RD9
Keep in mind, however, that CW's marketing department probably controls this issue now and a monthly payment gives CW a steady income stream that only takes $10 - $15 out of the customer's account rather than $30 - $45 every three months.

It would be interesting to know the proportion of owners who opt for the monthly payment plan.  Even if most people pay for 12 months at once income may still be evened out over the year(s) if some people wait a bit between 'subscriptions'.

microapp
+1 to quarterly updates.
Cubase just released 8.5 and their forum is full of the same complaints about unfixed bugs even though they release only 3 or 4 updates per year.

 
And that's it in a nutshell. You can release every four months and have to contend with four months of bugs all at once, or release every month and have one month of bugs to deal with all at once.
 
The bugs are going to happen no matter what. You can choose to regulate the dosage by how frequently you update.
 

I do not think in either CW's or SB's case the release model is the issue. I think it relates more to marketing philosophy and the need to attract as many new users as possible.

How soon we forget rhose pre-SONAR 2015 days, and all those who clamored for more frequent updates and bug fixes...

>> Cubase just released 8.5 and their forum is full of the same complaints about unfixed bugs

I had problems with Sonar X3 constantly hanging, just about every single project, and even when doing mundane things.  Eventually, with help from users on this forum, the culprit turned out to be Native Instruments Replika plug-in.  Fixed that and now everything is running smooth.
 
This was after I reinstalled X3 twice, updated video drivers, reinstalled my audio interface, just about everything short of reinstalling Windows, and it turns out it was one little plug-in.

Its a big misconception is that new features are the source of instability. In general this is not necessarily a fact. 
Very often new features are isolated from other features or build upon existing infrastructure. As such any bugs arising manifest in the new feature itself and NOT in pre-existing features.
Even in the case of a complex integrated feature like patch points there were very few bugs that affected other areas of the application - and this was during its development prior to release.
 
On the other hand I find bug fixes to existing features relatively more likely to introduce unwanted side effects. We regression test the heck out of these bugs when necessary (unless its a trivial fix) but despite our best intentions sometimes problems do indeed crop up and its unavoidable. This is not specific to Cakewalk by any means - all software companies face the same issues.
 
Relatively speaking in our new model the bug to fix ratio is really small compared to before when we released much bigger updates. Whenever we release a new update all eyes are on it and people report any problems found even if they are not specific to that update, so it may appear more problematic than it actually is...

Whilst I agree that the OP is experiencing issues probably unrelated to Sonar here (I strongly urge him to start a thread or something), I'm pretty gobsmacked at the number of people here who keep up with the roll back arguement as though it somehow eradicates all issues in a moment, and that somehow this is one size fits all solution suitable for all. The more I hear it the more I feel it's being used as an excuse, it's just a workaround facility after all. The out of the frying pan into the fire and beta tester arguement still exists and is not a figment of peoples imaginations.

A scheduled stability release (on some sort of cycle with post regression) will simply extinguish all those arguements and will send a pretty good message to people that they don't have to upgrade every month.

Anyway let's see what happens in December. Well I at least know what will happen now...So I am wearing a 64 bit precision bullet proof vest and a helmet.

Doktor Avalanche
Whilst I agree that the OP is experiencing issues probably unrelated to Sonar here (I strongly urge him to start a thread or something), I'm pretty gobsmacked at the number of people here who keep up with the roll back arguement as though it somehow eradicates all issues in a moment, and that somehow this is one size fits all solution suitable for all. The more I hear it the more I feel it's being used as an excuse, it's just a workaround facility after all. The out of the frying pan into the fire and beta tester arguement still exists and is not a figment of peoples imaginations.

A scheduled stability release (on some sort of cycle with post regression) will simply extinguish all those arguements and will send a pretty good message to people that they don't have to upgrade every month.

Anyway let's what happens in December. Well I at least know what will happen now...So I am wearing a bullet proof vest and a helmet.

kevinwal
Neil is saying that a scheduled stability release will not extinguish the arguments, and I agree with him.

I stated out of the frying pan into the fire and beta tester arguement still exists and is not a figment of peoples imaginations. This is a customer perception outside of software development.

Where is the quote from this 'Neil' person please....

'Neil is saying that a scheduled stability release will not extinguish the arguments,'

...This is a paraphrase. I'm not sure that statement exists please prove me wrong.

I see discussions around it from Noel but nothing really specifically related to this point IMHO. Considering I wrote my point afterwards hardly surprising either.

Midiboy

xwaveform
.. I have a Brand new computer  i7 processor  16 megs of ram thing of upgrading to 32  baaa blaa blaa

Assuming you meant 16 Gigs of RAM.    Sorry.  Someone had to. 

