I recently upgraded from 8.5 to X3e 32-bit. I've had a lot more crashes with X3 than 8.53. I used X3 some last week with some crashes. THis week all I used was X3. I had quite a lot of crashes about 3/day for mon-tues. Tues night I saw another post about X3 crashes and followed the suggestions for all Windows updates, including optional ones, plus to use the Intel driver utility, which showed I could use some motherboard updates and a Nvidia 8400 GS update.
 
I did all that and wednesday I tried to be careful and not try anything that may possibly cause a crash. and had no crashes, but today I had one crash. I finished mixing an 8.5 file and chose to open another 8.5 file. It first asked to save the current file, I chose yes and noticed I was in the Full Screen mode, so I couldn't access Windows Explorer to move an mp3 to another computer, so I tried to disable the Full screen mode by hitting F11.
 
Maybe I shouldn't have done that while it was saving the current file. It took about 30 sec to save that file, which is a long time, then as it was opening the new file it, crashed. Here is the MS error message details.
 
Problem signature:
  Problem Event Name:                        APPCRASH
  Application Name:                             SONARPDR.exe
  Application Version:                           20.0.5.352
  Application Timestamp:                    5320c35e
  Fault Module Name:                          SONARPDR.exe
  Fault Module Version:                        20.0.5.352
  Fault Module Timestamp:                 5320c35e
  Exception Code:                                  c0000005
  Exception Offset:                                007602e0
  OS Version:                                          6.1.7601.2.1.0.256.48
  Locale ID:                                             1033
  Additional Information 1:                  0a9e
  Additional Information 2:                  0a9e372d3b4ad19135b953a78882e789
  Additional Information 3:                  0a9e
  Additional Information 4:                  0a9e372d3b4ad19135b953a78882e789
 
I hope we can get to the bottom of this issue. I was pleased to see all the success stories and rave reviews about how stable X3e is. I hope I can add to those good news stories soon.
 
Any suggestions?

I am thinking this looks like an access violation.  Did you happen to use 'Run As Administrator' when you installed Sonar?  You might also try just launching Sonar with the Run As Administrator option, which you can do by right-clicking on the Sonar launch icon and then click on Run As Administrator.
 
Oh - and for the full screen thing - wouldn't hitting Escape take it out of full screen mode (not sure, but it does for other applications), or couldn't you have done ALT+Tab to switch to your desktop?
 
Bob Bone
 

robert_e_bone
I am thinking this looks like an access violation.  Did you happen to use 'Run As Administrator' when you installed Sonar?  You might also try just launching Sonar with the Run As Administrator option, which you can do by right-clicking on the Sonar launch icon and then click on Run As Administrator.
 
Oh - and for the full screen thing - wouldn't hitting Escape take it out of full screen mode (not sure, but it does for other applications), or couldn't you have done ALT+Tab to switch to your desktop?
 
Bob Bone
 

I always run as the administrator, so I can do anything I want. F11 is the shortcut key for Full screen mode. ESC won't do anything, you simply hit F11 the 2nd time to toggle. It could be that's all it took to crash X3, which actually shouldn't cause a crash. When X3 is busy, it takes a while to go to desktop, that's why I was trying instead to click on my taskbar where Windows Explorer was already open. The Full Screen mode covers the taskbar. Try hitting F11, so you see what I mean.

Update your sound card drivers and firmware.
Update firmware everywhere (Inc BIOS). I see you have done the drivers.
Please check out my signature which shows my system specs, may I suggest you do the same.
 
You need to rule out whether you get getting crashes with new projects or not.
 
*** I strongly advise running 64 bit Sonar ***
 
Hope this helps.

CakeAlexS
Update your sound card drivers and firmware.
Update firmware everywhere (Inc BIOS). I see you have done the drivers.
Please check out my signature which shows my system specs, may I suggest you do the same.
 
You need to rule out whether you get getting crashes with new projects or not.
 
*** I strongly advise running 64 bit Sonar ***
 
Hope this helps.

I have the latest sound card driver. How do I find out if I need firmware updates? Are you referring to the motherboard?
 
