As I have have had these samplerate errors since I upgraded to Sonar 8 (Nov. 2008) I have had lots of opportunity to look at those. But it has been very hard to find any kind of pattern so last week I cancelled all appointments, locked my door from inside and started digging. This is what I came up with (after 7 days of total concentration, grey hair, grief, very strong coffee and truck loads of Pizza's)
Hardware:
DAW1: Core Quad x64 2,66/12Mb Intel mobo 8Gb Ram, 176 ch. midi in/out, Motu XT, 3Tb SATA II disks, Danish Vista x64 US English language settings, Sonar 831 PE, 2x21"+ 2x19" monitors, Novation Remote 25, 2 x FireFace 800
DAW2 (Dual boot): Dual Core 3800 x64 Asus, Mobo 2Gb Ram, 176 ch. midi in/out, Opcode Studio 128x, 1Tb SATA II disks, 2x21" monitors, US English Windows XP x64 Danish language settings, Delta1010
DAW2 (Dual boot): Dual Core 3800 x64 Asus, Mobo 2Gb Ram, 176 ch. midi in/out, Opcode Studio 128x, 1Tb SATA II disks, 2x21" monitors, US English Windows XP x84 Danish language settings , Delta1010
DAW3: 3ghz Asus mobo 2Gb Ram, 64 ch. midi in/out, 1Tb disks, Emu 1212M, US English Windows XP Danish language settings, WaveLab, 2x21" + 4x15" monitors
Software:
Sonar 831
Sonar 701
Reaper 3.104
OS:
Danish Vista x64 US English language settings
US English Windows XP x64 Danish language settings
US English Windows XP x84 Danish language settings
US English Windows XP Danish language settings
Soundcards:
RME FF800 Driver v. 2.95 Firmware v. 2.70
Delta 1010 Driver v. 5.10.0.5069
Emu 1212m Driver v. 2.1 PatchMix v. 2.1
ASUS onboard DP35DP HiDef Soundcard
Sonar Errors:
1. Unable to open audio playback device. Device may not support the current project's audio format or may be in use.
2. The default audioformat is not compatible with one or more soundcards. It has been reset to 44100 Hz (16 bit), as suggested by the driver.
3. A fatal error has occurred. Exception code: c0000005. Module SONARPDR.exe
4. Assertion failed: e->time_stamp==SampleClock(), file..\se_sdk\SEModule_base.cpp, line 205.
5. Sudden profiler errors that would exclude random channels on the FireFaces: The following driver(s) either do not support the current audio format, or are in use by another application. Disable or use anyway.
5. Two SONARPDR.EXE instances running at the same time
6. A lot of graphics does not get redrawn and buttons are missing, but hovering the mouse some of it will appear again
7. Copy/Paste operations does not work because of different samplerates, even if they are set correctly.
PLAY/WB errors:
1. Play could not find its default libraries on your system. Please download the latest Play update. (This message regardless that it worked 2 minutes earlier and that after next reboot it will work again).
2. WordBuilder have detected an internal error.
We recomend you to :
- Undo the last operation
- Save your file
- Restart WordBuilder
FireFace errors:
1. Once in a while when changing the Buffer size in the Fireface panel on one of the FireFaces, the other Fireface settings gets corrupted and I have to load flash settings or set the data manually.
2. Some of the information in the FF panel is not stored in Flash (Instrument Options, PhantomPower, Bandwidth and WordClock Output). These parameters ALWAYS has to be set manually after 'Read Flash Memory'
3. Once in a while I get too many tabs in the FireFace Settings Panel. I get 1 or 2 tabs extra which says TCO(1) and TCO(2).
Installing drivers for FF800 set the standard rates in the Windows/Sounds to 16/44 for all FF channels.
Installing drivers for Delta1010 set set the standard rates in the Windows/Sounds to 24/96 for all FF channels.
Description of error situations - Random errors in Sonar 831:
On all 4 workstations and all 4 audiocards there seems to be a certain basic number of the Sonar errors no1 and no 2. The errors seems to be random and appears on 20-30 % of all projects. And I know all the standard situations that gives this error.
