I have about six audio tracks in the file and no plugs (Sonar PE 8.5.3). The file plays perfectly but as soon as I arm a track and press Record, it drops out instantly. Other files don't do that even when the material is very dense and plugs are involved. I could recreate the file without too much trouble but I was wondering if anyone knows this one?
 
Thanks - rev
 
Addendum: Other files are misbehaving the same way. In fact, a totally empty file instantly drops out as soon as Record is pressed. The dropout is so fast there isn't even enough time to create a blank audio clip.

I believe I have fixed it. Since I had just replaced the C:\ drive, I guessed that all my drivers needed updating and I read in the Sonar Help that some video cards with hardware acceleration can cause a conflict as well as other issues from other drivers. So I updated all the drivers on the system and the problem appears to have gone.  

.

Turns out I spoke too soon, the problem is still there. I thought I had success because I tested with a MIDI track in Record (works fine) but if I arm an audio track, the file won't play. I don't even have to be in Record mode, it just chokes instantly. It reeks of a conflict because an empty file does the same thing but now that all drivers are the latest, I have no idea WTF is going on. Everything is fine in Play mode.

More: 8.0 works fine. I removed 8.5 and reinstalled it as Admin along with all the patches but no change. I can't restore to an earlier point in time because this is a new hard drive, Recording has never worked since then.

The symptom would seem to imply some kind of overhead occurring when you write to disk. I'm assuming you're recording to the C: drive. You might try enabling write cache for the new drive (Device Manager -> Disk Drives -> Properties). 
 

T

Cactus:
I only have patches for 8.5.2 and 8.5.3 (my final version is 8.5.3.232) I don't know of anything higher.
 
New: While Playing a file I got an exception with msvcr80.dll so I think I'm onto something. I downloaded a later copy of that file and it's now in system32 and syswow64. I'm about to reboot.
 
Flipper:
>The symptom would seem to imply some kind of overhead 
Nice try, I dabbled with the same idea because Dropout means 'I can't handle it' - but after trying to Record in an empty file and discovering that 8.0 works fine, I abandoned that and suspected conflict.
 
Now I've discovered a specific conflict and hopefully resolved it. I'll post back after the reboot (I may have to register the .dll too).

Update: Another error cited the same file in this folder:
 
Windows\winsxs\amd64_microsoft.vc80.crt_1fc8b3b9a1e18e3b_8.0.50727.4940_none_88df89932faf0bf6
 
But 'Access is Denied' when I try to give the Admin dude Full Control - so I'm working on that. I'm not sure it's possible to get Full Control of winsxs because that's where all the updates go so I tried Windows Update.
 
Still not solved after 118 Updates.
 

This time I believe I've nailed it. I had to reinstall everything (Sonar) from 8.0 onwards - running as Admin where possible and being sure not to launch the application after each upgrade and patch. Rebooting instead, after each patch settled the memory spaces and the conflict appears to be gone.
 
I had to sort my Plugin Layout but nothing much else - now I can Play, Arm and Record - so far so good. 
 
Thanks to all for the suggestions!