Hi All,
 
First let me say I am a long time Sonar user (going right back to 12Tone Cakewalk ver3!) and I love this software but my recent instability problems have me going crazy!! - Maybe you guys can point me in the right direction.
 
Here's the thing though, I have so many new things in the chain that I don't know where to start looking to iron out the issues. I built a brand new PC for my Sonar rig a few months back using the latest and greatest components, I have a new Audio interface and obviously all my Software and plugins are newly installed, add to that the monthly updates from Cakewalk themselves and I have too many variables in the possibility chain.
 
The PC spec is as follows:
Asus Z270A motherboard
Intel i7 - 7700K - Running at stock speed of 4.2GHz
32Gb Corsair DDR4 memory (2x16Gb)
Gigabyte Nvidia GTX 1050Ti graphics adaptor
500Gb SSD system drive
500Gb SSD samples drive
2Tb 7200rpm HDD Projects drive
 
Audio interface - Audient iD14 via USB2
 
Sonar Platinum - fully updated
 
At first i thought the issue was with SampleTank 3 as it seemed when ever I pushed it a little I would get a crash of Sonar causing to to have to shut down. Then I got similar results in Kontakt. Now I am getting issues with things like VocalSync and even just adding the Adaptive limiter to one project made it crash and now that version of the project won't even load without going directly into a crash!!
 
HELP!!!! - This is not why I spent all that money specing and building a brand new PC! My 5 year old i7 lapto was pretty much rock solid unless I REALLY pushed it.
 
Where do I start guys??
 
Thanks in advance
 
Chris - SquareSpiral 

You say "recent instability problems" but it seems to coincide with your new build. Have you checked your dpc latency? http://www.resplendence.com/latencymon.
What operating system?

Hi Brando,
 
Well it is obviously to do with the new build but I am unsure where the issue(s) stem from from. I'm running Windows 10 Home. I can check this dpc latency you mention but dropouts are not the issue here - we are talking hard crashes of Sonar causing it to exit.
 
Chris 

I would also verify you are using usb 2 not 3. I would check/disable other audio sources - especially "HD audio" associated with HDMI audio. I see your audient is bus powered. Is there an ac adapter option?

Have you tried rebuilding aud.ini ?
 
Rename your current one aud1.ini or something like that and they let Sonar rebuild one.  That cured me some time ago.  
 
Jeff

SquareSpiral
Hi Brando,
 
Well it is obviously to do with the new build but I am unsure where the issue(s) stem from from. I'm running Windows 10 Home. I can check this dpc latency you mention but dropouts are not the issue here - we are talking hard crashes of Sonar causing it to exit.
 
Chris 

DPC latency isn't only about reducing/eliminating dropouts - it's system stability as well. It gauges how efficient your drivers are. But yes,  - if you can ascertain that SONAR crashes are attributable to a particular plugin only - then your problem is easy to solve. I didn't think this was the case. 
BTW - are you running SONAR as administrator?

Hi Brando,
Thanks for your help.
 
Ok - just to catch up:
The iD14 is attached to a USB2.0 port and is also running from its supplied AC adaptor.
Just checked through the additional audio devices (mostly mother board built in audio) which I thought I had disabled and found them all active! So I have now disabled all but the iD14 which is permanently connected.
 
Again I thought I had configured my shortcut to run as admin but alas that was also not the case! Now fixed.
 
As to the DPC monitor - i have it running but must confess I don;t really understand what I am looking at - Any pointers?

In a nutshell, if the application tells you your system should be capable of real time audio, at this point you should be fine. Later it is a useful tool for optimization. However, iF you are having a large number of hard page faults, you can track those down on the "Processes" tab. If there are any other problem areas, you can, for example, go to the driver tab and click on the top of the "highest execution (ms)" column - to see which driver file is consuming the greatest cycle time.
Can you load SONAR with a small basic project without a crash? Say a simple soft synth, single track? If so, I would run LatencyMon as a baseline without SONAR, and as well as with SONAR running with the project loaded.
What driver version are you using on your audient? If it's current, I would try rolling back one version, etc. If you still have access to the laptop, can you try the audient with it? IF you still have access to the laptop, have you tried it with the audient?
Usually motherboard audio devices are not a problem. I use my motherboard's audio for system sounds myself. It's the HDMI device which can create a conflict. 
 

Ok thanks.
 
Latency monitor seems happy enough with the system so far, and during the time I have had it running its not shown any hard page faults.
 
The thing is that the crashes are not consistent, so hard to pin down to any one source - My first suspect was ST3 but that soon became clear was not an isolated case. You have given me some food for thought and things to implement as a starting point so i will monitor further issues going forward.
 
Thanks again for your time - I will report back over time as to my progress
 
Cheers! 

Best of luck. You're right that intermittent crashes are the most challenging. Platinum is running extremely well here on a way old, far less capable system than yours. I routinely use tons of plugins and rarely (almost never) have crashes. I've completely eliminated 32 bit plugs, which would be another potential crash source.
Another potential may be sleep/power settings on your USB (should be high performance/never sleep).
Cheers