Troubleshooting Tip that Saved My Windows Sanity

I'm used to SONAR being rock solid. I hadn't used my music computer in a while, and last night I started having some major problems: SONAR would take forever to boot up, with frequent crashes upon opening. In the course of two hours and multiple reboots I never played one note of music. There was additional deterioration over time, until I could boot into Windows and although I could see the desktop, I couldn't open folders, open up the computer to look at the drives to back up files, open the task manager...nothing.
 
I figured maybe my hard drive was dying. I couldn't get into Safe Mode, couldn't recall a System Restore, doing advanced recovery stuff didn't work...nothing. I thought maybe I'd have to reset Windows and start all over. I went to sleep a very unhappy camper.
 
I woke up this morning and thought I'd try something that had worked in the past - turning on Windows and not touching anything for an hour, then coming back. Yup, blue screen. Windows had "collected data to deal with an error." When it was 100% complete, I rebooted.
 
BUT I had done something which in retrospect, was fortuitous: I had disconnected several USB devices "just in case," including my audio interfaces. Windows opened, so I immediately imaged the disk and set a new System Restore point. Yeah! So I reconnected my audio interface, and...
 
Same problem, same error collection. Turned off audio interface, re-booted. Windows opened. This time I checked Device Manager for Sound, Video, and Game controllers.
 
WTF? There was a Bluetooth hands-free audio driver, the AMD HD Audio driver I'd turned off because it screwed things up had been turned back on, there was something called Magic Sound (the name itself is scary), and the Chromecast dongles for both my living room and bedroom TVs had their own drivers.
 
I disabled all of it. SONAR is now loading quickly, not crashing, and super-happy.
 
I think what I learned is this: Drivers ARE a major source of issues. After a Windows update, turn off your real audio interface(s), turn on the computer, go into Device Manager, turn off all the crap that Windows put in, re-boot, hook up your audio interface(s)...live happily every after. At least that's what happened with me. I hope this helps you.

I hate it when things turn back on without me knowing it.

I had a similar experience when the Windows 10 "Developer Edition" was installed, I kept putting it off until I had to, ultimately I had to go into RegEdit (other than the standard off/on options) and Bios, didn't take to long it was just a bit of an inconvenience, the programming was to profile operations and to enable options that I was not interested in.
 
Good to hear that your system is back in order.

I believe this is a "feature" of any Win 10 installation.
 
In Win 7 and prior, if you disable anything, it stays disabled.

MANTRASKY
I had a similar experience when the Windows 10 "Developer Edition" was installed, I kept putting it off until I had to, ultimately I had to go into RegEdit (other than the standard off/on options) and Bios, didn't take to long it was just a bit of an inconvenience, the programming was to profile operations and to enable options that I was not interested in.
 
Good to hear that your system is back in order.

For us less technically savvy users, could you describe the steps need to achieve this?
 
Cheers
 

That sucks, and glad you were able to solve it. Are audio companies at least bending Microsoft's ear about this? A friend of mine works for a rival daw company, and states that Win 10 has given them more trouble than any version of Windows since Vista. He likened it to "playing chess while the board changes beneath you".
 
Except for a three month excursion into Windows 10, I've been on Windows 7 since release. During that time, I've never had anything that I'd disable become re-enabled by an update. Ever. It was continually happening on Windows 10, and one reason why I'm collecting components to upgrade my machine. I will NEVER move to Win 10 as long as the current model continues. Microsoft would rather hijack your computer and force updates on you than let you keep it the way you want, and I don't want that kind of control forced on me. Even when disconnected from the internet, it still enabled and quarantined things without my permission. There are several daws that run on Linux now, along with the stalwart trackers and audio editors that have for years. Seriously considering this as a future option. 

I don't think they do it to be mean.

The auto discovery is a help in most cases for most people. Marking things to not be rediscovered is an unusual need that we have. Perhaps they week grow into it.

In some cases, when the model changes, the need for rediscovery of hardware helps. It is sometimes described as a volatile region on the other side if the hardware abstraction layer. This is abstraction layer is sometimes useful for helping enable a wide range of hardware vendors.

In our case, it endangers stability.

https://en.m.wikipedia.or..ki/Hardware_abstraction

Since Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008, the HAL used is automatically determined during startup.

Anderton
I'm used to SONAR being rock solid. I hadn't used my music computer in a while, and last night I started having some major problems: SONAR would take forever to boot up, with frequent crashes upon opening. In the course of two hours and multiple reboots I never played one note of music. There was additional deterioration over time, until I could boot into Windows and although I could see the desktop, I couldn't open folders, open up the computer to look at the drives to back up files, open the task manager...nothing.
 
