Vastman
Tom, have you checked your power line?  I had similar problems for years and it persisted even when I had a high quality power conditioner/back up power supply.  Since running a new line to my cottage chronic crashes are a thing of the past...

Regardless of whether the OP's issue relates to this, I would never run a computer without a UPS and that may be a reason why I don't have significant problems. I used to "fix" studios with ADAT problems simply by telling them to buy a UPS. All of a sudden their ADAT problems would disappear.

I have a UPS. I have replaced the box, the OS, and virtually everything that connects to it via USB over the last year, new keyboard controller, etc. It still happens even with no 3rdParty plugins loaded. It only happens when hitting play after doing MIDI edits. I've had it happen with no plugins loaded using an external synth and no audio tracks. It happens with TTS1. The only constant has been Sonar and active MIDI editing.

TomHelvey
It would be really cool to get to the bottom of this and pin the blame either on Cakewalk or my machine. Other than minor annoyances with the staff view, this is the only real issue I've had with Sonar. I just keep getting nailed by it.
Personally, I think Sonar has a bug, but I haven't been able to prove it yet. The golden rule is: "Thou shalt not crash".
 

I had this crash thing with Superior Drummer 2.4.1.
When loading user presets - it could either sound a bit funny - or just crash as soon as any sound were to be played.
So after contact with Toontrack we narrowed down to when sample rate for project were different than 44k, then it happended - and they could reproduce it.
So it's fixed now in 2.4.2.
Reason was that some code that initialized resampling engine, when running 48k - was not done properly.
 
When I troubleshot this in other daws, before talking to Toontrack, StudioOne just made funny noises after loading a preset, Cubase crashed right away, Mixcraft crashed mostly, but not every time, Sonar crashed mostly too.
 
So same error could manifest itself very differently in different daws.
And plugins are my main suspects most of the time.
 
And a general tip - remove fast boot from bios at startup - makes bios do a little better memory test.
I had this on my former daw, now work machine, the original memory strip gave up one day(well, it's 12 years old now). But I immediately got a message at boot telling errors at certain memory addressen and machine blocked those and I could start up normally almost.
That's a simple test that you can reverse again to fast boot if you feel boot takes too long.
 
And the usuall, graphics drivers - are they latest.

Is it standard (recommended) practice to shut down all programs on your computer running the daw....especially during recording? I personally do this (seemed logical....using LE5 on laptop....considering upgrade to latest Sonar in near future)...after I had a few hiccups at times...seems very stable now. I thought maybe this is along this discussion...I'm enjoying scrolling the info all over the forum and keeping key notes I think apply to my needs.....appreciate any feedback. thx ;-)

TomHelvey
I have a UPS. I have replaced the box, the OS, and virtually everything that connects to it via USB over the last year, new keyboard controller, etc. It still happens even with no 3rdParty plugins loaded. It only happens when hitting play after doing MIDI edits. I've had it happen with no plugins loaded using an external synth and no audio tracks. It happens with TTS1. The only constant has been Sonar and active MIDI editing.

I see you have MCU and other controllers. Have you changed them as well during the last year?
I have mentioned that in case you have not done that you, you should try to remove all Control Surfaces from configuration. They can freeze sonar easily. Even with no hardware connected.
 
When hitting Play with MIDI only tracks the events are sent to the MIDI output or VSTi. Think about what can be common in these tracks, editing procedure, etc. Folders, Bank/Patch setup on the track, Step editor was used, some usual/unusual operations in Piano Roll.
 
And just to exclude it, do you by chance always use lowest possible audio/MIDI buffer settings? Have you tried to set "Playback and recording" settings in Audio and MIDI sections to conservative values?
 

BASSJOKER
Is it standard (recommended) practice to shut down all programs on your computer running the daw....especially during recording? I personally do this (seemed logical....using LE5 on laptop....considering upgrade to latest Sonar in near future)...after I had a few hiccups at times...seems very stable now. I thought maybe this is along this discussion...I'm enjoying scrolling the info all over the forum and keeping key notes I think apply to my needs.....appreciate any feedback. thx ;-)

I'm really bad about having my trading platform stream live charts on my second monitor while I work with S-PlatD. 

Next time it WSOD's, start Task Manager and right-click on SONAR in the processes tab.  There should be an option there to generate a minidump file which the Bakers may be able to use to troubleshoot, along with your system info.
 

I am having the exact same experience with Platinum. Loads of wsod crashes when moving notes in midi intensive projects - once I render to audio solid as a rock. It seems to play particularly poorly with Sample Tank 3. I have reverted to working in X3 until all tracks are audio now. Fingers crossed for the next update!

tenfoot
I am having the exact same experience with Platinum. Loads of wsod crashes when moving notes in midi intensive projects - once I render to audio solid as a rock. It seems to play particularly poorly with Sample Tank 3. I have reverted to working in X3 until all tracks are audio now. Fingers crossed for the next update!

Just because it works in X3 doesn't mean we can assume it is a Platinum issue. Software is based on dependencies you are dealing with a moving target. Please try the following (at each stage test to see if it is working or not):
 
1) Update the plugin to the very latest version. Make sure you are running 64 bit.
2) Perform a VST reset.
3) Run Sonar as Administrator
4) Run windows update several times.
5) Update your device drivers and firmware everywhere, esp your audio interface.
 
I suggest a new thread if that doesn't sort it. Everybody has a specific issue, it generally isn't useful to taint all issues under the same umbrella.

TomHelvey
Audio driver is the current MOTU 424 PCI driver. The only 3rdParty plugin loaded is Trillian, everything else is std::issue Cakewalk (AD2, TTS1). Machine is optimized for audio following the Cakewalk recommendations. My box was pretty much state of the art when I built it less than a year ago. To be honest, I replaced my hardware partially as an attempt to resolve this issue.

Out of interest have you only tried this with the 424? I used the motu ultralite and the 828 and never found their drivers to be that stable. I switched over to a RME Fireface 400 just after it came out and I have not had any issues since. That unit is still going strong as we as the UFX I upgraded to a few years ago.