Hello guys. my first post :) 
I have ran into the notorious audio engine has been stopped unexpectedly... ang generally stability issues. And its getting worse. Any input on how to understand this and fix it would be much appreciated.


I run:
Sonar Platiunom (latest updates)
Babyface (into USB 2.0 (changed from USB 3.0 which i think helped stability wise)
ASIO 512 samples
500 ms buffer in MIDI-playback
CPU: i7-3770
16 GB RAM
MS-7758 motherboard
Done most of the known Windos 10pro tweaks. (no real difference whether AVG is turned on or off performance wise) 
 
The stability issue is increasing when adding track lines. Right now im using a template with 22 Synths opened. I've put several of them offline (cant freeze when i dont have any MIDI). Just running 5-6 midi lines. All synths are Komplete kontrol, and one instance of Superior 2.0. CPU meter 14-18 %, HDD 13%, Memory 41 %. The point is its a light load on the system. Now im just doing playback and midi-editing, and I get the dreaded audio dropout all the time. In addition, sometimes a MIDI/Synth wlil go bananas, and play notes in wrong octave, be out of sync, be arpeggiated or all sound from the project just turn into buzzing... and will not behave normally until i restart Sonar. I just discovered "reset midi and audio", so perhaps when it happens again I dont have to exit Sonar. In addition I get serious lag when trying to start and stop playback with spacebar...
 
Soooo, thats about it. I now want to crush the machine, build a new DAW and forever delete Sonar.

Help would be appreciated, thanks
 
Edit: By the way, sopme of the Komplete kontrol instruments are arpeggiated fromthe kontrol vst

I used to get this a lot on my work PC. We were using the on-board graphics card. Once we upgraded that to a PCIe card the problems went away. Not saying this will help, but you may want to check that.
 
 

Hi, thanks for your suggestion. I forgot to mention it in my first post, but I run a GTX1060, so no onboard graphic processing.

Edit: double post

You said you are now using the USB 2.0 ports. Do you have a block diagram of the motherboard? Is this an Intel board with a Z77 chipset? It is possible the board does the USB hubbing on the main chipset vs. an actual USB root Hub. This can cause issues with bandwith hogging. I have a Gigabyte MOBO at home that is a Z77 and it gave me all kinds of USB and Sonar issues with Win 10 until I switched to a PCIe USB card.
 
 
 
 

The most common reason for the audio engine halting is buffer starvation, which happens when something is monopolizing the computer to the point where data isn't been fed into the buffers fast enough. Your search therefore needs to be directed at everything except SONAR.
 
When this happens and SONAR's CPU meter indicates a modest load, look at low-level stuff, in particular ISRs and DPCs. Start with latencymon. If you haven't used this tool before, here are some instructions. The ultimate culprit can be either software or hardware, so keep an open mind. A failing disk drive (or cable), bad memory or a flaky network adapter are the prime hardware suspects. If it's software, it's likely a driver (what new software have you installed lately?). A buggy plugin would be a longshot, but is easily tested by bypassing all effects and see if the problem goes away.
 
Or, you could crush the machine and take up a less-frustrating hobby, like hunting Sasquatch.

I would also get into device manager and look for additional audio devices that are enabled. Even if you have previously turned them off, windows can turn them back on. And of course wi-fi enabled on your system can also cause issues.

According to his OP a latency buffer of 512 should be fine unless it's a huge project. I found the manual for the MOBO and I still thinking it's a USB issue.
But it wouldn;t hurt to check the BIOS and see if things like Turbo Boost and Speed Step are disabled as well.
 

Ok, first of all, I love you guys. Thanks for taking your time and replying so quick! I can now put my axe down... 

Here is what I did (listed for future readers):


1: BIOS: Everything looked all right, that is, no OC etc etc.
- Problem persisted
 
2: Disabled all audiodevices in device manager (They were actually enabeled and I thought I allready done that. well well)
- Problem persisted
 
3: Ran Latency monitor while starting and stopping my project and got some interesting observations. While everything looked fine I still had ALOT of hard pagefaults. While Sonar in most cases was the culpit, I noticed some cases with Nvidea and Chrome. Looked in task manager and noticed several Nvidea and Chrome (32) (ahhhh!!) processes. I didnt need any of the Nvidea processes. Read somwhere that Chrome splits its plugs into different prosesses, which accounts for the multiple instances. These were running despite me closing chrome. 
 
4: Disabeled all Nvidea proceses in system.
- Problem persisted
 
5: Checked chrome version (Chrome://chrome). Discovered I had 32bit installed so installed 64 bit version. Voilà!
- Problem solved! (no funny audio, no dropouts, no crackling, no engine stop, no lagging, pure stability). Ive been trying to crash Sonar the last 30 minuts, but it works like a charm. I can run sonar with or without Chrome prosesses. I can go down to a buffer size of 48 Samples and (20 ms MIDI buffer). The cpu load 32-38%) gives crackling....

I dont know if there are any interaction-effects going on, but seriously suspect 32-bit Chrome giving me hell.

So thanks a bunch guys, you made my day!
 

BTW: On what cpu loads do you start noticing crackling. Im asking to see if I need to do some more tweaking.



 

Are you looking at the overall system performance for CPU or just audio processing. I normally run the CPU meter on the audio processing setting so I can't really say how much I can push my system at lower buffer settings.