I am working on a new project which is not all that complicated with minimum plugins etc., nothing I haven't worked on successfully before and nothing that my computer can't handle.
 
About a week ago while working on this project I started having an issue, which I have had on previous projects, where a loud pop would occur then white noise and I would be forced to reset my computer to get Sonar working again.  Eventually this problem became so frequent that I couldn't work for more than a few minutes without this error.
 
I started thinking it was my MOTU MK 3 interface (firewire) and I replaced it with a Focusrite Saffire 40 interface (firewire) and within a few minutes, I had the same issue - a loud POP then white noise and Sonar was unusable until I restarted my computer.
 
I took the firewire card out of my computer and replaced the Focusrite Saffire 40 with a Scarlett 18i20 (USB).  I was working in my new session and everything was ok for at least an hour when I had the POP then noise again!  I noticed that it was the sonar audio engine cutting in and out many times and when I would hit play everything would sound muffled and glitchy.  I quit out of Sonar and restarted the program (didn't have to reset) and it works again!
 
I am at a loss to figure out what the problem is - I have tried three audio interfaces (two firewire one USB) and I still have the same problem.  Could this be my project is corrupt in a weird way?  If so, how do I fix it?
 
Does anyone have any ideas?

If it's only the one project that does this then it does indicate a corrupted project file.
 
You can start Sonar fresh, load the project, immediately do a "save as" to a different name. This should sort any basic file system problems, assuming the project loaded correctly, but may not cure a corrupt project file.
If you have auto save enabled (you should...) you can try loading from that to see if it still crashes.
 
The next thing to check for is bad plugins. Start by disabling everything and gradually turn them back on until the problem occurs again.
 
Try recreating the project. Start from scratch and drag/drop the audio files from the media browser then add the plugins.  If you have a bad/corrupted plugin it will show up again... but you will be able to tell which one.

'Save as' probably won't do anything. You are probably better off saving as a bundle file and then opening this as a project again.

Plugin issue? A short cut would be to run Sonar initially in safe mode initially (so no plugins are working). That will confirm a plugin issue. 32 bit plugins are the first to look at if you have to reboot your PC to get it to work again.

http://www.cakewalk.com/D...roubleshooting.13.html

Please make sure you are on X3E and run windows update several times. Also run the Intel driver update utility if you are on Intel chipset.

Thanks

Thanks for the suggestions, I will try creating a bundle file and reopening that.
I don't use 32 bit plugins anymore and I'm using X3E.  I am fully up to date with Windows Updates.
It sure seems easy to corrupt projects in Sonar, if that's really the case, I really haven't done much with this project and it already seems to be corrupt.
 

Some people are lucky like that. They have a future in testing software. Many times I find I can break a piece of software and choose not to do so. In general corrupted projects are rare. If they happen to you frequently, it may be a good idea to turn on versioning and/or save as often. It may help you recover faster and assist you (and Cakewalk) in diagnosing the problem.

Project files should never just "get corrupted" so it's slightly disconcerting that this seems to be accepted as fairly normal?

It is not normal. That is why I suggested it rarely happens. But I am not sure anyone can say for certain how often it happens.

I see some posts suggesting it happens more often than it should... All these corrupted projects should be analysed by cake 🎂

A corrupted project may provide a clue to the cause. I would imagine Cakewalk support knows when they need a project to analyze. It would be up to the user to submit the problem report first though.

Of course :-)