Possible fix for plugin settings not being saved?

I've been pretty vocal about my problems with Sonar obliterating plugin settings, having lost countless hours of work because of it. Recently it's been Waves Q10 EQ and Waves SSL Channel, although I've heard other people mention different plugins. I recently discovered that it does the same thing to FabFilter Pro-Q 2 as well - sometimes completely resetting the plugin, other times doing something like resetting my high and low pass filters while leaving the bells untouched. 
 
Now it didn't do this ALL the time - sometimes a project would load with all settings intact, but most of the time either all of the plugins or a select few of them would load without their settings. Because of this, it's really hard to pin down a cause (although I'm sure the Bakers could have figured out ways in which it could happen if they'd really pulled out all the stops). 
 
So I've tried various things without success but yesterday when I was racking my brain trying to think of ways in which Sonar could be telling these plugins to reset themselves (if that's what's happening as opposed to Sonar simply not saving the settings properly with the project file), it occurred to me on a whim that perhaps the problem is that these plugins are configured as tempo-based effects by default. I'm guessing that when they are configured so, Sonar will be passing data to them about the tempo and the song position, and perhaps somehow this data has been sent incorrectly or is ending up in places it shouldn't. 
 
This idea was partly fueled by someone else who was experiencing the same problem as I used to with the Quadcurve EQ, and he said that he actually saw it happen in real time when he was clicking to position the playhead in various places on the timeline. So there's one clue that playhead position data could be causing problems in plugins. 
 
Anyway I unchecked "configure as tempo-based effect" for FabFilter Pro-Q 2 last night, and I loaded a problematic project this morning and found that all of my Pro-Q's were intact with their settings left alone. Too early to say of course and I'll have to observe things more over the next few days but just wanted to report this slight glimmer of hope!

Cactus Music
 
I'm fighting with Air VST's not maintaining pre sets. 
I think I'll see if they have a forum.

I have found two sources of wisdom (ha!) regarding AIR plugins.
 
http://community.airmusictech.com/airmusictech
 
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=265
 
The former is moderated by staff from the company, that offers some how-to info, and there is some user to user help.
 
The latter does not have much traffic, but Simon Bangs, inMusic Brands, software Brand Manager occasionally checks in.
 
In either case, if you have a real technical issue or bug to report, you will usually get referred to tech support > http://airmusictech.com/support

Yup, that's a weird one Johnny!  I have not experienced the bug you have described, but I have heard at least one other user mention it, with patch selection being offset by one on recall.
 
My only thoughts are that the VST may be reacting to some MIDI event buried in the track events somewhere, but I dunno why that would be?

And I think that if that was the case, some VST plugins may be more receptive to stray data than others, so YMMV...

Well after a couple of hopeful days in which it looked like this "tempo based effect" thing might be a solution, it appears not. I just loaded a project in which all of my Pro-Q 2 plugins have been reset to default. I give up. Sonar is unusable. Whomever buys this thing has an uphill struggle on their hands. 

Basseman
HI:)
 
I found out that if you save a preset of a plugin, you have to save it twice for really saved.
If you just save it once, at next start your preset is not there anymore....
 
Bassman
 

Seriously?? That is one colossal issue. How did that go uncaught?

mettelus

Basseman
HI:)
 
I found out that if you save a preset of a plugin, you have to save it twice for really saved.
If you just save it once, at next start your preset is not there anymore....
 
Bassman
 

Seriously?? That is one colossal issue. How did that go uncaught?

Can’t say I’ve ever needed to save a preset two times to make it save and I have many saved plug in presets from many different vendors. Only time I’ve had issues with a preset is with the QC EQ.

I am still on Manchester / Win7 and tried out saving a few things but cannot replicate a preset not saving in the first go. I wonder if that may be from another version of SONAR, Win10, or something in the default paths set in SONAR prefs.

Basseman
... pressing Enter and after that "Save" for overwriting the just saved preset....

That's the way I've always saved presets and it's been fine.
 
As for the 'saving twice' method, could it be that the VST UI isn't updating the preset list ?, this would explain why the 'overwrite existing preset' notification appears on the second attempt. It would seem that the new preset exists, it's just not listed.

Basseman
HI:)
 
These Presets ar saved in:
 

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

 
I've tested it: 
Typed in a name for the preset, pressed Enter:
-->Not written in the registry yet
 
Saved the Project and Exited Sonar:
-->Not written in the registry yet
 
But after clicking on save it's there in the registrypath for this plugin!
 
So perhaps this is why it cannot be saved for only pressing Enter. 
 
Maybe this is the point, Sharke is loosing his Plugin Settings. He should try to save a preset for all plugins......
 
Bassman.
 

I do, but I have to load the preset for sometimes 50 or more tracks every time I load the project, so it's clearly not an acceptable workaround. In addition, I can't seem to use Sonar's preset saving for Pro-Q - I hit save and it says "overwrite existing preset and I say yes but nothing saves, no matter how many times I do it. So I save using Fabfilter's own preset saving mechanism.

On with my perpetual quest to make Sonar usable again. My latest "hunch" (if you can even call it that) is that perhaps this settings-destroying problem is somehow related to Sonar's ARA integration. I can't find the post now, but I have some vague memory of Noel saying that an earlier problem related to different plugins losing their settings (Native Instruments synths?) was an issue with ARA, and that a fix was rolled out. However, I'm perhaps only 50-60% sure of this. Maybe someone remembers. 
 
Anyway I'm in the middle of going over my most problematic project with a fine tooth comb to look for stray Melodyne clips. I have dozens of tracks that are archived and hidden, so it's a matter of unhiding them all one by one and checking them. I already found one, and deleting those clips caused Sonar to crash. This is in keeping with lots of stability issues and problems that I've had with Melodyne clips in the past (I logged a few bugs in this area). I don't think Sonar and ARA ever quite "got there" in terms of bugs and stability, so perhaps these clips are continuing to cause problems. I wouldn't have thought that Melodyne clips would affect plugin settings in a million years, but something Noel said stuck in my mind and hey it's worth a try. 

jackson white
What happens when you do a Mix Recall?

I don't know, I don't use Mix Recall. 

I've been revisiting old projects lately and have been shocked at how 'sloppy' I was at archiving things.
When a project loads up and it says 'transients being formed' I know I'm in for a surprise ;)
 
My only advice, working forward, could be to make detailed notes of your settings and freezing/bouncing tracks that you're happy with, then archiving the original with fx etc. noted somewhere safe. Process those stray Melodyne fx or drum replacers etc..
I used to take screen grabs of all the settings in fx chains that I was happy with for future reference as I was never sure they would stay the same. I've got gif files in my project folders showing all the fx open on each track. 
 
I know it's time consuming and shouldn't be necessary, but it's not like we have a choice these days!
 
BTW: I find that since Overload unlocked their fx, the Sonar preset fx chains containing their Breverb gets confused and will load with the reverb FX in default, losing any changes you may have made.

pwalpwal

sharke I wouldn't have thought that Melodyne clips would affect plugin settings in a million years, but something Noel said stuck in my mind and hey it's worth a try. 

http://forum.cakewalk.com/Waves-92-VST3-plugins-resetting-to-default-settings-after-saving-m2898482.aspx

You're obviously a better Googler than me!

I'm sure you're not imagining this :-)  More than annoying, I agree, but if "normal" usage is, as you say, 20-30 tracks, then large projects probably are the exceptional case...