I have one song “Only” that when I open it, it says it’s missing an audio file and it’s been replaced with silence. It’s only one track. After hitting skip. It opens the project. Nothing is missing, plays as it should.

I’m wanting to “save as” and rename. making sure I check copy all audio. It DOES NOT copy any audio at all to the new project.

Any ideas why this would be an isolated event?

Did you freeze or bounce any tracks to audio that you may have deleted ?
That's what typically sets off the "missing audio" pop up. (that or deleting .CWP audio files).
 
Here's what I would do,
I'd verify the audio tracks in my project are indeed audio tracks and not frozen synths/waveforms.
I would select all clips in every track and use the "Bounce to clips" function.
Then I would try the "Save as" again.

If I have an issue with audio files, then I always open "Project - Audio Files..." to check where they are stored (in the project, the general audio folder or in another project (can happen if you copy a project with save as ...)).

Actually that’s my problem.
I saved this project before I started saving all projects in their own folder.

I’ve been going through the projects that doesn’t have its own folder and “saving as” then “copy all audio” updating the name and deleting the old cwb files.

Honestly I’m scared to delete anything in that “audio folder” cause some audio files in that folder don’t even show the name of the project, only what I labeled the track as. It’s a cluster”” I plan to have All projects in their own folder. Then go to that folder labeled “audio” and deleting everything in it. That way I know by then everything’s been backed up.

Somehow, I created a template that saves every project in the same folder labeled “audio”.

Actually chuck, the whole project is frozen. Otherwise my computer wouldn’t export without crashing Sonar.
I may have deleted a frozen track that wasn’t need anymore without thinking, but it’s been some time since I’ve been in this project.
I think I’m gonna try the select all and bounce to tracks method that you mention. Hopefully that will work.

I was just trying to keep everything as it was when I mastered it so if I needed to update something down the line. Not sure why I would but you never know.

I do have a complete computer backup on my external hard drive that would probably open without the missing audio. But I’m not sure about that way of getting everything back and forth.

Also if some one could please explain, what is “pic cache” folder and why is it such a huge file? I see it has all projects in there, but it also has projects I’ve deleted.

Thanks guys for your help! I really appreciate it! This is the main reason I stayed with Sonar. A community of real people with curtesy that look out for one another!

stevetrusty11

Also if some one could please explain, what is “pic cache” folder and why is it such a huge file? I see it has all projects in there, but it also has projects I’ve deleted.

The picture cache is where all your wave form data is stored for quick recall of audio wave forms.
Every time sonar opens a project it loads audio files along with their wave form drawings.
the picture cache is where that wave form drawing is stored.
 
mine is over 600MB right now (over 100 projects loaded).
You can delete the files at anytime (not the folder though) but next time you open sonar the project might take a bit longer to load that's all.
 
Note: its a good idea to always keep the picture cache folder on the C:\ Drive (In the .CWP folder is where it is typically stored).

I have had projects, and currently have one I am working on intensively, where I get this same "missing audio - replaced with silence message" every time I open them.  In the past, I never figured out what was missing and there were no obvious dropouts.  At some point on the past projects, either after a clip-bounce or some other unknown action, the message disappeared.  That has not happened yet on the current project.
 
My solution/plan is to never delete audio files if I can help it.  Then if I find a drop-out or corrupted audio file, I can go back and try to use an earlier version of the track. 
 
Its a bit clumsy and my SSD doesn't really like it, but I still have my "Wavedata" folder and files dating back to the 1990's and my old projects still find and use them until I "save as" in their own new folder. 
 
 

I would just re-iterate Chucks advice above : Select tracks and BOUNCE TO CLIPS : not Bounce to tracks. Bouncing to clips resolves a lot of problems as it resolves a lot of extraneous file overhead. Each clip is a discrete and separate audio file. Bouncing them resolves the track to a single audio file. You can always break them up again for edits if needed.

Ok so I forgot to come back with the update. I found the problem finally.

I had a track that I “archived” pretty early in the recording process.

Along the way I deleted the audio from the track without “un archiving” or deleting the blank track.

After deleting the empty archived track I was then able to export with “save all audio” as it would not do before and I also stopped receiving the missing audio window when opening the project.

I found this by checking my back up hard drive for the missing track.. it wasn’t on there either so after viewing the project again looking for any abnormalities, that was the one.

Thank you guys for the help and sorry for such late reply.

I figured maybe answering this would help anyone having the same issue in the future.