Besides this it is certain that when Sonar error no 3 crashes Sonar, something seems to be damaged as loading the project afterwards will produce Sonar error no 2 or Sonar error no 3 and the project seems to be corrupt somehow.
There is an exception to this and it is when loading the project into Sonar 7 first which always works and load it into Sonar 8 after this. Then it will play until next crash.
If I use certain plugins in Sonar 8 I will run into Sonar error no 1 & 2 will more often. PLAY is one of these plugins. When using WordBuilder it gets even worse. I have (at last) got my self a project that is so unstable that it fails almost EVERY time I load it. This project includes PLAY and WB. When loading the project into Sonar 701 there is NO problems and when using Delta1010 on DAW 1 (Sonar 8) instead of the 2 FireFaces there is NO problems either. I simply dont see these 2 errors AT ALL.
Sometimes when setting the samplerate or loading a project with a different sample rate than the actual setting, the FireFace Panel does not get updated when pressing play.
When running WDM drivers the Sonar Profiler runs 1 or 2 or 8 or 16 loops with both FireFaces connected.
Some times the Sonar Profiler says: (on 2 FireFaces)
>==== RME Fireface 800 (46 in, 46 out) ====
11025 Hz: not available
22050 Hz: not available
44100 Hz: OK
48000 Hz: not available
88200 Hz: OK
96000 Hz: not available
176400 Hz: OK
192000 Hz: not available
Profiling with 2 FireFaces and 1 Delta 1010
==== RME Fireface 800 (46 in, 46 out) ====
11025 Hz: not available
22050 Hz: not available
44100 Hz: Channels 1,8 -- Bits 16,24(4 bytes),32 -- OK
48000 Hz: Channels 1,8 -- Bits 16,24(4 bytes),32 -- OK
88200 Hz: Channels 1,8 -- Bits 16,24(4 bytes),32 -- OK
96000 Hz: Channels 1,8 -- Bits 16,24(4 bytes),32 -- OK
176400 Hz: Channels 1,8 -- Bits 16,24(4 bytes),32 -- OK
192000 Hz: Channels 1,8 -- Bits 16,24(4 bytes),32 -- OK
==== M-Audio Delta 1010 (12 in, 10 out) ====
11025 Hz: not available
22050 Hz: not available
44100 Hz: Channels 1,2 -- Bits 16,24,24(4 bytes),32 -- OK
48000 Hz: Channels 1,2 -- Bits 16,24,24(4 bytes),32 -- OK
88200 Hz: Channels 1,2 -- Bits 16,24,24(4 bytes),32 -- OK
96000 Hz: Channels 1,2 -- Bits 16,24,24(4 bytes),32 -- OK
176400 Hz: not available
192000 Hz: not available
There are 2 situations where Sonar works allright:
1. When using Sonar 7 (on any Soundcard) including PLAY and WB
2. When using Sonar 831 and Delta 1010 including PLAY and WB
If Sonar 7 works where Sonar 8 does not there must be some kind of difference.
If Delta works and FireFace not there must be something here too. Either the hardware or the drivers does something that Delta 1010 does not.
The most confusing thing:
After having tried the 'faulty' project on Daw1 with Delta 1010 and no Firefaces the project worked fine when disconnecting the Delta and connecting the Firefaces. Then I loaded an earlier version of the same 'faulty' project and got Sonar error no 1 again (Unable to open audio...). I immediately closed the project and loaded the first one again and also got the error again. So I rebooted DAW1 (not the FF's) and when loading the project I got the usual Exception error c0000005 module. Loading once more gave Sonar error no. 1. Rebooting PC and th Firefaces produced Sonar error no. 1 again. I noticed that this project which is 16/44 did NOT set the frequency in the FireFace panel. It said 96 Khz - which is wrong. The Fireface driver is NOT updated with this information. In the moment I press Play this should be uppdated, instead I get the error!!!