I have 64 bit Win7, but thought I'd try to get the 32 bit Sonar working first. I'm leery of problems with pluggins, so that's why !'m hesitating on 64 bit Sonar. Is 64 bit less prone to crashes? I have 4 gigs of RAM, would 64 bit help?
 
I did dabble with 64 bit and X1, maybe things are better with X3 and 64 bit than X1. On tuesday I did get a crash on a new project started in X3 with a new X3 template. I now have my system specs in my signature.
 
thanks for the help so far,

Running programs while logged on to your computer as a user that happens to be an administrator is NOT, repeat NOT, the same as running a program using the explicit Run As Administrator option.
 
The above is an important distinction.
 
Even users that are Administrators get a restricted set of 'execution token privileges.  Setting the EXPLICIT option for a program to launch with Run As Administrator grants an elevated set of execution privileges.
 
Soooooo, again, I ask you to try launching Sonar with the explicit setting of Run As Administrator, and see if that helps.  To do so, right-click on the launch icon for Sonar, then click on Run As Administrator.
 
Bob Bone
 

robert_e_bone
Running programs while logged on to your computer as a user that happens to be an administrator is NOT, repeat NOT, the same as running a program using the explicit Run As Administrator option.
 
The above is an important distinction.
 
Even users that are Administrators get a restricted set of 'execution token privileges.  Setting the EXPLICIT option for a program to launch with Run As Administrator grants an elevated set of execution privileges.
 
Soooooo, again, I ask you to try launching Sonar with the explicit setting of Run As Administrator, and see if that helps.  To do so, right-click on the launch icon for Sonar, then click on Run As Administrator.
 
Bob Bone
 

 
Thanks Bob, this was all new to me. I see that right click option and will try it. So is it possible that I may have to always run X3 as the administrator? Do you use this option at times? I wonder if I can modify my shortcut to X3 so that I don't have to always right click it? You mentioned installing X3 as the administrator. Is there a trick to that also?
 
Sorry for all the questions, you've really gotten my curiosity up about this.

gmp

robert_e_bone
Running programs while logged on to your computer as a user that happens to be an administrator is NOT, repeat NOT, the same as running a program using the explicit Run As Administrator option.
 
The above is an important distinction.
 
Even users that are Administrators get a restricted set of 'execution token privileges.  Setting the EXPLICIT option for a program to launch with Run As Administrator grants an elevated set of execution privileges.
 
Soooooo, again, I ask you to try launching Sonar with the explicit setting of Run As Administrator, and see if that helps.  To do so, right-click on the launch icon for Sonar, then click on Run As Administrator.
 
Bob Bone
 

 
Thanks Bob, this was all new to me. I see that right click option and will try it. So is it possible that I may have to always run X3 as the administrator? Do you use this option at times? I wonder if I can modify my shortcut to X3 so that I don't have to always right click it? You mentioned installing X3 as the administrator. Is there a trick to that also?
 
Sorry for all the questions, you've really gotten my curiosity up about this.

Right click on the Sonar.exe icon, goto properties, goto the compatibility tab, then at the botton check the Run this program as admin check box. This will make it ALWAYS run in explicit admin mode.
 
Btw, I agree with Alex, Start using 64bit Sonar on a 64bit OS. It can remove alot of gremlins.

As noted above, yes you can change it to always run as administrator.  That is what I did, and I always both install and run Sonar versions with Run As Administrator permanently set.
 
Again - I cannot guarantee that this is what your issues are caused by, but it is easy enough to try, and has fixed other weirdness on occasion, as reported by others in the past.
 
And, if in Full-Screen mode, you can hit ALT+Tab to switch applications in Windows, and this should allow you to see your task bar, once you switch to either whatever else is running, or to the desktop.
 
Bob Bone
 

Although I understand why people still say "run as administrator", on a modern program (which I believe X3 is), there should be NO reason for the user to need to be administrator.  If there is a reason, then Sonar should hang it's head in shame.  
 
I've been a professional programmer on Windows for the last 20 odd years, and it is professional pride that made sure I followed all the advice that MS gave about coding for normal users.  There is no excuse for it these days, except for sloppy programmers.