Something has to be done about Delete Track function

Just my experience, but.........I have "never" had this happen. As soon as select a track, all others are deselected. Unless of course I am holding down a modifier key, like control on a PC.
I do delete tracks very often. Never any issues. I do not group tracks. Or anything like that. 
Hopefully others will have an answer for you. 
 
Also, I am not doubting you, just saying my experience in 20+ years of cakewalk|Sonar....I have never had tracks stay selected unless I wanted them to.

Go to the backup of your session players recording.

Hey Vladsyn. 
 
The select/delete behavior seems to be consistent for me. Here's how I see it:
 
1. Whichever Track number glows is always selected. If I hit delete,  that is where the deletion will happen. It I click on a clip in a different track, the track selection moves automatically.
 
2. If I change tracks by clicking anywhere in the Track name pane other than its track number, or use the up/down arrows or a control surface to make another track active (I may wish to make another midi track active to play a synth for example), I am only changing the active track. The track selection does not move. (This would seem to me to be the only way you could think sonar was deleting the wrong track, but it seems to me this is more user error than unintended behaviour. Maybe I am just used to its quirky ways:)
 
Try as I may I cannot make Sonar misquote the number of tracks it is going to delete, or delete anywhere but on the active track/s, and that is always indicated by the glowing track selection number/s.
 
In short, to select a track click on it's track number (or control click for multipes). Any deletion ALWAYS happens on the selected track/s and that is ALWAYS indicated by the glowing track number.

I agree with strat... Never had an issue with delete... It always says how many tracks are being deleted... Been using sonar since 4 or 5... After with tenfeet too.

I have been using  Deselect All for many years because I've had extra tracks get deleted in the past. 

its all about focus. you may have focus on a certain track, but have selected another.
focus and selection are 2 different animals. once you figure this out, you wont have this problem ever again.
but like Squirebum mentioned, you can always click "Shift-Ctrl-A" to deselect all, then simply drag to select or cntl select multiple tracks to make your selections.

I assume you mean 'delete the clips in a track'? I just right-click the clip then hit the Delete key or select delete from the right-click menu.

Bristol_Jonesey
I always, habitually do a ctrl + shift + a before I do ANYTHING involving copy, cut, paste, delete etc
 
Consequently, I've never lost a single thing whilst editing.

Yes. THIS^^^^
 
Ctrl + Alt + Shift should be absolutely ingrained into your workflow and muscle memory. Even when I am about to perform a function where it does not matter if multiple tracks/items/whatever are selected I still do it... EVERY... TIME. I even do it AFTER I've completed my move just so nothing is selected as I do other stuff JUST IN CASE.
 
It goes like this...
 
1) I'm about to do something that involves selecting 1 or more tracks/events.
 
2) I hit Ctrl + Shift + A to clear all selections in the project. Sometimes I'll even do it twice to make absolutely sure nothing is selected.
 
3) I will make my selections then DOUBLE CHECK the selections so ONLY the desired selections are made. note: sometimes I find when selecting a single item it will select other items. I think do to a double click being registered or something extending the selection.
 
4) Once I have confirmed ONLY the items I want selected are selected do I make my move. I double check to make sure what I wanted happened and nothing else was affected (by either playing back and/or giving the GUI a quick visual scan to see if anything is out of place)
 
5) I'll hit Ctrl + Shift + A again to clear the selection so as I move to other areas of the project and continue working those selected tracks/items don't get inadvertantly affected.
 
 
All of this happens VERY quickly because I just beat it into my brain looong ago to be ultra vigilant about my selection(s) status (I have created some VERY heinous problems for myself in the past due to unwanted selections). It's second nature now. Certainly not ALL of that is necessary every time BUT what it does is create a procedural "redundancy" whereby if I happen to forget to do one or multiple items in that procedure the chances of me having an unwanted selection are vastly reduced.
 
Essentially the little bit of extra time I spend constantly doing that (might add 1 second to each move I make at most) I potentially save myself minutes or even hours of time trying to figure how to fix a screwup.
 
It's the same reason my project folders are FILLED with dated and properly named "Save As" versions. I don't "Save As" after every move of course but after I've completed a series of moves and the task I set out to do is accomplished (eg: I record a bunch of guitar takes, "Save As 1". I edit/comp/flatten the takes, "Save As 2".
 
Also in BETWEEN those "Save As" actions I use the regular "Save" function in case of a Sonar crash. That way instead of losing everything backward to my last "Save As" I MIGHT be able to recover the project up until my last "Save" action.
 
