Anderton

bgl1
It did not happen when Roland owned Cakewalk.

 
Not true at all. There was considerable dissatisfaction with Cakewalk support during the Roland era, as this article details (it's not a forum post or thread, it's an article from NJN Network and brings up some interesting points - like how Cakewalk should simply give up on free support and start charging). Consider yourself fortunate your problems were addressed. Or consider this thread from 2006. I was able to find these within seconds of asking Google; there are plenty more.
 
But it's not surprising. People have always complained about Cakewalk support, just as people complain about Native Instruments, Steinberg, Microsoft, Apple, and anyone else who makes software. There are even threads littering the internet that complain about Waves, which most people consider as having some of the best support around.
 
I could just as easily dredge up plenty of threads about Cakewalk support being helpful since Gibson acquired the company, like this one, this one, this one from two weeks ago, this one, this one, this one...and here's one that complains about Studio One support, praises Cakewalk support, and then pans Cakewalk support. Go figure. 
 
Of course there have been major/serious issues lately, but they're in the process of being fixed. You can't just snap your fingers and have fully trained employees answering questions about SONAR. But I've been tracking the progress in hiring because naturally, I too am concerned, and there are people being hired. There's not much else Cakewalk can do to improve support right now other than hire more people to provide it, so that's what they're doing (as well as working on the feedback portal). Meanwhile, issues are being solved...just not enough, and not fast enough. But this too shall pass. 
 
"Meanwhile, I'l remind everyone that Obedia.com provides excellent phone support for SONAR. You need to pay, but compared to just about any other company that charges per incident, their prices are extremely reasonable". Most importantly, they don't just support SONAR, they will find out what's wrong with your computer if that's where the problem lies. After all, you really can't expect Cakewalk to support products from (for example) Dell and Microsoft...yet some of the people who complain about Cakewalk support, as well as support from other DAW companies, expect exactly that. When I've had computer problems that affected SONAR (twice), Obedia solved them in under 15 minutes, which also improved the performance of programs other than SONAR.

that is all well and good but when the issue can only be resolved by speaking to people with access to your account it is beyond annoying when the only way i can resolve it is by continuing to pay for something that i no longer want updates for as i was happy with my product as it was!
The product i paid in installments for 14 months!
 
approaching 5 weeks now and still nothing at all from them . 

bgl1
To all of you who are offering advice for the problems I've experienced with Cakewalk Sonar Platinum:
 
1. I appreciate the desire to help me solve the 2 overarching problems that I've experienced. These are not obscure problems. They are much needed functions that are listed in the manual that are not working on my system. Asus laptop, Windows 8.1, 16gig RAM, i7 (3rd generation) processor, M-Audio Fast Track Pro set to Wave 16bit/44.1k, Sonar Platinum 22.7.0.
 
2. These are not problems that have not been addressed by Cakewalk Tech Support. They've logged into my system a few times in the late winter and early spring and never solved these issues. My sessions are rather large and full of synth and fx plugs. Using lanes helps but they suck up so much screen real estate that I really do want to be able to view automation without using lanes.
 
3. I can switch my view filter across multiple audio tracks but only one instrument track at a time. That is maddeningly inconvenient. I appreciate all the advice I've gotten from so many people over the years, but with my current "fat" sessions, some well needed AND PROMISED functionality has never worked for me...nor for Techs who've logged in tried it for themselves, AND, written up but never addressed these issues. I'm sure you understand my frustration. I've got more work to do and I've always gotten through with "work-arounds" and that's not right.
 
4. Mr. Anderton, I will never be your boss. Receiving good advice...fantastic. Bossing you....nope.
 
Bruce
 

Based on this description, that you CAN switch edit filters en masse as described in the manual for audio tracks but NOT on Instrument tracks, then this is NOT a technical support issue. It is a "Problem Reporter" issue.
 
