Hello everyone,
 
my name is Steffen, I am new here, this is my first post and I hope I do everything okay.
I am here because I am having major problems with my SONAR X3. Basically I can't work with it anymore because it either hangs or doesn't even start anymore.
It began a few months ago when it would more and more often just stop responding while I was working with it. If that happens I have to force SONAR to shut down. After such a hang and shut down the Audio driver is somewhat lost so that I have to restart the computer to get it back to normal.
 
That used to happen about once every hour or every two hours.
Then during the last few days or weeks it got worse and SONAR would often hang right from the start, immediately after opening a project, as soon as I made a first click anywhere. With that I often had to start and restart my computer a few time before I would finally get it to work.
 
And now yesterday I had again been going through different loops of starts and restarts and just wanted to try things and find solutions when I changed the driver setting from ASIO to WASAPI.
This caused another hang and made it all even worse because after that SONAR wouldn't even open a project anymore. It starts hanging when I click a project to open it. Afterwards, after shutting it down again it is not even possible to start SONAR at all.
 
So this is where I am standing now. I can't work with it at all and I am desperately searching for a fix.
I suppose this won't be done with a single step:
I will have to get it to start somehow to switch back to ASIO as this seems to have added to my problems. Then I will need to find out where the culprit lies, most probably I have to go through the different plugins and check if something is wrong with some of them.
 
So what I am planning is to start it in save mode (with SHIFT clicked) and then get into the settings. If this doesn't work I could try to open the AUD.ini file (which is the configuration file as I was told) and rename it or set it back to a previous state. Possibly this could be like a fresh start with settings back to standard (not sure, but hopefully it is!?).  Finally if none of that works I could set my whole operating system back to a previous state.
 
Please tell me what you think about my plans?
Has anyone had similiar problems before and found a solutions?
Any hints where such problems like occasional hangs do come from? I have a pretty fresh system with no other programs on it except for different VST plugins? 
Are plugins the typical cause for such problems and how can I go about it? Is there anything better that just deactivating all and then turn them on one by one, see what happens and hope to sort out the bad ones? Wouldn't it be possible to set up a save list of plugins that work. 
 
In short, you see I am having a problem here. So throw everything at me that could be of help. I am grateful for any kind of advice or hint.  
 
Thanks,
Steffen

Well, if you can launch Sonar, when the Quick Open dialog box pops up, just his Escape, to make it go away.
 
Then, you can hit 'P' for Preferences, and make adjustments to your settings.
 
Generally, plugins are at the heart of the kinds of issues you were having within projects, and more specifically, usually one or more 32-bit plugin might no longer work in a 64-bit install of Sonar.
 
Once you get into Preferences, I would suggest going back to a driver mode of ASIO, for whatever audio interface you are using.  You might need to uncheck your audio interface in Devices under Audio before it will let you change to ASIO driver mode (and click Apply after making that change).
 
In addition, you might consider a reset and FULL rescan of your plugins.
 
I would hope that the above would help get things working better.
 
I would also suggest you run Windows Update and apply all required/recommended maintenance until there is none left to install (you would need to keep going back to run Windows Update, install the patches, probably restart Windows, then repeat the cycle until it comes back with no more updates to install).
 
Once you get Windows maintenance up to current levels, you might also want to check to see if there are any updates to the drivers for your audio interface, and apply those if found.
 
The good news is that your issues would seem to be specific to your computer/environment, because that means that there isn't some big problem that everybody is crashing, so the issues are likely going to be able to be solved.  :)
 
Bob Bone
 

Just to confirm are you running the latest version of X3 - I think it revision e.

dwardzala
Just to confirm are you running the latest version of X3 - I think it revision e.

Yes, I installed SONARX3ePatch.exe about 2 or 3 months ago. I had minor problems before and was hoping this would solve it but that didn't change anything back then.

I tend to agree with robert on this one. In addition to searching for errant plugins, bump up the buffers in preferences, to give your processor and sound card a little "breathing room". If you have it set to a fairly low level( 64 or 32) try 128 or 256. You'll get some noticeable latency at those settings, but at least it should start up without immediately hanging up. That will give you a chance to fine tune our system a little more. 

It looks like you have tagged this as answered so hopefully all is good now. 
 
But to add a few things I would also recommend running Latency Mon and make sure your computer is not running background processes that are causing DPCL issues. This is often a problem when things grind to a halt. There are many of us who found disabling Video card audio or even on board audio solved issues with DPCL issues. Wireless is also well known to interfere. 
And as always make sure all drivers are up to date. 
 
You might also want to try a loop back test to see how good those Line 6 drivers are performing. 
http://forum.cakewalk.com/Lets-all-TEST-our-Interface-driver-for-offset-m3178396.aspx
 

Cactus Music
It looks like you have tagged this as answered so hopefully all is good now. 

I don't know. I didn't do anything, at least not consciously tag it as answered. So, I don't know, must have accidentially clicked somewhere.
BUT: It doesn't look so bad, see my replay to Bob.
 
Edit:
Now I figured where that "Answered" tag comes from. I replied to Dave's comment and clicked on "answer" thinking it meant I would directly respond that way. I corrected that now. 

@Bob:
Thanks man. Your tips have helped me a lot.
I followed your description starting with a check for Windows and soundcard updates. And in fact, my audio interface driver was outdated (it is a Line6 UX1). I never recognized that because I was always searching on the Line6  homepage for driver downloads (which I couldn't find and so I thought there weren't any) until finally I remembered that that is not the way to do it at all. They have that program "monkey" that does the checking and updating in case it is needed. My driver that was listed there was marked with a warning sign and such and didn't even have a version number. So I think/hope it was a real bad one and replacing it with an up-to-date driver could be a the solution or at least a big steps towards it.
 
Afterwards I opened SONAR. Here clicking "P" to get to the preferences and circumventing the risk of another hang by not opening a project in the first place also helped. I turned the driver setting back to ASIO and everything looked okay. Afterwards I was playing around with a project and it seemed to work smoothly and didn't crash for an hour or so. Then I left SONAR since I wanted leave with a positive vibe ;-) I will check more thoroughly later.
 
For now, I am quite positive that it could get back to normal.
So again thanks, also to Dave, orangesporanges and Johnny. I will have a closer look at your tips a little later.
 

Well, that IS good news - if it holds up that this has resolved your issues.
 
Please continue to test, and post back in a bit with either a confirmation that you are a happy camper now, or give and update with whatever new info you may have that we can use to dig in deeper to try to get things resolved for you.
 
I am personally rooting for things holding up in continued testing - meaning that this is resolved for you.
 
Fingers and toes crossed on your behalf, 
 
Bob Bone
 

YA , I bet you it's good to go now, drivers are the most critical part of this crazy stuff. 
I remember reading that line 6 had done some work on the drivers a few years back.