It's a new hard drive in a new computer. All I did was transfer the files over from the old drive. 
I know SSD's are fast but, the small capacity and price are limiting to me.
The audio drive is a brand new Seagate Barracuda 2 Tb.
 

rodreb
Please, correct me if any of this is wrong but, here are my thoughts so far....
Since Studio One works fine (very responsive, very fast) then how can it be my firewire card or my hard drives or any of the hardware??

I agree. You've got another DAW working fine with the same hardware, so the talk about "you need more RAM," "you need an SSD" is kinda....well, I'll leave it at that. If Cakewalk "needed" your computer to have an SSD or more than 16G of RAM to run smoothly I wouldn't even be here because I would consider such a program to be poop.
 
One of my computers is an aging Dell notebook with an i5, 5200RPM drive, and 4G of RAM, and Cakewalk runs just fine on it. My main system has 8G of RAM and at the moment my projects are on a 5200RPM drive, and I don't get the blue frisbee when I hit the start button. Your new system is a friggin' dreadnaught compared to mine.
 
You say that the problem started happening at a certain time on your old system, so it seems very likely that something changed in your configuration at that point.
 
Call it a hunch, but there's a page in Preferences called "Sync and Caching." I don't understand 90% of what it says on that page, but the words "pressing play in Cakewalk will" kinda jump out at me. Why don't you take a look at that and see if you or someone else poked around in there and checked the wrong box(es)?

There is not a lot on that particular setting, but is referenced in the manual:
 
"Enable Read Caching and Enable Write Caching. Choosing either of these options lets SONAR use the Windows disk cache while reading or writing audio data. SONAR will usually perform best with all caching disabled, which is the default setting. If your computer has an older IDE disk controller, or a disk controller that does not use DMA transfers, enabling caching may improve SONAR’s audio performance."
 
For your machine, this should not be required, but may link back in some way to the "migration" notice you were receiving earlier.

remember that with write-caching enabled, if you have a crash there's a chance your last save(s) haven't yet been flushed to the disk so you risk losing work
/fwiw

Pragi - Yes, I do have an Nvidia video card. What do you mean "a not actual driver"?

It is true that odd as it may seem, I have had DAW's act up in relation to what video card and/or driver I was using, so maybe check what nVidia driver you are using, the Microsoft-supplied one vs. the nVidia-supplied one?
 
If we figure it out, it surely needs to be reported to Bandlab. Because as noted, Studio One Pro works a treat on your system.
 
Chasing rainbows here. What about those other settings on the "sinkin' cash" page? Seems like if the wrong one were selected, Cakewalk could flail around trying to find a nonexistent clock source or whatever.
 
That stuff is over my head; I've always used either the internal clock from my interface or the clock from an Apogee A/D that my friend brought over, and that was handled in the PreSonus driver through the S/PDIF port. No SMPTE or MIDI clocking yet.

mettelus - I did a clean install of the Nvidia driver. It made no difference.

rodreb
Euthymia - I was messing around with different settings tonight and in Sync and Caching I checkmarked Enable Read Caching and Enable Write Caching and BOOM Cakewalk is running with almost no hesitation! I have always been under the impression that you should NOT enable these but, it has certainly helped in my case. It's not perfect, there is still an extremely slight pause when I hit play but, not much at all. (Still, Studio One has no hesitation at all but, I just cannot get comfortable with it).
Anyway, after I discovered this, I came here to post about it and found your post. You must have been reading my mind. Ha ha!
Now, I have no idea why this helped or if it's a horrible no-no to do and will mess something up or something?? I do know, it's making things useable for me.
If anyone knows what this setting does and why I seem to need it enabled, please, let me know. 

As I thought, the hesitation is when Sonar cues up the audio being played and for that an HDD is significantly worse than an SSD, especially when fragmented or in the latter part of its capacity.
 
It's not that Sonar NEEDS an SSD, but to run a system in 2018 without one is just silly.
 
