correct.  

Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk]
So all you are doing is looping in SONAR and no other apps running? Do you get a dropout message before that or just the device disconnected message?
Also after the message is audio playback dead - how do you recover at that point?

Correct - brand new rebuilt PC as of last night...all WU, latest RME driver/firmware.  Simple 10 second loop with no FX or anything running.  I can recover by clicking "NO" on the dialog box...a little delay but then I can play/record again.  The only other error I see is an 'audio error' that shows up in the green popup window down on the lower right (same kind of window that shows up for the VST scan, etc...).  That usually comes up first and then a second later the windows error message that gives me the YES/NO options comes up.
 
RME is not the default windows soundcard.  There's a realtek audio that's built into the motherboard that is using the default windows driver and it handles windows audio.  I can however switch that to the RME's output and can play music (which I've done many times) for hours at a time there without any audio dropouts.
 
I have the box checked in SONAR to not share with other apps, I have disabled EVERYTHING in startup - only thing in the tray are the RME driver icons.  Windows Defender is disabled, internet is turned off, no other processes or apps running that would even remotely try to grab a sound card.
 
I've installed a few of the Waves VST's I use, the UAD 7.5 software and that's about it as far as any other apps installed on the PC.  Only other app installed is the PreSonus StudioOne which I've been using to test as well...I was able to run a similar loop for over 2 hours using that DAW earlier today (see earlier thread).  It never crashed - I shut it off and switched to SONAR to see how long it would run...which ended up being less than 30 minutes.
 
Not a scientific test by any means, I know.  But it is what it is.  I'm back to StudioOne on the same loop and it's been chugging along for almost 50 minutes now....

sorry should have been more specific.  It says, exactly:
 
AUDIO DROPOUT:
The audio engine has been stopped unexpectedly.
 
That's it.  Then of course, the error we all know about pops up and takes focus for you to either say YES or NO.

It never drops without throwing both of those messages.
 
I'll be listening or recording and then the audio dies and within a second or two I get both of the messages.  That's pretty standard - been that way since it started happening.

Read most of the messages in this thread but I will throw in that I have an AXIOM USB keyboard controller that exhibits the same behavior, that is, random pop ups stating that the interface has stopped working, something about YES or NO and the transport stopping if I hit YES.
 
I just hit NO and keep going but at this point, the MIDI input from the AXIOM will no longer work until I recycle SONAR... this has been going on for me over 3 different PCs, across who knows how many versions of SONAR (back to SONAR 7 or 8 days).
 
I saw and liked the message about turning power saving off for USB on the OS somewhere and will attempt to find and change the setting to see if this corrects this small annoyance that I have learned to live with for oh so many years.
 
Thanks for the info,
Jim

The transport stopping if you choose yes is normal since we stop audio and reload the driver at that point.
The bottom line here is the fact that the message pops means that the driver somehow decided to unload and reload its components. If it happened with no other intervention from SONAR then there really isn't anything we can do to fix that from our end. SONAR is just the messenger that it was unloaded at that point :)
 

jkleban
Read most of the messages in this thread but I will throw in that I have an AXIOM USB keyboard controller that exhibits the same behavior, that is, random pop ups stating that the interface has stopped working, something about YES or NO and the transport stopping if I hit YES.
 
I just hit NO and keep going but at this point, the MIDI input from the AXIOM will no longer work until I recycle SONAR... this has been going on for me over 3 different PCs, across who knows how many versions of SONAR (back to SONAR 7 or 8 days).
 
I saw and liked the message about turning power saving off for USB on the OS somewhere and will attempt to find and change the setting to see if this corrects this small annoyance that I have learned to live with for oh so many years.
 
Thanks for the info,
Jim

...alright...going to try a new SIIG FireWire 800 PCIe card (w/ TI chipset) and a new FW cable.
 
I doubt it'll do anything to fix it - but figured what the heck...and might as well get the best FW 800 card available anyway...

thanks gswitz...yea, I have the latest drivers.  I don't even know what that DigiCheck is - never used it.  Not even sure it works with the FF800.
 
Well, I started the loop at 5:20PM CST and it's now 8:30PM so it's the longest it's ever gone without dying.  I'm sure it will at some point but if I can keep it up for 3 hour stretches that shouldn't be a major problem for me.  I still need to test it in a 'real world' situation...stopping/starting, recording, etc...

...well, I'm now at over 5.5 hours playing that loop and no dropout thus far.  Definitely a record.
 
To recap, I swapped out a Syda PCIe 1394 card for a SIIG PCIe 1394.  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001EQCNMW/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
 
...and I swapped out my cable for this one:  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0081GL734/ref=oh_details_o01_s01_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
 
I still haven't done any practical testing but with my prior setup I never went this long without the dropouts/error messaging popping up showing the device was disconnected.
 
All my testing was down at 64 samples, but my project is exceptionally light - one track with me talking for 15 seconds or so...no FX...and looping.  So 64 samples shouldn't be an issue at all.

That  conclusively proves it was a hardware issue. If nothing the disconnect notification helped alert you to the real underlying problem :)

Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk]
That  conclusively proves it was a hardware issue. If nothing the disconnect notification helped alert you to the real underlying problem :)

looks that way.  I added 4 plugs to my original track, cloned it about 20 times and added a few heavy VST's on the master buss as well and been running it for several hours now with no dropouts or problems.  CPU is getting about 55-60% utilization and Sonar is using about 700MB of RAM...still on 64 samples, so it's getting pushed pretty good.

On a Fireface UFX using USB I do not get a disconnect message even when switching between projects at different sample rates. So I'm not sure if there is a difference between different RME devices or that part is firewire related. I had the default sample rate set to 44100 and loaded two projects one at 44100 and the other at 96K and switched back and forth starting and stopping playback. The device switched without causing disconnect messages - there was a pause of a few seconds while it reset itself.

Hi Noel, I did get the disconnect message with my RME UFX in USB mode. I had the default 48k with an opened project at that rate. I opened a 44.1 project and got the disconnect message. They were only opened one at a time though.
 
If you can suggest a couple scenarios, I will try to go through them and report.

I will try this in the am and report as well as making sure I have the latest and greatest drivers.

Noel, Should I make another thread for this, or would you like to PM me?

I have and use a recently purchased heavy duty and shielded USB cable. I know hardware goes bad, but i doubt this is.

I used to get these messages when I had my ff800 and different protocol cable too. I find it odd that 2 totally different hardware configurations get the same random message in the same software in the same studio.

I would like to not see the message, but the workaround is simple enough. I just hit No and proceed without issue.