[SOLVED] Last couple of updates have made Sonar Platinum unusable for me

I'm getting constant dropouts in a project that was working fine till the last couple of updates.  68 stereo tracks no effects at all, simply audio.  Rolling back does no good, so I'm thinking the MS C++ Redistributable's were updated and may be the problem, but it's a PITA to reinstall the older versions.  Any one else having problems like this?
 
Edit:
http://forum.cakewalk.com/FindPost/3497601
 
Dan

As Rob says, all tracks with no processing....Sonar should be able to handle this fairly well. 
I would also look on the hardware side.

I've been having problems lately for some reason. Something isn't right. Might be that latest windows 10 update... It required my system to reboot three times during that update.

I was working on a relatively small project last night. Just six audio tracks, an instance if Pro-Q2 on each and one bus with breverb 2 and another with Timeless 2. That was it... No VSTi at all.

But I experienced an audio drop out.

CPU, according to the Sonar metre was at less than 5%

Definitely something weird going on...

Well I've been messing with this off and on all day and no luck.  What ever changed in/with Sonar it just won't play without this project without constant dropouts.  It's running the disk at 90+ percent.  I've loaded the exact same thing into brand X from the same drive and it plays without a hitch using 1-3% disk load.
 
 
As far as CPU meters they rarely show any activity at all on this particular project and when they do it's only a sliver of green shows.  The disk activity meter on the other hand is running in the red very high up to 99%.  Windows Update is not running/checking nor is anything else, Sonar is the only thing running and using the disk of any consequence.
 
I think this started with the Aug update 1, not the original Aug update or possibly the 2016.09 pre release. But as I said before rolling back does no good which is why I'm thinking it might be the C++ runtime update that seems to have been installed wiith the Sonar update. Nothing else has changed.  Even if Windows Update also did some updates that's not likely the problem or more people would be having problems, not too mention it's not like we have a choice any more.  I'm not going to stop updating Windows just so Sonar will behave...
 
I really hate to uninstall/reinstall everything but that's about all that's left to try.
 
Dan

dke
As far as CPU meters they rarely show any activity at all on this particular project and when they do it's only a sliver of green shows.  The disk activity meter on the other hand is running in the red very high up to 99%.  Windows Update is not running/checking nor is anything else, Sonar is the only thing running and using the disk of any consequence.
 
I think this started with the Aug update 1, not the original Aug update or possibly the 2016.09 pre release. But as I said before rolling back does no good which is why I'm thinking it might be the C++ runtime update that seems to have been installed wiith the Sonar update. Nothing else has changed.  Even if Windows Update also did some updates that's not likely the problem or more people would be having problems, not too mention it's not like we have a choice any more.  I'm not going to stop updating Windows just so Sonar will behave...
 
I really hate to uninstall/reinstall everything but that's about all that's left to try.
 
Dan

Hi Dan,
>>the disk activity meter on the other hand is running in the red very high up to 99%. 
 
You are sure you are looking at the disk activity and not the Disk space meter right? If so this will require some investigation because this surely the reason for your drop outs. Its not enough to compare with another application since you are not referencing the same files.
 
Here are some suggestions for troubleshooting it:
 
1. Click Ctrl-A to select all clips and then click shift-K to open the associated audio files dialog. In there look at all the file paths and the bit depths and see if they are expected. Are you referencing files on other drives, are the bit depths 24/32/64 etc? Too much 64 bit audio can put a strain on the system if your disk can't keep up.
 
2. Clear your picture cache folder open the project and let it finish rebuild. Now start playback and check if it changes the disk activity percentage?
 
3. Double check if the project was accidentally audio snapped or has a lot of region effects (melodyne).
 
4. As an experiment select all ctrl-a and copy and paste the audio tracks into a new blank project. Now start playback from there. Do you see the same activity?
 
5. Do some disk analysis on the drive where all the audio resides.
 
6. If you have a prior version of SONAR load the project there and compare performance.
 

Are you reading the wave files from a HDD or SSD? If a HDD even though you defragged, they may not be close to each other on the media so two things to try.

Save the project as a bundle file and launch it, this will often unpack the wavs close together.

Under Sync and Caching (advanced mode in preferences), bump up the disk I/O buffers to 512 at the bottom of that page. Do not confuse those with audio buffers, that is buffers on the disk itself.

mettelus
Are you reading the wave files from a HDD or SSD? If a HDD even though you defragged, they may not be close to each other on the media so two things to try.

Save the project as a bundle file and launch it, this will often unpack the wavs close together.

Under Sync and Caching (advanced mode in preferences), bump up the disk I/O buffers to 512 at the bottom of that page. Do not confuse those with audio buffers, that is buffers on the disk itself.

It's a Hybrid HDD, I've already tried the disk I/O buffers settings.  I've tried the bundle idea, as well as copying the project to another drive and trying it from there. Thanks for the suggestions though.
 
Dan

BobF
Also check out your system event log(s).  You might have a marginal drive.

I've checked them, nothing out of the ordinary.  As I've said I've tried different drives, the computer itself is only 6mos old.
 
Dan

Hybrid drives seem to be trouble.

Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk]
Any chance you can share the bundle file with us so we can look at it?

The tracks are all copyrighted commercial tracks so I can't share the bundle.
 
After uninstalling/reinstalling Sonar I can now get it to play through most times, disk load is still pretty high @ 50-75%.  I started with 2016.8.29 and went up.  Disk load is higher  with  2016.09.36, but still plays.  X3 was lower than both until I installed the latest Platinum, then it too has a higher disk load.
 
I don't know what else to try.  Fortunately it's not an really important project, basically just a Karaoke type of project I use for practice and it is playing now.  I just would have liked to figure out what changed that made it apparently a heavy load on the disk.  Watching the performance meter in Sonar and Windows it's never reading more than ~15MB/sec so it shouldn't really be hitting the disk that hard I would think, but the % meter shows a high activity percentage.
 
Dan 

dke
The tracks are all copyrighted commercial tracks so I can't share the bundle.

Copyright is about allowing the creator to control the means of distribution and compensation. However there are exceptions for usage that don't require permission from the rights holder, called Fair Use.
 
There are four main tests for fair use. Sending the bundle to Cakewalk for purposes of research and scholarship fall under fair use, as does the fact that it does not reduce the market value of the copyrighted work, and has no commercial purpose but is educational (i.e., learning why it doesn't work). The only test where it fails is the amount used in relation to the work as a whole (i.e., it's the whole work) but you don't have to meet four out of four requirements to fall under fair use if the other three tests are strong enough.
 
Although I'm not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV, given that the bundle would be used only for research and not distributed in any way nor placed in any context that would diminish the value of the work, I see no way that it wouldn't be considered Fair Use for Cakewalk to analyze the bundle to see why there's a technical problem.  

The first test would be to try it on a different PC with the same build of SONAR. If you have another PC to run the test you can do it yourself. If you still notice a performance issue on a different PC then we will need the file for troubleshooting. 

Import the song files, one at a time, into a new project. Make sure the stereo wave is imported into the new projects audio folder. Play the project after each import. Something is corrupt in the file.
Just my nickel 98...
T

DeeringAmps
Import the song files, one at a time, into a new project. Make sure the stereo wave is imported into the new projects audio folder. Play the project after each import. Something is corrupt in the file.
Just my nickel 98...
T

I've thought about doing that and may, but I've already spent a lot more time on this than I want too. :)
 
Dan