John
I hate to break it to you all but Sonar will always have bugs. This is between you and me only. Don't spread it around.

Very true John, as does EVERY OTHER DAW.
 

John
I hate to break it to you all but Sonar will always have bugs. This is between you and me only. Don't spread it around.

Are you purposely trying to contribute nothing to this discussion? Because it's twice now!

Nothing like watering down threads with really obvious statements which we hear time in and time out, to detract from the actual topic. Gun owners might be familiar with the concept.

Anderton
You're forgetting that when doing the yearly releases, SONAR did have a reputation for being unreliable. Have you already forgotten about the shape X1 and X2 were in immediately upon their release? Or Alex's dozens of bug threads dominating the front page when X3 was released (which were one of the main reasons those bugs got fixed)?

Well, sure. I skipped X1 and X2 entirely, although that was as much to do with the fact that I had no interest in their headline new feature, the Skylight interface that I have mostly coerced back into looking like Sonar 8.5. But I digress.
 
But I was using earlier versions of Sonar regularly, and Cakewalk Pro Audio before that (and whatever they called the version before that which was MIDI only), and while there were certainly small problems, there was nothing on the scale of recent releases. Every version I installed up to 8.5 (and X3e after it) worked out of the box with the patches available online, with no workarounds needed.
 

Furthermore, there have been tons of posts from people who find Platinum much more stable than even X3. I am one of those

 
Credit where it's due, Sonar is now more stable than ever before, for me also. (Where 'ever before' means 'since Sonar 6' or thereabouts.) Crashes on shutdown, crashes on project load, hangs on saving... they're a thing of the past. But now it's features going wrong. MIDI notes disappearing, views strangely changing, drum maps ceasing to play anything back, etc.
 

Also I question your estimate of 25% of fixes in a release being devoted to fixing bugs caused by previous releases. I haven't seen that percentage is any of the bug release lists so far.

It wasn't meant to be an estimate, but an indication that (a) I am not going to be impressed with long lists of bug fixes if a bunch of them are bugs they only just introduced recently, and (b) I am not going to be impressed with any bug fixes if they're just adding new and different ones.

mudgel
(...cut a lot of irrelevant stuff...)

There's no point in blaming Cakewalk for the decision you make.

This is nothing to do with doing work for external clients or anything like that. The fact at the moment is: I pay for software, and the quality of the software in the areas that matter to me has dropped since the previous version. I am voicing my concern with that so that they are aware of my dissatisfaction. What they choose to do with the knowledge is up to them but there's no chance of anything happening if nobody speaks up.

If the arguments about needing longer testing and one month is not long enough too much pressure blah blah blah then Platinum Alston, the first release should have been the most stable because it had been worked on longer than a year. For that matter very programs first release should be its best, and we know that's not true.

No, because that is not how software development like this works. They don't write a whole new version of the software every month. Usually the software improves over a series of patches because gradually new bugs are found and removed. Each version has the benefit of the previous year (or whatever) of development, plus additional testing and maintenance. That's what we saw with X3 to X3e. Unfortunately, that's not what we seem to be seeing with Platinum - there might be some underlying quality measure that is going up but on the surface common features seem to be breaking more than before - features that have had many years of work on them such as drum maps. And that shouldn't be happening.

I don't think though the solution is to go back to X3 release cycle, the solution is to improve the exisiting monthly cycle to concentrate disruption in specific areas whilst improvements are made. And there's little doubt cakewalk's regression testing needs improvement looking at the recent and rather obvious drum map bug. All this is doable....

Kylotan
But I was using earlier versions of Sonar regularly, and Cakewalk Pro Audio before that (and whatever they called the version before that which was MIDI only), and while there were certainly small problems, there was nothing on the scale of recent releases.

 
It was a different and much simpler world in terms of the permutations and combinations of computer systems, additional software loaded on to hard drives, sizes of projects, hardware options, operating systems, shift in focus of computers and the experience computer manufacturers want to deliver to consumers, etc. As Noel has noted, changes in the Microsoft OS itself are what exposed issues in loading older 32-bit programs with BitBridge. No way BitBridge could have anticipated what changes Microsoft was going to make five or more years into the future. Apple deciding arbitrarily to change how FireWire worked is why some Universal Audio hardware products aren't compatible with the new cylinder Mac. So what do UA users with the new computers do? I guess spray paint the card, and put it up on their wall as artwork. 
 
I have said for years that depending on computers to create music will become only more complex and problematic in the years ahead, as system options continue to multiply on a seemingly exponential basis. Even a situation where a company like Apple - that has virtually unlimited resources and controls hardware (desktop OS and iOS devices), operating systems, and even the applications - has to do regular bug fixes. There have been a lot more bug fixes early on with iOS 8 than with iOS 7, and more with Yosemite than Mavericks. Get used to it...
 
This is why Cakewalk's decision to allow users to keep software and freeze their systems at whatever point they want was a brilliant, and I believe totally underappreciated, move because it recognizes that the computing environment is becoming more and more of a moving target. I use removable hard drives, and I have an XP hard drive that's loaded with things that no longer work with Windows 7. It would truly suck if those programs died and I had to keep paying renewal costs indefinitely to keep them going, only to find out at some point they simply would not work. I'm pretty sure than when Windows 10 comes out, I'm going to remove my Windows 7 drive, put it on the shelf for when it's needed, insert a fresh drive (BTW, don't research the latest figures on hard drive longevity if you want to sleep peacefully at night - the average drives lasts longer than ever, but early failures are more common than ever before), install Windows 10, install the latest version of SONAR and whatever will still work with 10, and carry on from there.
 
 

Look over there...

I'm sorry but what you're saying is not backed up by what's happening. Even the drum maps that you keep going on about are not broken as you suggest. There a one step work around.
I disagree that we're seeing anything different when it comes to testing, because we don't see the testing. All the emotion in this thread and ones like it is based on what people think, on speculation but not on what they know. I don't understand when people who are in the know explain thing and you still don't accept them. Well that's your choice, but the Sonar I use is very stable. I'm happy enough to work around any issues that are not yet fixed.

Everyone from Cakewlak who has contributed in this thread has acknowledged that it could be better and they're working at it very well in my experience. I'm sure they appreciate you pointing out problems as they arise. No doubt you fill in bug reports and problem reports in an effort to get things fixed.

Yup it's all hearsay! It doesn't exist!!! Look there's an albatross over there..!