Yeah, it was going to me too! :D

 
First off thank you to almost everyone who chimed in. there was some useful stuff in there. I didn’t expect such a large conversation from a rant. A rant that was not “totally invalid”  I have used Cakewalk since it was a dos program so I do know my way around. And my statement that it is the most unproductive time I have ever had with cakewalk is true. Yes I realize there is always more to learn and I more than likely made mistakes myself however It was not “painless” I have rolled forward and back experimenting several times trying to figure what worked and what didn’t. Taking up much time I could have been working. My problems started when the only thing that changed was an update no other software or hardware changes and a simple “painless roll back” wasn’t so painless. You have no Idea what problems I had Vastman or the hours of “thinking” and troubleshooting I have worked on to fix this. I have no need or to desire to explain my reasons why or why not I decided to update something. I am not stupid as you insinuated. Talk about flaming arrgont incorrect attacks. I was not wrong I was stating something that happened to me. I have nothing to apologize for.
 
A program I have used for 20 some odd years has of late been giving me problems, more problems than in the past. This is a true statement about my experience is it really that difficult to see?
My title “No more monthly updates for me” Pretty freaking simple I am not going to update every month. how is that flaming or arrogant or incorrect. It was merely a statement And I clearly posted it was a “rant” which meant I was frustrated…  and was gonna to rant a little..
To which most people responded with a general yes we have been there we feel your pain or try this and some helpful hints. Most people did not attack me and call me arrogant and stupid. I personally thought your post Vastman was pretty rude and it was not shut down so I am responding once. Done
 
I thought it was nice Craig  Anderton replied he didn’t seem to take it personally. And I appreciate he took the time to reply. He is right as technology moves forward stuff like this will only get harder. I do appreciate the work the folks at cakewalk do. I haven’t stuck with them for 20+ years for nothing. And this is the first time I have ever posted a rant on here.. Im sure no one has ever don’t that before ;)
 Thank you to every one again for the ideas and help.. new ideas to research and try and stable for the moment
Joe

I am on Jamaica Plain for the moment. did some editing tonight and so far so good. there still is the crashing thing usually when opening files. but my audio is clean no pops. I can say that in the last month I read a thread about adjusting the amount of processors used i limit mine to 4 that helped a bunch of noise issues. reloaded basic video drivers. tried a different audio interface the list goes on.. it seems like there  are about 1000 places something can go wrong and give you hell. i have visited a few hundred of them maybe. and for now am stable.

Doktor Avalanche

I stated out of the frying pan into the fire and beta tester arguement still exists and is not a figment of peoples imaginations. This is a customer perception outside of software development.

Where is the quote from this 'Neil' person please....

'Neil is saying that a scheduled stability release will not extinguish the arguments,'

...This is a paraphrase. I'm not sure that statement exists please prove me wrong.

I see discussions around it from Noel but nothing really specifically related to this point IMHO. Considering I wrote my point afterwards hardly surprising either.

Yes, a paraphrase of a longer comment by Noel (I type too fast, I thought Noel and Neil came out, apologies Noel!) intended to let you know that the point you made had already been addressed. Here is the relevant quote from Noel:
 
"On the other hand I find bug fixes to existing features relatively more likely to introduce unwanted side effects."
 
which seems to answer fairly well a comment you made later in the thread:
 
"A scheduled stability release (on some sort of cycle with post regression) will simply extinguish all those arguements and will send a pretty good message to people that they don't have to upgrade every month."
 
I hope that clears things up for you. Damn me as a skeptic, but I'm quite certain you didn't really need the citation; you knew exactly what I was saying. You are, after all, a Doktor. 
 
All just my opinion. As I said, the monthly updates work very well for me, and I sympathize with those for whom it is a pain.

Vastman
This argument might hold water if rollbacks were not so painless....
 
THEY ARE FRIGGIN' PAINLESS!!@!@!!!!!@!@!@@!
 
IMO, this "rant" is totally invalid, has NOTHING to do with rolling updates and I just find it incredible that people cannot use their brains to decide simple things like:
 

• do I want to update this month?  yes/no   (please stop trying to take away my right to say "YES!" as updates are always fine on my system and you can say no!!!)
• "oh, i think there's a problem with this new update"... take 2 minutes and rollback and see if it's the update... yes/no... hmmmm... am I gonna be a helpful person and report it in the proper forum??? yes/no
• before ranting about how everything is cakewalk's fault... take a moment and check in here... usually they have nothing to do with Sonar/rolling updates.  
• apologize/change your flamingl, arrogant, and incorrect attack/headline/post when you're wrong...

Thanks, Dana! That's pretty much word for word what I was thinking as I was reading through this thread.
 
Cakewalk has provided us with the best (currently) avenue of bug fixes/updates. It so easy to take it or leave it. If you like updating each month (I do), GREAT! If that doesn't work for you, than DON'T! What's so hard about it? You're not going to miss out or get left behind with no way of catching up. When you're ready, just update to the latest version. Sonar isn't going to stop working because we don't update.
 
I know studio owners with a steady flow of clients, who are using a 10 year old version of a DAW, on a computer that's 3 or 4 generations behind. It hasn't slowed down their business or adversely effected their workflow.  If it works, it works!