Also remember that if you "seemingly" lose audio files from your project you may be able to retreive them from the project's "Audio" folder. If you have the "Per Project Audio Folder" option enabled then it'll be in the sub folder Sonar created for the project (simply called "Audio"). NOTE: The default setting is to use a "Global" audio folder which lumps ALL recorded audio from all projects into one folder. That SUCKS (and you'll see ONE of the reasons why  momentarily) so any newdudes/dudettes reading this change that IMMEDIATELY. They may have even made PPF the default now but if not they really should. It's a confusing and semi obscure setting/concept for beginners and I do not see ANY positive benefit of having a "Global" audio folder. Maybe it made things easier to delete when hard drive space was limited and expensive.
 
Anyway... if you lost an audio file look in that folder. They are just raw waves (or whatever format you chose Sonar to record to). They (IIRC) are named after the track they were recorded into with take numbers. HOWEVER I find the easiest way to retrieve those files (because there can be ALOT of them) is to sort the folder by "Date Created". If I remember the general date when I recorded the missing part I just scroll down and peruse the file names for that date(s). You can even listen to the files to make sure they are the one you want. Then just import the wav back into your project (hopefully into its original track and at it's original position... which is a good reason to ALWAYS have "Snap" enabled to at least something like 1/4 beat before positioning the "Now Time" before recording ANYTHING. It makes it MUCH easier to sync up the waves to the original project in these cases... if you don't have snap on then you have to totally line it up by ear which is time consuming).
 
Here's the thing though... I'm not entirely sure what Sonar's protocall is for saving audio files. I think under ideal conditions it is this...
 
1) You record a bunch of stuff. Those recordings are stored on your hardrive but "temporarily"
 
2) If you hit Save or Save As then those files get put into and remain in the project (or global) audio folder even after you close the program.
 
3) If you close the project WITHOUT saving then the recordings do not get saved anywhere on the system. So the "temporary" files that were created get deleted automagically when you close Sonar.
 
Now let's say you DELETE a track or clip in the project AFTER reopening the project (AFTER doing a Save or Save As in your previous session). Since the audio files were created AND saved and already present in the audio folder I think the action of deleting that Track/Clip in the new session (and afterward saving) the audio file(s) will remain in the Audio folder. They are just no longer referenced by the project but still exist on your hard drive (in the audio folder). So (if that's true and I'm pretty sure it is) then you can restore those files manually as I described above.
 
Keep in mind though that if you then did a Save As of that project to a new location (like an external drive) with the "Copy Audio With Project" (or whatever it is called) then THAT version of the project (the one where you deleted the tracks and didn't restore the audio somehow) would NOT drag the deleted audio from the original project's audio folder with it because the new project does not "reference" those audio clips anymore.
 
 
Alright... so I totally veered off topic there (kind of) but the way Sonar (and most audio programs) handle audio files was a TOTAL mind twister for me as a n00b so maybe my blatherings about this stuff will help others muscle through a little better and be able to recover from these types of seemingly "worst case scenarios".
 
Also I haven't been up here for a while. Been working hard on some toonage stuff.
 
Hope everyone is good and well.
 
Cheers.

Well the ONLY way I can make this delete error is if I select or activate a track and then right click in the project and INSERT track(s). In this case yes the track I selected first is "still selected" so If I delete one they are both deleted. 
 
But I never would do that. But I guess that"s just because of the way I work. For 20+ years. 
I never have run into a delete track issue. Just lucky I guess?
 

vladasyn
In older Sonar versions, the selected track was also turning different color (light gray)- this was very helpful to know for sure what track is selected. Now the only thing changes is the track name background color.

 
Use the Mercury theme (or any modification of it that doesn't change track header background), and uncheck "Show strip colors" in Preferences > Customization > Colors.
 

I don't know when the blue squares on track number was added to Sonar. I have to check older Sonar releases. I only care about track name background turning blue- this is old Sonar way to select track. This is what I am used to.

 
Track number selection and highlighting have been around since the early days of Cakewalk before SONAR or even Pro Audio. The highlight was originally yellow, and the function was called "Sticky Selection" because it allowed you to leave a track(s) selected while moving focus to another track. So far as I know, nothing has changed significantly in the way this works for years.
 
In any case, it is definitely possible to have the context menu show 'Delete Track' when one track is selected, and another is focused, even when using the context menu associated with one of the tracks, not just when right-clicking the empty area as Tak demonstrated. This issue goes back a while.
 
One way:
- Ctrl+Shift+A to de-select all.
- Select a clip in the currently focused track (track number highlights).
- Click the header of another track to move focus there without changing selection.
- Right-click in the header of either the focused or selected track.
- Choose 'Delete Track', and they'll both be gone.
 
+1 to always using Ctrl+Shift+A before selecting anything to be deleted.

+1 for Save As New Copy then close and reopen previous one after realizing a mistake was made.
 
someone did mention that, right?
 
But as was mentioned, deleting tracks does not delete the audio still residing in the Audio folder. Find it and reinsert it in the project.