I figured maybe my hard drive was dying. I couldn't get into Safe Mode, couldn't recall a System Restore, doing advanced recovery stuff didn't work...nothing. I thought maybe I'd have to reset Windows and start all over. I went to sleep a very unhappy camper.
 
I woke up this morning and thought I'd try something that had worked in the past - turning on Windows and not touching anything for an hour, then coming back. Yup, blue screen. Windows had "collected data to deal with an error." When it was 100% complete, I rebooted.
 
BUT I had done something which in retrospect, was fortuitous: I had disconnected several USB devices "just in case," including my audio interfaces. Windows opened, so I immediately imaged the disk and set a new System Restore point. Yeah! So I reconnected my audio interface, and...
 
Same problem, same error collection. Turned off audio interface, re-booted. Windows opened. This time I checked Device Manager for Sound, Video, and Game controllers.
 
WTF? There was a Bluetooth hands-free audio driver, the AMD HD Audio driver I'd turned off because it screwed things up had been turned back on, there was something called Magic Sound (the name itself is scary), and the Chromecast dongles for both my living room and bedroom TVs had their own drivers.
 
I disabled all of it. SONAR is now loading quickly, not crashing, and super-happy.
 
I think what I learned is this: Drivers ARE a major source of issues. After a Windows update, turn off your real audio interface(s), turn on the computer, go into Device Manager, turn off all the crap that Windows put in, re-boot, hook up your audio interface(s)...live happily every after. At least that's what happened with me. I hope this helps you.

Hi Craig.
I noticed Magic Sound and after reading this I turned off my interface and uninstalled Magic Sound, however IO don't see any Bluetooth. Is there anything you can point me to? IO really don't need any more difficulties right now, lol.
TY.
Julien

11Dreams
As far as running slow after not using the system for sometime, updates and virus software as well as auto defrag (Windows default) will all give the illusion of a slow system when they are updating and defragging. 

I'm aware of those, and if the system was just slow, that would be one thing. But when I couldn't access anything on the desktop or even open the Start menu after 30 minutes, that was definitely out of the ordinary!

Anderton

11Dreams
As far as running slow after not using the system for sometime, updates and virus software as well as auto defrag (Windows default) will all give the illusion of a slow system when they are updating and defragging. 

I'm aware of those, and if the system was just slow, that would be one thing. But when I couldn't access anything on the desktop or even open the Start menu after 30 minutes, that was definitely out of the ordinary!

Yea, but I can't see anything that you did that caused and fixed the problem. Did you check your BIOS to see if it had changed from your user setting? Did your boot order change? You said you unplugged USB devices. Have you plugged them all back in and rebooted? Are you using a USB hub? I get that when you unplugged all the USB stuff and that windows took over and reactivated a bunch of crap in your Device Manager. But you where able to boot to get to that point after unplugging the USB device. Seems all that's left is something to do with the USB interaction with you computer. Are you using an AZUS motherboard? I'm not asking to be a butthead or anything. I've had the same types of issues... well not to a blue screen. I haven't seen one of those since Win 98. lol.... you're not using windows 98 are you? lol ;) You really didn't say what OS you're using. :) My point is, I don't think you fixed the problem... yet... and like I said, you didn't really do anything that would fix the halting of your system from starting or bringing up a blue screen. No offence... Peace!

 witnesses...eh?...whats up wit dat?....Mr Anderton?....Matrix caught you off guard, in god we trust, not to be trusted doing things liken this?....lol...oh been there, said that!
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfO-LShPE_I
 
 
And Bing needs to send out the data spooled, so anything hampering it's spying eyes and bent codexes moving in and out/via updates changing settings, and causing a reboot so it can do what it does once it does what it has to, and who knows the turd party poopers getting that data?...Trust you will get the game packages to smooth over the wasted time to remove, and remove, and remove...as a constant rational muse using their trust MS policy..and some ula saying something about the rights to use , not using because of not saying...not so using it, when it acts up not in your best interests!
 
No work for you that day because of updates....eh?...was it a unexpected good day off?
 
 

brconflict
Plugins can also be a great cause of crashes, and the inability to fully load a session. 

 
Yes indeed, but in my case, it ended up where I couldn't even open SONAR. I was concerned I was going to have to reinstall Windows because the desktop was visible, but not operational. Couldn't even open Notepad.
 

Bristol_Jonesey
I believe this is a "feature" of any Win 10 installation.
 In Win 7 and prior, if you disable anything, it stays disabled.

I guess one day we will all be assimilated, by Win10, LOL.

Well, so far Day 3 and everything is not only working, but working better than when it was working before. Fingers crossed. Incense burned. Supplications to Redmond.