So here is a minor irritant I've lived with, reproduced with win 7 and 8.1.

I start up and open a project and should be hearing my soft synths straight away when I start playing them with my keyboard...No dice.

However if I play the project for a second and stop everything is fine and good to go until next time I close and open Sonar.
I'm thinking Saffire pro 40 drivers or firmware at fault.

Can people confirm?

Thanks...

At the risk of teaching you to suck eggs, I presume you have a saved profile on your Saffire, I only ask because I run a Saffire 26 i/o (original) and occasionally I have to reload the profile, i.e. bit depth, sample rate etc. as it forgets.  I have heard that by running Sonar you effectively force the Saffire to set such things.
 
Just an idea Alex

Yes thanks, I performed a full reset and saved everything recently. I find it is generally is a good idea to do a reset everytime they update the firmware and redo the settings in manually then save the profile (and save the settings to hardware). Cheers...

Deleted this post as it's irrelevant now.

One other question is the audio engine running? there is a little blue thing in the transport bar of the control bar it changes colour density when the Audio engine has stopped.
 
Is it a firewire I/F or USB?

Ha looks like we posted at the same time!
 
OK I've located the root of the issue and fed some disinformation earlier (I swear I had the engine on before, clearly I was wrong).
It's down to the audio engine not starting straight away.
I'd be still interested to know if anybody can repro...
 
Please ignore anything I wrote above.
From the beginning...
 
STEPS
New project
Insert soft synth track such as rapture and assign a patch. Then assign MIDI channel.
Make sure you can play the instrument with a MIDI keyboard and hear it.
Save project
Close Sonar application (it must not be running).
Open Sonar with Saved Project
Select Track.
Play MIDI keyboard
 
EXPECTED
 
Sound comes out when Playing. Audio engine is enabled.
 
ACTUAL
 
Sound does not come out when Playing, this is because the audio engine is disabled.
 
WORKAROUND
 
Either press Play (which turns on the audio engine) OR click on the audio engine icon.
 
Why doesn't it turn on the audio engine by default?
 
(The Saffire Pro 40 is Firewire).
 
[Edited for trivial revision of steps]

I have not seen this with a new project other than when I have used a template that has for some reason got the Audio engine stopped when the template has been saved.

Good point, I tried with a blank project (no template)... #6 still reproducible with Focusrite Saffire Pro 40 and Mix Control 3.4 - Thanks for feedback!

Well I logged the issue with Focusrite.
My main "worry" is any lack of communication with the DAW and driver could potentially become a more serious issue as a product progresses.

Hi Alex,
 
Question.... Does it do the same thing if the initial track inserted is not a midi or an instrument track? thx