R

rodreb
Of course I am aware of the benefits of an SSD but, I don't have one so, it's really kind of a moot point. My point is, this system, as is, should be capable of stable and responsive performance. I am just trying to track down and fix the issue at hand. The fact that it runs Studio One with great speed and responsiveness tells me there is no reason why I should not be able to get Cakewalk running equally as well. That said, at some point, if I can't get it figured out, my patience will run out and I will be forced to leave Cakewalk behind and try to learn to love Studio One. I really don't want to have to do that, though. I love Cakewalk and have logged so many years with it that I am totally comfortable with it. 

With all due respect, I don't believe you are aware of the real benefits because you wouldn't have the setup you do. I'm not familiar with Studio One's way of doing things, but believe me, cueing up playback of enough tracks streaming off an HDD will hinder performance on any DAW, no matter how fast the rest of the system.
 
Anyways, I never have any problems with responsiveness so if you want to ignore the advice and just dump Sonar for something that can be solved godspeed my friend!
 
R

I used to stream 20+ audio tracks off an EIDE HDD drive from CW ProAudio 9 through to Sonar 3.
 
From Sonar 5 up to Sonar X3 I was streaming 32 tracks on a SATA HDD without issue. I never had cause to try more, but I'm sure it would handle it.
 
Nowadays I use an SSD, which is obviously better, but a good SATA HDD is more than adequate.

I've been running 48k since the day I abandoned my ADAT XT's and switched to computer audio! Ha ha! I used to run 24 + tracks flawlessly on my old i5 with 8ghz RAM and SATA HDD's with tons of active plugins. 
This is what seems so odd to me. Something happened to cause me to suddenly get this problem at some point. I decided it must be because my computer was getting too old so, I bought a new, higher spec'd computer and, the problem is still there. And remember, this problem only seems to be affecting Cakewalk and previously Sonar Platinum. Now, as much as I want to say it's gotta be a problem with Cakewalk, that should mean that everyone should be seeing it as well. This is what has me so confused.
And, yes, I would love to have SSD's but, I don't and can't afford to go that route right now and, I know from past experience that SATA HDD's are more than capable of doing what I need when everything is working correctly.
FWIW, I just looked back on my forum posts and, this problem started for me in March of 2017

rodreb
Pragi - Yes, I do have an Nvidia video card. What do you mean "a not actual driver"?

Rod,
what I mean is an elder driver , a Nvidia driver which 
was developed 1 year or longer ago.
Often Nvidia drivers were the cause for issues with audio soft- and hardware.
I recommend installing the driver which was running flawless on your old system if it is
possible and you remember
or, if there is,
to try the onboard video card.
 
Sorry for my inconvenient way to express that. 
 
 

Last night I reformatted my audio drive then, transferred all my projects back onto it (again). Didn't help at all. Then I moved one project over to may C drive and loaded it into Cakewalk from there, to bypass the audio drive altogether. Didn't help at all.
I tried bypassing all effects and I tried loading a project in "safe mode" with no effects loaded. Didn't help at all. I watched Dave Molton's video on tweaking Windows 10 for DAW use and tried any of his tweaks that I hadn't already tried. Didn't help at all.
I saved all the tracks of a project as WAV files and loaded them into Studio One and, everything works perfectly. I even added a HUGE amount of plugins to each track in Studio One and still, not a hiccup.
I love Cakewalk and am not that fond of Studio One but, man, I'm just about at a dead end here. I am totally stumped.

I think the solution for you is clear. It's just a case of familiarity, the familiarity you have with SONAR/Cakewalk because you have used it for so long, and because of that familiarity you can do things quicker and easier, you've done the learning already, you know the workarounds to get around all the quirks and bugs within SONAR/Cakewalk. Give yourself the time get as comfortable with another product as you are with SONAR/Cakewalk, at least comfortable enough to do what you need without having to think about it, obviously you can't give it the same amount of time it has taken you to get as familiar and fluent with SONAR/Cakewalk as you have become, but enough time to get where you need to be, it really doesn't take that long if you apply yourself and let go of your bias's, and allow yourself to get past the frustrations of learning something new, forget your perceived loyalty to a product/company etc.
 
