I have changed nothing on my settings and I'm suddenly having huge issues with pops, crackles, etc and everytime I stop the playback the audio engine drops out. I thought that it might be the latency but I set it to every setting and although setting it higher helped a little with noise the audio engine was still dropping out when I stopped playback. I also tried archiving most of the tracks which again helped but didn't solve the problem. What I suspect it might be is that my Presonus Firebox is dying. I really hope not because that would be a financial stretch for me right now to replace it.  Otherwise I don't have a clue as to why I'm suddenly having all these problems. Any thoughts? I've included screen shots of everything. I'm using Platinum.
 
 
The last and highest latency setting I tried.

Have you considered using a sample rate lower than 96k?

benjaminfrog
Have you considered using a sample rate lower than 96k?

Yes. It automatically gets kicked back up to 96K

annifarkle

benjaminfrog
Have you considered using a sample rate lower than 96k?

Yes. It automatically gets kicked back up to 96K

Was this on an old project?

Have you tried to record a new project at 44.1K?

MarioD

annifarkle

benjaminfrog
Have you considered using a sample rate lower than 96k?

Yes. It automatically gets kicked back up to 96K

Was this on an old project?

Have you tried to record a new project at 44.1K?

No I haven't I will try it. I'll let you know what happens.

i concur on lowering your sample rate to 48kHz, though that won't be possible for projects that already have recorded audio in them at the higher rate. Going back and forth can be a pain, so if you have a lot of projects already done at 96k, you might want to stick with that. If and when the time comes that you want to change it, you'll probably need to change the rate in both the interface control panel (with SONAR shut down) and then in SONAR's audio preferences (default rate for new projects).
 
In any case, both your ASIO latency and disk I/O buffers seem exceptionally high unless your projects are really big. My Core 2 Duo laptop runs most projects quite well with the ASIO buffer at 960, and disk Playback buffer at 512kB. And the Input buffer can be a lot lower, like 128kB, if you're only ever recording 2-4 inputs.
 
But for issues that suddenly crop up with no config changes, especially if it's a laptop, I'd look for drivers being enabled that trash your DPC latency (e.g. wireless networking) or CPU performance being throttled down; whenever possible, laptops should always be plugged in with Power Management set to High Performance.

brundlefly
i concur on lowering your sample rate to 48kHz, though that won't be possible for projects that already have recorded audio in them at the higher rate. Going back and forth can be a pain, so if you have a lot of projects already done at 96k, you might want to stick with that. If and when the time comes that you want to change it, you'll probably need to change the rate in both the interface control panel (with SONAR shut down) and then in SONAR's audio preferences (default rate for new projects).
 
I opened an old project I recorded at 44K and it is stable. So if I erase all the audio from a project can I then reset the the sample rate to 44K? Most of my older projects thankfully are recorded at 44K. 
 
In any case, both your ASIO latency and disk I/O buffers seem exceptionally high unless your projects are really big. My Core 2 Duo laptop runs most projects quite well with the ASIO buffer at 960, and disk Playback buffer at 512kB. And the Input buffer can be a lot lower, like 128kB, if you're only ever recording 2-4 inputs.
I raised them because I kept getting a message from Melodyne that my Buffer size was too low. I've changed them back and We'll see what happens.
 
But for issues that suddenly crop up with no config changes, especially if it's a laptop, I'd look for drivers being enabled that trash your DPC latency (e.g. wireless networking) or CPU performance being throttled down; whenever possible, laptops should always be plugged in with Power Management set to High Performance.
If recording at 44K doesn't permanently solve it then I will look at that next. BTW I'm on a desktop not a laptop.

Thanks for all the help Guys!

Good drivers will allow SONAR to shift sample rate to conform to the project, so that is why it keeps jumping back up.
 
Bfly's point about "excessively high" is a good one, since extreme values in either direction can cause pops/crackles.
 
The only other things that stuck out is 1) can you lower the latency from 40ms in the FIREBOX UI? and 2) you do not have "Use ASIO Reported Latency checked. I am not sure if that checkbox is forcing the FIREBOX to a higher value on you (never tried that myself, but seems unlikely). The "issue" is the interface is sending SONAR an offset of 8364, but you are telling SONAR to use 0.

FWIW, unless you see (hear) an actual issue with Melodyne, blow off that message. There was a post long ago that it was a workaround during beta testing for an issue that has since been fixed. Adjust buffers based on performance.