I have to be honest, I was a little annoyed that the Bakers didn't go all out to fix this. I was always told that if I couldn't provide a recipe and if they couldn't replicate it on their end, then there was little they could do. But in my mind this problem was serious enough to warrant pulling the stops out - even if it only affects users who work on projects of a certain size or complexity, it's still a catastrophic bug which effectively makes the program useless for certain kinds of projects and that's not a good image for a DAW to have. I couldn't help feeling that the Bakers would know enough about how VST plugins are wired and receive messages from Sonar to be able to figure out a range of possible causes and work backwards from there. From my end, as a layperson who isn't intimately familiar with the code, all I can do is grope around in the dark and that's what I've been doing, without much success.  

For those who are interested, I seem to be having success with the problem of Sonar not saving plugin settings. At least I think I've narrowed down the cause a little bit. I'm now 90% certain it has something to do with Sonar's preset system, in that something has been causing Sonar to select a factory default preset, thus wiping out the saved settings. Previous to this, I'd been using the plugin's own preset saving mechanism to save presets in the manufacturer's own format, in my project folder. Doing this, I'd still open projects to find EQ settings hosed, but at least I was able to reload my settings from these saved presets. A huge pain to have to do this with dozens of tracks every time I loaded the project, but at least it got my settings back. 
 
Now I've switched to using Sonar's native preset mechanism instead, and in the couple of days I've been doing this, so far the projects have been loading with the settings intact. Of course this still isn't ideal because I'm going to end up with a preset menu full of 200 or so presets for each affected plugin by the time I get done with these projects (for the life of me I cannot figure out where these presets are stored). 
 
But anyway, it's definitely starting to look like this missing settings problem is related to Sonar's preset system. 

jackson white

sharke
(for the life of me I cannot figure out where these presets are stored). 

 
I assume you are clicking on the VST2 options in the title bar of the VST?
 
It should allow you to select a location for saving the preset. Mine are all saved to a VST preset folder which helps with migration to a different platform.
 
fwiw, I've occasionally noted some differences in mixes after reloading them, but not enough to track down the details to confirm if it's psycho-acoustics or software.

I'm putting them in the preset menu in the title bar, because I suspect that this bug involves something along the lines of Sonar reverting to the selected title bar menu preset instead of loading the state of the plugin that was saved with the project. For example, if I load a new instance of Waves Q10 EQ, it shows "Q10 Full Reset" as the preset in the title bar menu. This preset is basically all parameters reset to factory default. As I shape the EQ, the menu bar is of course still showing "Q10 Full Reset."
 
What I believe might have been happening is that Sonar was applying this menu preset to the plugin instead of applying the settings that were saved with the project. And indeed something is occasionally triggering this default preset during the course of working on the project, because I've had occasions where I've set an EQ up and found it reset later in the same session. 
 
Saving my own settings as a preset in the menu seems to have done the trick. If Sonar tries to apply the menu preset again, then it can go ahead because I already have my own preset selected in the menu. Any time I adjust an EQ, I simply click the "save" button in the title bar and it updates the preset - no need to bother with saving files and loading them again. I believe the menu presets are stored in the registry, although I'm not sure of this. Of course I may be totally deluded and open my projects tomorrow and see all of my EQ's flatlined again, but this is the most hopeful solution I've seen and so far it's worked.

I have not went throw corresponding sections of VST specification (yet) so the following in IMHO at the moment. But since I want restore FX presets saved in Sonar project in Reaper, I am slowly digging throw...
 
In Sonar presets are saved inside the registry (sometimes directly, sometimes pointing to file). Cakewalk Plug-in Manager can deal with the whole tree, including exporting/importing sets of presets for one or more plug-ins.
And now interesting part... for some plug-ins (I have no idea yet why for some and not for other), the whole bank of presets is also saved into the project. So in the project there is not just one "black box" for one plug-in instance, but a bank of "black boxes" with "current" pointer, for each plug-in instance. Obviously, the list can be the same or different from what registry currently has.
If I remember correctly, VST itself can work with banks. And so DAW<->VST conversation is no longer "get black box"+"set black box", but get/set/manipulate the lists of them, with names and indexes. When one side has incorrect imagination what other side is doing (and as with several other areas in VST specification, there is some "interpretation freedom" there), that can trigger problems you observe.
 
I guess I will be able to tell more once I manage to import. And we can check what is going on with concrete plug-ins in your concrete projects then...

Now I've switched to using Sonar's native preset mechanism instead, and in the couple of days I've been doing this, so far the projects have been loading with the settings intact. Of course this still isn't ideal because I'm going to end up with a preset menu full of 200 or so presets for each affected plugin by the time I get done with these projects (for the life of me I cannot figure out where these presets are stored).

 
Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Cakewalk Music Software\ActiveMovie\Presets\
 
Bassman.
 

I don't get it, the cw preset system always works for me, I type in the name that I want to save it as (usually ProjectName-TrackName) and hit the save icon twice, once to save it and the second time to overwrite it to make sure it was saved. Simply typing in the name and hitting enter does not save it.

 

chuckebaby

sharke
 
Sonar - still junk 

 
I am only a semi professional (hobbyist).. But I wouldn't use anything that was junk.
 
- No more fixes
- No more support
- No more development
 
Im using Studio one now. With that said, I miss Sonar. It does things that Studio one does not.
I had no problem dealing with its quirks in exchange for a great platform to create music.
But if I were losing presets and other issues, id be gone yesterday.

Like I've explained multiple times in different threads Chuck, I have a number of large, unfinished projects that are way too complicated in terms of track count, Fx chains, routing and automation to be transferred to another DAW. It would take me months. So until I get these finished (which is taking longer because of how poorly Sonar behaves with projects like this) then I am forced to struggle through, with all of the associated frustrations.

That can happen with things like auto-running LFOs in the plug-in changing parameter values (and hence the opened version is immediately out of sync). Not saying that's what is happening here, but it does happen (and is a PITA sometimes).

Unlikely :-)

What's really annoying about it is when it dirties a project and you wonder if you've actually made a change or not...

Another weird little clue just occured. I'm starting to think there may be more than one cause of Sonar messing with plugin settings. 
 
What happened was that I had a synth part running on loop in quite a large project. I then inserted an instance of Pro-Q onto the track, as the transport was running, and activated a high pass filter at 200Hz. Inserting plugins during a looped playback sometimes causes MIDI to go out of sync in large projects for me, and it did this time. So I stopped playback with the spacebar, and immediately hit space again to restart from the start of the loop. At the exact same time I did this, the high pass filter in Pro-Q jumped down to 30Hz in front of my eyes, without me touching it. I did the same actions again with the same results. I'll try and capture it in a screencast. I tried reproducing this in a fresh project but of course it didn't happen - so there must be some combination of conditions, which aren't present in a fresh project, which causes this nonsense to happen. 
 
I remain quite sure that certain actions cause Sonar to send errant automation data to plugins, and stopping or starting the transport seems to be one of them. Someone else reported that they saw the Quadcurve settings being messed with as they clicked the cursor back and forth to different locations in the clips pane. And finally there's this which I've posted before - evidence of Waves Q10 settings being messed with when turning the ProChannel on:
 

 

Well, perhaps the MIDI going out of sync isn't a crucial ingredient after all - now it's doing it if I insert the Pro-Q when the transport is stopped. As you see, as soon as I hit play, the same thing happens.