I put down a lot of the issues you see talked about to what I like to call "Cake Flake", you see it in many threads, for eg the recent "Can't writ, disk may be full" thread, this has been going on for years and years, it doesn't affect everyone, but enough to be a well known issue here, then you have things like project/file corruption, has been ongoing for many years, again doesn't affect everyone, you could go on and on, there are many many examples of "Cake Flake" and you don't see the issues with other products, draw your own conclusions. If it wasn't for being a Cakewalk?SONAR user since Pro Audio 9 up until about 3 years ago, I would never have known what an audio engine drop out was, has never happened to me with ANY other product, only Cakewalk/SONAR. You'll see many threads that repeat the same thing as you have said, that everything works fine with other DAW's but not Cakewalk/SONAR, again, draw your own conclusions.
 
I believe if you give another DAW an honest chance, forgetting your bias's, you love of Cakewalk etc etc, your perceived loyalty to a product/company, life will become much easier, it did for me 3 years ago, I knew the workarounds and everything to avoid many of the issues, but when I gave myself the chance to experience other products, and allowed myself to get past the problem of being familiar with Cakewalk/SONAR, the frustrations of learning something new, I saw for myself what it was that I had been putting up with for years, and it just isn't necessary. Maybe for you it could end up that it is worth it to stay with Cakewalk, and that's fine, at least you'll know if you give something else a good honest chance.
 
Every program has quirks and bugs, but in my experience, Cakewalk?SONAR has more than it's fair share, best of luck with your problems, hope you get it sorted out which ever way.
 
When considering given solutions, remember, it works fine with other products, it does not with Cakewalk/SONAR

rodreb
I've been running 48k since the day I abandoned my ADAT XT's and switched to computer audio! Ha ha! I used to run 24 + tracks flawlessly on my old i5 with 8ghz RAM and SATA HDD's with tons of active plugins. 
This is what seems so odd to me. Something happened to cause me to suddenly get this problem at some point.

Yes, it did, so you need to track down what it was, and it could be anything, and don't rule anything out.
 
I was a tech support dude for a long time. Settings do get "magically" altered without us, the users, ever going into the UI and changing them.
 
Did you try the suggestions I gave you, all of them?
 
There could be some other program on your computer that you don't know about that is popping in and switching your audio interface back to 44.1. That was my reason for having you check your Windows sound settings. Make sure that the Windows properties for your interface are set to 48K and that the box for "Allow applications to take exclusive control of this device" is checked. Also that all Windows sounds are turned off, etc. Check Device Manager.
 
Yes, I know ASIO is supposed to override all of that stuff. I also know that I can be running a session and if I forget to turn off my messaging program it will merrily pop up and go "ding." So much for taking full control.
 
And don't assume that since you already set all of that stuff up the right way 2 years ago and nobody else has had access to the computer and you don't download anything and it's not connected to the Internet or whatever that it's still set that way. I've gone into the Sound properties and found them set to 48K when I do all my stuff in 44.1K. Whatever, I set it back the right way and get recording.
 
If I start to have troubles, then I go through and check it all again.
 
Sometimes all it takes is playing one rough mix that a client has sent me in a different bitrate and oddball format and it opens in the wrong program and things get weird. iTunes is notorious for being "helpful" about changing my settings if they are not what it thinks are "correct."
 
I've even gone into the control panel for my Firepods and found their settings all ganked up when I never touched them. Who knows? Maybe some latency checking program I ran went in and messed with it. Who cares, set them back the right way and roll on.
 
Have you tried, as a troubleshooting experiment, switching over to your computer's onboard sound chip to see if your problem still happens when you use that?