So IF the edit filters on Quick Grouped Instrument tracks are indeed supposed to change simultaneously (I am not sure but yeah, I'd say they probably should and I would say this is a "bug") then the appropriate way to deal with it is to create a Problem Report and send it to Cake so the development team can add it to their list of things that need to be fixed.
 
When you called Cakewalk and they confirmed the issue though they likely create the Problem Report on their end and added it to the queue.
 
These Reports are NOT dealt with sequentially based on when the reports are received. There is a "triage" system so the most problematic bugs that are affecting the most amount of users get fast tracked to the top of the development team's to do list. Lower priority bugs stay in the queue until there is nothing more pressing to be fixed. Sometimes these issues stay there for YEARS because they affect so few people and/or although perhaps annoying (and in some cases EXTREMELY annoying) to specific users they aren't actually making it so important tasks simply cannot be done at all (eg: In this case sure, having to manually change each edit filter one at a time is time consuming but they are changing and the outcome is the same as if the Quick Grouping was working).
 
Many people here have sepent a LOT of time carefully putting together Problem Reports using the advised procedure. Usually it starts with posting (to this Sonar sub forum) a description of the problem, a list of steps to reproduce and then waiting for other people to test the issue to see if it is affecting everyone or if it is system specific. If it is confirmed then the next step is to create the official Problem Report and send it to Cakewalk. It gets added to the queue and that's that. It either gets fixed or it doesn't.
 
Keep in mind that...
 
a) Some issues that may seem very minor are actually a HUGE problem to fix. As in to correct the issue a whole swath of code needs to be dug into that could potentially break many MANY other things that would cause many MANY more problems for many MANY more users. That's why over the past few years Cakewalk has been progressively gutting out these old and busted chunks of code so they can fix things more easily/add previously impossible new features in the future without wreaking havoc on the program.
 
b) That Cakewalk is a smallish company with limited development resources. It ain't Microsoft with building full of code monkeys all slapping away day and night (and in MS's case screwing things up anyway... lol). Thus the triaging. Also Cake might receive a dozen or so reports of the same issue so it may seem like you are being ignored but it would be impractical to keep every single person reporting the same bug(s) completely in the loop as to the status of these issues. Nothing would get done.
 
So you can never know exactly what the hold up is on your own pet bug. What I CAN tell you is that since X2 I have personally had a whole slew of EXTREMELY problematic bugs (and some less catastrophic ones) slowly get fixed randomly over time. Seriously I was ready to jump ship near the end of the X2 cycle and was VERY upset (to the point of getting into some heated arguments with a couple Bakers here on the forum). These days the monthly eZines have a laundry list of issues that have been resolved since the last release (before you had to wait/hope for a quickfix patch or an entire year for a new version). Many of the problems are ANCIENT and some are new little things that have popped up during the current code cleanup/implementation of new features. Based on that I think Cake have gotten to a point where they aren't in constant "emergency" mode trying to stomp down really nasty bugs and are able to chip away at these smaller issues that have been piling up over the years. A very good sign IMO.
 
Now I am not trying to chastise or deride you. Just pointing out the realities of the situation so you don't continue to waste your time yelling at clouds (or at least yelling at the WRONG clouds) and don't antagonize the forum members who are willing to trip over themselves to help with whatever they can. Even the Bakers have a breaking point when it comes to the "squeaky wheelers" who refuse to understand what's going on (which is why I'm assuming they have not reached out to you based on this thread... at least not publicly).
 
Based on the info provided so far everything that can be done about your problems has been done. Now it's up to the development team and as noted they are likely busy with current projects/more important problem reports. Heck, they may even have this scheduled for repair in the near future BUT they simply cannot drop everything at the snap of yours (or anyone's) fingers to deal with issues the instant they are reported. They have a schedule.
 
