I have been working on a project for the last three hours. Every time I made changes I would press save either via file or ctrl + S however the computer crashed and I pressed end task as the timer was spinning for a long time. When I went back into the project all my edited changes are gone zip zilch nothing. I was almost finished completing it. all the changes have been reset to what it was when I first started. This has never happened to me before the project is there but all the work I have been saving has vanished. Why, where can it be found???
 
Bemused cakewalk user

Yes. That will happen sometimes when only using "Save". That is why it is better to do a "Save As" for each significant project "milestone". Like you get your drums down, "Save As". You get your bass down "Save As". Etc.
 
Just using "Save" is hit or miss because if a crash occurs then SOMETIMES you can get your project back or at least to a certain point but IME you are just as likely to lose everything (mind you I haven't been in that position since X2 which taught me to be hyper vigilant about manual project versioning via Save As).
 
Also even if the project DOES survive something made it crash and I find those recovered project tend to be at least partially corrupt and will generally just keep crashing and getting buggier and buggier until they are useless. By going back to a stable Save As version you avoid that.
 
Now the "Auto Save" feature might work better because you can go back through auto saved versions to maybe get a version before the crash/corruption occurred but I've never enabled auto save. I'd rather do it myself so it's not some random save point I'm returning to and it doesn't sound quite as reliable as manual project versioning.
 
Yeesh... I'm back for an hour and endlessly prattling on about "Saving". lol
 
Oh well.
 
Also, check your project folder if you haven't already. Maybe there are some files in there you can recover. If you are using the "Start Screen" to access you projects be aware that it does not always display the most recent version of a project. You have to go to "File > Open" then navigate to the actual folder where the project is stored to find it. Essentially the "Recent Projects" thingie in the Start Screen (and in the RP section of the File menu) is unreliable. That's why I ALWAYS open directly from the ACTUAL project folder unless I am certain the Start Screen is displaying the project I want.
 
So yeah... get theee to your project folder. Your project may be there. Maybe not.
 
Cheers.

That sounds so hit and miss and probable but not probable project folder I shall go to and pray that it is there I put too much effort into it today for it to be gone...this has never happened before as I am so careful but obviously not careful enough
 

I use versioning (without auto-save).  That way I can go to the previous version file to recover if necessary.
 
Prefs > File > Advanced > Enable versioning ...
 
I have mine set to 9.  It's like Save As without extra folders.  Obviously Save As is the absolute safest.
 

dappa1
That sounds so hit and miss and probable but not probable project folder I shall go to and pray that it is there I put too much effort into it today for it to be gone...this has never happened before as I am so careful but obviously not careful enough
 

Well that's the thing with a "crash". The program stops working so it may or may not have the chance to properly Save to disk.
 
I know it seems dumb (and it is) that even if you Save that a snapshot of the project when it was last saved may not be fully preserved on disk but that simply seems to be the way it is. The only way to guarantee that snapshot will be there seems to be to either do a Save As (or I guess these days a Save Copy As... which might be a better option for you) or closing the project after a plain old "Save" action so when Sonar shuts down it properly saves to disk.
 
I am not sure WHY the simple act of keeping the project open after doing a simple Save sometimes loses those Saves and Cake should look into it if it is still occurring but I have moved waaaay beyond having to think about that stuff because X2 forced me to be a vigilant "Save As-er".
 
I simply haven't had these problems since I adopted this type of project management. It has been glorious. It also helps that Sonar has become pretty darn stable in recent years but still... I ain't taking the risk.
 
I think project versions are ultra tiny as far as disk space usage anyway so it's not like it really hurts anything to go apeballs on the versioning.
 
Anyhoosits... I hope you do find your project. Fingers crossed. I have a feeling it will be there.
 
If it is though... rememeber that "project corruption" thing I mentioned after a crash. I would take steps to migrate everything into a brand spankin' new project as best I can because really... once a project crashes once it (IME) is FAAAAR more likely to continue crashing and eventually fully corrupt. Moving everything to a new project (via manual exports/imports/Track and Bus Presets/etc) cleans the slate of any potential Sonar gremlins.
 
Good luck.

I went to the originally saved track and it is under revert the only thing is I'm missing is the plug ins so I will have to redo the harmonise again which is not so bad but atleast I still have it saved under a different name now but will see how it goes. Had a fortunate one there.

I've had this happen before.
For me, (after a crash) if I try to re-open the project from the "recently opened projects" list under FILE, i get the not-updated project.  However, if I select OPEN and go to the project file itself, it opens the most-recently saved version (can be validated by finding the 'modified date' field).
Seems to be related to the link in the dropdown not getting a chance to update itself due to the crash.

dappa1
I went to the originally saved track and it is under revert the only thing is I'm missing is the plug ins so I will have to redo the harmonise again which is not so bad but atleast I still have it saved under a different name now but will see how it goes. Had a fortunate one there.

Good. And what do you mean by "harmonise (sic)"? Did you lose actual audio tracks (like vocal harmonies)?
 
If so, and you Saved after recording the harmonies but before the crash those files may be in your project audio folder.
 
I'm not sure why your plugins wouldn't load. That's weird but it sounds like maybe one of the plugs you were using cause the crash so be careful with whatever plugs you loaded (or if another crash occurs opent he project in Sonar safe mode and go through the plugs to see what is causing the issue).
 
Whatevs... ITT you've likely learned to be paranoid enough that your life will get easier just for having lived through it.
 
lulz...

I use versioning. Set to 999.
And often came the day when I wanted to go back 10 days to copy an old recording into the current version.
It is also a good idea to backup the whole drive ** daily **. The best solution is a NAS-Server for daily backups and an automatic backup software.

Slugbaby
I've had this happen before.
For me, (after a crash) if I try to re-open the project from the "recently opened projects" list under FILE, i get the not-updated project.  However, if I select OPEN and go to the project file itself, it opens the most-recently saved version (can be validated by finding the 'modified date' field).
Seems to be related to the link in the dropdown not getting a chance to update itself due to the crash.

Howdy, Sluggo.
 
IME if I do my usual Save or Save As after a session, close Sonar then IMMEDIATELY shut down my system (which I do every night) then that version of the project does not appear in the Recent Projects menu(s). If I do my little save dance, walk away from the system for a while THEN come back later and shut down the project will usually appear in the RP lists.
 
I also have been experiencing an issue for the past couple years where if I shut down a project and try to reopen Sonar immediately it refuses to open. I have to wait for a certain period of time. The larger the project the longer I have to wait (max is maybe a minute).
 
All this leads me to presume that Sonar is not actually fully closed even though it's no longer on screen. It's doing some crud in the background (like saving data to disk). I'd bet if I could get the Task Manager open quick enough it would show Sonar still working.
 
Really though I just wait it out. It gets annoying but it's a minor annoyance.
 
Cake should definitely look into why this happens though because it gets reported quite often in various permutations of the issue. It used to blamed on M-Audio devices but I think something else is going on and those devices merely made the issue more noticeable.
 
Meh.
 
Cheers!!!!