Had I in front of me a button that, when pressed, would instantly incinerate all Cakewalk staff, it would require a monstrous feat of self control to refrain from slapping it ten times. Over the past three days, I have worked exclusively on a single orchestral composition, and in that time, I have made exactly zero progress due to Sonar falling apart over and over and over. In one day, I had five crashes which lost me several hours work -- well, actually one hour of work repeated five times. I am now auto saving every forty-five minutes, a safety measure which, itself, sometimes crashes Sonar.
 
I see posts where people complain about Sonar being buggy and replies from others who claim to have no problems. My guess is that the people with no problems are using relatively few tracks or samples as I, myself, have no problems in similar situations.
 
My latest crippling issue is that for some odd reason Sonar refuses to record expression (Ch. 11) data and inserts errant data into tracks arbitrarily. I called support about this, and the tech replied "yeah, that can happen. Don't know why." He advised me to delete the midi track and create a new one, which worked until the issue cropped up again. Now, I can't do anything without some track becoming similarly corrupted. The result is that I have close to zero control over balance, and my violins are launching a spiccatto insurrection against my solo soprano while the bass seems to always be announcing the imminent arrival of Jaws on stage.
 
Also, all my other lanes get changed and become uneditable. So channel 7, which I used initially to set volume is all out of whack and unchangeable. Also, key switches disappear and, in the case of my trumpets, linger from long ago and resist all attempts to eradicate them. (It's always a pleasant sound when a trumpet doubling a lilting soloist suddenly decides to start playing sforzandos with his tongue wagging out the bell of his horn.)
 
I'm using quite a few samples from East West, but my computer is nowhere near taxed. It seldom reaches over 60% cpu. My ram hovers around 50%, and all samples are on an SSD. I'm using legit plugins, i.e. not pirated, with a new Windows installation approximately one-week old. The only questionable thing I'm using is tencrazy's channel switcher, which covers a gaping hole in the functionality of Sonar.
If anyone has any advice that doesn't involve starting over yet again, I'd love to hear it. My suspicion is that Sonar just can't handle what I'm throwing at it or I'm missing something completely obvious.

Ha! Apparently articulations are profane.

WI typically use 100 or so tracks with dozens of fx and sometimes a score or more Synths (VSTIs) with generally no problems. On the rare occasion that problems occur it's invariably been tracked back to a plugin or some mixture of Windows and Sonar settings that have come into conflict.

Of the problems you see here many are due to user error as there are many new users with little experience here. Others come presenting errors and we collectively help them sort out the problems. There are also a lot of post enquiring of the best way to do something as there are many new features.

Certainly don't deny you're having problems but if you can be more specific about the process that brings them about, maybe we can help.

I'm in no way able to assist you, but I know that it would help those who might to know what version of Sonar you're running and if it's x86 or x64 version. Also, details about your interface and computer would likely be useful.
 
Also, are you manually editing midi data or using a keyboard controller? If the latter, you might want to consider increasing the midi buffer size in the preferences page, I've seen that recommendation before. A search on that topic might yield some benefit.
 
I am pretty appalled that tech support would actually say something like that to you without providing any kind of action plan to resolve your problems. Did they offer anything constructive?
 
 

You could help us by listing your entire system spec, configuration, interface etc.
 
I have absolutely no problem running EWQLSO Platinum in a 135 track project with multiple key switching drum maps, extensive use of Midi controllers and about seven instances of Play.
 
So from my experience, it ain't Sonar that's causing your problems.

I also more than anything suspect one plugin, or a couple in combination.
And systems specs and config of sample based plugins - all loaded into ram, reading streamed from disk etc.
 
If in Sonar, maybe autosave in bad moment is a suspect - to make that foolproof is really difficult with all in realtime that can go on.
I only do manual Ctrl S saves instead - frequently - and never while transport is running.
 
At least to narrow down I would take such precausions - insert/removal of plugins when stopped etc.
And if having ram enough - see to that all is preloaded and not streamed.

I have certainly had my share of mystery controller changes and key-switches being ignored.   Unfortunately haven't been able to pinpoint why and how, but I sympathize with your feelings.   In trying to adapt to Sonar (since it doesn't adapt very well to me) I've gotten more and more methodical to make sure my key strokes and mouse clicks are where I think they are ... unwanted track and clip and event selection, and unintended modification, are very very very frequent.  

Thanks for replying, guys/gals. To be fair, support actually did help me with the fix, as I said, creating a new midi track and dragging the clip to it. It's just that the problem is so common now and the fix doesn't always work.
 
I'll do my best to answer the questions asked of me.
 
System specs
AMD FX 8350
32 GB Ram
Samsung 500 GB SSD (latest series)
Toshiba 3TB 72k rpm Hard Disk (Not sure of the model)
Windows 8.1 auto-update turned on
Sonar Professional (whatever the latest update is)
EW Hollywood Strings/Woodwinds/Brass/Percussion Gold (using 9 multi-timbral instances of play, the string sections using tencrazy's channel switcher; and the brass, woodwinds and percussion using separate midi tracks for key switch patches on each instrument section)
Akai EWI 4000s
Akai Max25
 
I can provide any other info if needed.
 
I have successfully recorded automation with a controller previously. I have the Max25 programmed to control ch. 11 on the mod wheel. When the problem occurs expression registers during recording, i.e. I can see it forming in the track, but it doesn't stick. I also have ghostly expression tracks that appear for no reason as in this pic:
In the above picture, the instrument isn't even playing. I have no idea how the expression info got there. I cannot select the info to delete it, nor can I use the eraser to delete it. I can, however, adjust it manually, but because it's actually hundreds of signals, manual adjustment is not practical. I can sort of draw over it, but this results in one expression lane superimposed over another as in the following pic:
I'll include a screen of my Sonar in case someone spots something obvious in the settings. I know support mentioned enabling automation write, but I have been able to record previously with it off. And enabling it makes no difference with this issue.
 

I can confirm the picture you give of the controller ("one expression lane superimposed over the other", as you said).   I see that very frequently, and have never identified how to avoid it.   I usually fix it by re-selecting the appropriate controller using the selectors on the left in PRV controller pane. 

I tried closing the lane and opening it again as suggested, but it did not work. Here's a short video documenting the issue.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=be9dNswOldo