Oh Sonar, why do I love thee?

I think Sonar is a fantastic package. I spend all day every day at work sat in front of a Pro Tools rig doing lots of editing on high profile projects, but I'd take Sonar any day when it comes to music (Thanks Cakewalk for the keyboard shortcut templates!).
However, (and I realise this is also largely down to the way my PC is set up) Sonar crashes far more often than I think it probably should. When it crashes, it really crashes - it doesn't develop wierd little bugs that require a reboot like ProTools often does. However, I really wish it was just that little more stable! (again, I realise this is possibly to do with the way my system is set up)


Anyway, this time I saved my project, just before a crash (which incidentally happens every time I've been playing audio for more than about 5 mins - eg looping a section while changing settings). I rebooted, opened up the project, and after various plugins showed their loading screen, I get the message 'The file you are trying to open is not compatible with this version of SONAR'.

Obviously, this is not true. However, I tried loading up the autosave (created 1 minute before the saved file) and got exactly the same message. I tried disabling a load of plugins and reopening the file to no avail (it does come up with the 'plug-ins missing' window before the error message). This is pretty important - its a track from an album I'm mixing for a band, which might have an international release! Help!

Any ideas?

Mark

Tascam FW-1884 - Sonar 4PE - 3Ghz Athlon 64 - 1GB RAM

Dude.........a problem like this, and you're working on an international release??

I'll tell you right now, it's going take some time.

If it were me, I'd start with something I don't need right away. Open a blank project, then import all the audio from your last project. Audio only. arrange them how you need them, and start balancing levels, and setting up your panning. See if we can get past the five minute mark. If not, then you need to reduce the number of tracks till you can. We need to try to zero in on what's causing the problem, so we can fix it.

By the by, what kinda computer are you working on?? Home Grown, or Dell??

hi,
i don't know why .. but i've had the same thing happen to me. i think it
crashed while doing an autosave?
jeff

G'day markthomas,

2 things.

1: Autosave sucks....disable it.
Just press the save or save as button whenever you make a change.
2: SONAR is NOT unstable.
Your PC configuration (as it relates to SONAR) is unstable.

It can be quite tedious tracking down these problems.

You don't mention any system specs.
Any other programs running in the background?
What's running in the tray?

etc etc etc etc etc

I guess I'm just lucky then.

ORIGINAL: LoopJunkie

ORIGINAL: Sonic

I guess I'm just lucky then.

Usually I'm solid, too, but sometimes I can't refrain from using untested and sinister plugins.

I know what you mean. Some of these VST freebies I find are just TOO tempting. And sometimes they are VERY cool.


knocking on wood....

ORIGINAL: LoopJunkie
That's not really sound advice - Autosave saved me on numerous occasions when I did something really silly and crashed.

Oh well...it sucks for me.
It always seems to kick in at the most inopportune time.

I s'pose it depends on your way of working but I would always turn autosave off in any
program (musical or non musical).

I just don't like it as a concept.

I prefer to tell the computer when to do something,
not have it tell me.

hehehhe I always turn Autoplay CD (in XP) off as well.
Now that feature really sucks!
Lol.

Hey Mark,
I don't know if this will help you but here is a link to a thread that was posted on this board a couple of weeks that is related to one of the problems you were having:

http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.asp?m=482932&mpage=1&key=񽘔

So mark, how's it going??


You other guys, Is this the first time you've mentioned these "problems"??

Well thanks for all the helpful replies guys. Just to clear a few things up - I have quite a number of backups of this project - occasionally when I've relied on an autosave, an auto save of an autosave is created. Also I increment numbers (normally after every final mix revisit), but since I am still in the production stages of this particular track I haven't done many backups (Nothing like learning the hard way!).

All the audio is there, but I'd spent a lot of time editing to account for human error! The track is on about 45 channels of audio, with 5 soft synths running pads (some very large dimension patches - really need to get some more RAM...) and a bit of extra percussion. I've also done a lot of track organisation, splitting things up for verses, and choruses - track folders, lots of bussing, etc. And there were effects on most of the channels - all with non-preset settings. Basically it's a lot of work (although it only took a few hours, I *really* don't want to have to do it again, when there are still 6 tracks for the album I haven't touched with mid-September as a provisional glass master date...)

When I say international release, I think I'm overstating the project a bit - a few UK based labels have shown strong interest witgh a US distributor also in the mix. The project started out as something a lot smaller, but the first couple of finished tracks have been going down quite well!

Anway, technical stuff! My windows installation is very clean. I wipe my system partiotion every couple of months, and I use WinLite (theres a few threads about it on here I think) to install essentials only. There aren't that many processes running, and the audio is coming off a practically empty SATA drive. It should all run very well, and everything else I use the system for (which isn't a lot - mainly a little video editing) is very stable. I'm quite suspicious of the FW-1884 drivers. THere have been a few times where it's done some odd things. Running the Tascam SoftLCD program (which is compulsory when you're working with 60+ tracks and 15+ busses) can often cause the system to crash. I might try going back a version or two. Anyone else had problems with this? I'm looking forward to the 4.03 update!

