching enabled on the audio.
 
 

maybe OT, but I find the way Sonar has an automation "dominate" everything else quite annoying. Once you have a automation line nothing in the clips can be touched/edited/changed etc...and if it is a Simple Instrument Track, you cannot even adjust gain.