I noticed that when having 1 project loaded (Sonar8) in 44.100 and another in 96.000 and importing a file (96000) in the second project, gets converted to 44.100. This is not the most brilliant thing I have seen. Especially when no message tells what happened. If I dont have the 44100 project loaded Sonar Imports correct in 96000. So I think that there is some mismatch with this samplerate setting and this should have a look. BTW- Sonar 7 does this correct! Import settings are set to Original.
If Options/Audio/Samplerate is set to 96000 and I load a 44100 project I get Error no 1 and it doesnt make any difference if I change samplerate to 44100 - unless I shut Sonar down and restart Sonar. And this is the situation I get the Exception error! Sonar 7 does set the samplerate according to the loaded project perfectly every time!! Sonar 8 does Not! Sonar 8 probably tries but run into c0000005 while trying. This must be here the FireFace driver error and the Sonar error meets, shake hands and aggree to go no further... In other words, Sonar 7 automatically set the samplerate according to the loaded project, Sonar 8 does not and when I do it manually I have to shut Sonar 8 down reload the project and get the exception error.
If I disconnect the FireFaces and connect Delta1010 the situation is the same except I dont get the Exception error - I can change the samplerate manually, restart Sonar 8 and run.
Another thing that can make 'corrupt' projects work again is to load them into Sonar 7, save them and reload in Sonar 8. This works.
Loading the project without WB on DAW1 and FF still does not change to correct samplerate.
Loading the project without WB and without PLAY on DAW1 and FF DOES CHANGE to correct samplerate
Loading the same project on DAW2 (XPx86-Sonar 802 /803/831 ) but without and WB and without PLAY the samplerate was set correct when loading.
So I loaded another project which is recorded 64 bit/96000Hz (File/Stats). The FF panel was correctly set to 96000 before loading and Sonar settings said 96000 in the bottom line and in Options/Audio, Anyway I got Err no 1 Unable to open audio. This is a project with 15 tracks of audio, 1 reverb, 3 EQ's and 12 Comps (Sonitus). Clearly here is something wrong that cant be seen.
Then I tried the same with FF disconnected and Delta1010 connected. And it worked perfectly. So Play is not the sinner her. Play just makes an existing problem worse.
So I disconnected the Delta and connected the FF and this time Sonar 8 played.
Things that ALWAYS are involved in error situations:
Sonar 8
FireFaces - Also when using only one of them
Things that NEVER are involved in error situations
Sonar 7
Delta 1010
Onboard HiDef Soundcard (MME)
Reaper
Things that sometimes are involved in error situations:
PLAY
Word Builder
Operating System
Conclusion:
This year since I upgraded to Sonar 8 I have had 101 minidumps, Exception errors from Sonar as well as LP64 and Vvocal. Sonar Audio errors no 1 and 2 pops up almost all the time without any explanation.
Nothing points directly to an error but I think that I have shown that both Sonar and FF has at least one error each and that PLAY makes things worse. It has been totally confusing and it has taken me almost a year to find just a little sence in this. What works in one situation does not in another. What works today does not tomorrow.
I have been a programmer for 30 years and one thing I have learned (Maybe the only thing :-) ) is that when an error is hard to find or seems to come and go at its own will, there is high possibility that there is more than one error and that they are interacting. And I think that this documents at least shows this:
1. About samplerates - Sonar 8 does not handle this as well as Sonar 7 and the precense of PLAY makes Sonar unable to set the correct samplerate on the FF - not the Delta. Sometimes Sonar 8 does not set the correct sample rate in FF but this works fine with Delta or when using Sonar7.
2. WB and PLAY has some issues too as the error messages from them pops up from no where and with no meaning.
3. Fireface driver does not remember saved settings when loading from flashmemory and sometimes the panel on FF2 goes corrupt when changing Buffer size on FF1.
4. I get too many tabs in the FF panel. TCO(1) and TCO(2).
5. If I store FF settings in flash mem and read them right after, some of the settings change.
6. Vista does not support FireWire 800
It seems that FireFace, Sonar 8 and PLAY is a bad combination...
post edited by RigPa - 2009/09/17 17:46:39