In fact, I'm sure Sonar (admittidly V3) was much more stable when I used to use it with an old Soundblaster Card? MAybe I should try using that for mixdown, and just using the FW1884 as a control surface/midi interface?

I'm going to email Ron Kuper (I assume he's the best person to contact?) the file and see if it's rescuable. Whatever the problem is, it's the very last thing in the loading procedure that causes it, which gives me hope its rescuable (ie, the checksums and all that techy stuff are parsing ok).

Thanks for all your help guys!

Mark

Check your memory modules. Just a hunch.

ORIGINAL: markthomas

I think Sonar is a fantastic package. I spend all day every day at work sat in front of a Pro Tools rig doing lots of editing on high profile projects, but I'd take Sonar any day when it comes to music (Thanks Cakewalk for the keyboard shortcut templates!).
However, (and I realise this is also largely down to the way my PC is set up) Sonar crashes far more often than I think it probably should. When it crashes, it really crashes - it doesn't develop wierd little bugs that require a reboot like ProTools often does. However, I really wish it was just that little more stable! (again, I realise this is possibly to do with the way my system is set up)


Anyway, this time I saved my project, just before a crash (which incidentally happens every time I've been playing audio for more than about 5 mins - eg looping a section while changing settings). I rebooted, opened up the project, and after various plugins showed their loading screen, I get the message 'The file you are trying to open is not compatible with this version of SONAR'.

Obviously, this is not true. However, I tried loading up the autosave (created 1 minute before the saved file) and got exactly the same message. I tried disabling a load of plugins and reopening the file to no avail (it does come up with the 'plug-ins missing' window before the error message). This is pretty important - its a track from an album I'm mixing for a band, which might have an international release! Help!

Any ideas?

Mark

Tascam FW-1884 - Sonar 4PE - 3Ghz Athlon 64 - 1GB RAM

Where some folks need & use the Autosave Function, I've found as previously mentioned that it's best not to execute changes during Looping/& or Playback. When I 1st got into Sonar or Cakewalk (PA-9) & jumped to Sonar 2/then 2.2XL,,, the autosave function would make autosaves of the autosaves & upon Cakewalks suggestion, I switched that off & turned on Per Project Audio Folders & then as SteveD suggested, save at points where a substantial change or additional edits have occured then save incrementally ie--

Use project folders and make frequent saves to projects with a slightly different name (.i.e. "myproject01, myproject02, myproject03, etc.)

ORIGINAL: kp

And try not unsing WinLite in case it removes something that you actually need (but don't know about).

Check your memory modules. Just a hunch.

My system is stable... rock solid. However, I don't try to make change while looping.

All of these suggestions have worked very well for me & I've not lost any Data unless as Loop J said,,,, I did something stupid!!!

There's definitely a way to get your Puter more stable & Memory Sticks can & do go bad!! NC Wildman

Any suggestion on ways to check memory modules? Admittidly, since buying my current modules, a couple of months ago, the problem has got worse, but I checked them recently (can't remeber what with, but it wasn't memtest86) and they showed up fine. I'll run a memtest86 tonight.

Another thing that I thought may be causing the problem is processor overheating? My processor (Athlon 64 3Ghz) often runs at 55-58deg. Maybe I need a bigger better processor fan?

In response to thunderkyss, if you save a project with a different name, but in the same project folder, then it does not duplicate the audio files. This is very useful for saving several mixes of the same track, which you can open and compare. I now wish I did it a little more frequently!

ORIGINAL: SteveD

Auto-save is great. However, I recommend setting it to save after every 5 changes instead of every 5 minutes.

Hey that was a good idea, I thought, so I set my autosave up to to that. I had mine off but hit the ctrl-s on a regualr basis and save-as when I add something major, BUT while playing with envelopes last night that change number 5 came around and crashed SONAR 4PE. (only after the first five changes, now mind you) Just a quick digital stutter and then the message apologising for the inconveince,..

I've turned off auto save and will continue to ctrl-s

ORIGINAL: mark s

ORIGINAL: SteveD
Auto-save is great. However, I recommend setting it to save after every 5 changes instead of every 5 minutes.

Hey that was a good idea, I thought, so I set my autosave up to to that. I had mine off but hit the ctrl-s on a regualr basis and save-as when I add something major, BUT while playing with envelopes last night that change number 5 came around and crashed SONAR 4PE. (only after the first five changes, now mind you) Just a quick digital stutter and then the message apologising for the inconveince,..
I've turned off auto save and will continue to ctrl-s

And on some systems with XP SP2 and certain graphics hardware/drivers (like my ATI), you get a nasty "hiccup" in softsynth playback during Save, including Autosave. It drove me nuts (hiccup every 2 minutes) until I figured out that Autosave (actually, Save) was doing it.

The Save As... idea is a good one. Software developers (like me) use a versioning archive tool (RCS, PVCS, to name two) for this very purpose, so that you can save ("check in") different revisions of a file under the same name, and then recall ("check out") the versions as you need them. The revisions are saved with revision numbers, along with any descriptive notes about what you did in that revision. Heck, when I get down to mixing, I may just follow my own advice here...

BTW, there's an open-source (free) revisioning tool available at Sourceforge.net.

[Edited for typo. (Typing with a bandaged finger today.)]