The ONLY thing you can do at this point is make a choice for YOURSELF as to whether the issue(s) you are experiencing are "deal breakers" or decide to stick with it and use workarounds provided here or you concoct yourself. For example there are a whole SLEW of bugs that recently held me up on some work I've been doing. They were somewhat obscure but they actually made the work IMPOSSIBLE in Sonar after a certain point. So I simply figured out how to get that part of the project done in Reaper and then once completed moved everything back into Sonar. Annoying? Definitely but nothing is perfect so use what you got to git 'er dun.
 
As for the support issues I already stated my thoughts on that earlier. It is indeed a really ridiculous scenario but again there are ways to get help in the meantime.
 
You, my friend, however do not need tech support for the issues described. You need some patience and a willingness to accept and implement the workarounds suggested until development gets a chance to fix the problem (which could take years so better get started on those workarounds). Otherwise you just need to try another DAW that works how you like... but it is HIGHLY unlikely you will EVER find one that does all things exactly to your tastes/needs.
 
There is no perfect DAW. There is no perfect program.
 
Good luck and consider what I've said here. You will have a much easier time of things when you don't get too bogged down in the little annoyances.
 
Cheers.

Very well said Beepster 

As Mr. Anderton mentioned quite a few posts ago I should change the name from NO tech support, to woefully inadequate tech support. Is that even possible?
 
I've found many workarounds to keep going on these rather involved sessions.
 
A report was created in February and never updated nor addressed in any way. How long should I wait?
 
I am 1, quite frustrated at the predicaments I'm in, and 2, i'm appreciative of all the helpful advice that people offer, and 3, admittedly, I'm still not sure how long I should wait for these issues to get resolved.

I think this was answered a few weeks ago. They said they were hiring but training takes time.Give them a chance and if anyone has problems drop them here so we can all have a go at fixing them.

I will repeat myself:
 
I reported my 2 issues in the winter and they were never solved

bgl1
As Mr. Anderton mentioned quite a few posts ago I should change the name from NO tech support, to woefully inadequate tech support. Is that even possible?
 
I've found many workarounds to keep going on these rather involved sessions.
 
A report was created in February and never updated nor addressed in any way. How long should I wait?
 
I am 1, quite frustrated at the predicaments I'm in, and 2, i'm appreciative of all the helpful advice that people offer, and 3, admittedly, I'm still not sure how long I should wait for these issues to get resolved.

Hi again. To edit the thread title go to your original post in this thread. Look in the bottom right corner of that post and click the "Edit" button. This will allow you to edit your title and OP (this Edit button is on all of our posts too so you can edit any post at any time).
 
As for how long one has to wait for a problem report to actually be fixed in the program? I don't even think Cake could answer that. As I said it could be weeks, months, years or never. It all depends on what has been deemed most important/possible and once it hits development how long it takes to actually fix (and I'd imagine if the fix would be destructive the issue gets kick backed to the "to do" list).
 
Your best bet is to consider the answer to be "it will NEVER be fixed" (unless a Baker specifically states PUBLICALLY it is being fixed... and I don't mean a vague statement from a phone or email support guy... they're frontline).
 
That way if it gets fixed then it's happy days. If not you can figure out how you need to work around the deficiency or move on to another platform.
 
It's all about what you need and in this case how much faith you have in the product and the people producing it.
 
I wish there was a better answer but that's how she goes.
 
Cheers and good luck.

bgl1
As Mr. Anderton mentioned quite a few posts ago I should change the name from NO tech support, to woefully inadequate tech support. 

Hmmmmm.  Interesting interpretation of this:
 
 

Anderton
1. "NO MORE TECH SUPPORT FROM CAKEWALK" is false. People are getting support. The problem is there is more demand for support than people to fulfill those demands at this time. A correct thread title would be "NOT ENOUGH TECH SUPPORT FROM CAKEWALK." So, to restore balance in the Force, DO NOT PAY ANY MORE ATTENTION TO THE OP UNTIL HE CORRECTS HIS FALSE THREAD TITLE.

That's some creative licence right there:)

thanks beepster

If it helps, reading about the US Presidential election might make this seem less serious.