well, I guess I'm going to have to rebuild at this point.  I just noticed that there were 2 iterations of the RME Fireface driver in add/remove...clicked to remove one and it was fine (the older one), clicked to remove the newer one and I get some phangled error that it can't find the .exe to uninstall, etc...
 
So, now even when I try to reinstall the RME driver - the tray icons never show up so the DAW never sees that there is an interface installed.
 
*SIGH*
 
What a disaster.  I've been so happy with my RME...near bulletproof really...now it's all going to @#$^.

choinga
I checked the TI Chipset driver and it just shows the standard Windows Driver (never seen an update for this available as even an optional update on WU) from 6/21/2006.  Version is 6.3.9600.16384.  I tried using the 'update driver' from the device manager and letting is search WU and it came back with "you have the latest driver...".  So, not sure that there's anything new on that front.
 
My TI Firewire card is a PCI variant that I bought a few years back with my RME FF800 after doing the research.  I've been using it for years now and this is my 3rd PC/hardware upgrade and the first time I've had any problem like this.  Never can say it's definitely NOT something...but have a hard time believing it's the Firewire card...

Still worth checking if there may be a firmware update, and the same with your motherboards bios and chipset drivers I suggest.
Do you know what the specific make/model your card and motherboard is and what the BIOS/firmware version are etc?
I do this from the point of view of completeness, i.e. you need to rule everything out.
 
Also please make sure Windows update is up to date (run it several times).
And is your windows power management on "High performance" (or off).
 
Ta

> well, I guess I'm going to have to rebuild at this point.  
 
If you can get rid of the driver you don't need to rebuild windows.
You need to uninstall all the RME drivers (or what you can), and then reinstall the drivers (starting with the problem driver), then uninstall them again.
 
If it's got a yellow! it's probably a benign issue. If you still can't get rid of it you may need to run a registry cleaner like cc-cleaner but make sure you back up any changes (before people chirp in and point to this as some sort of heresy, this is a very valid use of a registry cleaner).

it was all jacked up - didn't even show up in the device manager to do anything with it.  Yet, showed up in add/remove and was unable to remove and reinstalling didn't actual install anything.
 
Luckily my PC is fast and 8.1 installs fast too - going to start over and see if that fixes it...although I'm thinking probably not.

SONAR listens to device change notification messages from Windows. These indicate when audio devices are added or removed from the system. For device removal specifically we listed to the DBT_DEVICEREMOVECOMPLETE event. If this is being triggered, it means that something caused the low level WDM driver to send this event to Windows. Most typically this could be caused by a faulty connector (USB or firewire) or a bad controller. If its happening on a good system then it could be a fault in the driver that is generating this message.
What happens if you ignore the message - does the audio continue to work? If not then it was really disconnected from the system somehow...

well, as I expected after a complete rebuild (including updating my MSI M/B BIOS in the process), full windows update, Sonar X3 install + all updates to X3d...still get the audio dropout.
 
Only difference now is that I get the green Sonar error (kinda looks like when it's doing the VST scan) but it says AUDIO DROPOUT error.  After I clear that then the message I detailed in my original post shows up.  Clicking NO lags it for a bit then the transport comes back and I'm able to record/play again.
 
For what it's worth the message that comes up is exactly the same message that pops up if I intentionally disconnect the FW cable from the FF800 or the PC.  So, it seems something is happening somewhere.  The fact that several of us seem to be experiencing this leads me to believe that we probably all don't have faulty FW cables or cards. :)
 
ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk]
SONAR listens to device change notification messages from Windows. These indicate when audio devices are added or removed from the system. For device removal specifically we listed to the event. If this is being triggered, it means that something caused the low level WDM driver to send this event to Windows. Most typically this could be caused by a faulty connector (USB or firewire) or a bad controller. If its happening on a good system then it could be a fault in the driver that is generating this message.
What happens if you ignore the message - does the audio continue to work? If not then it was really disconnected from the system somehow...

I'm not sure which message you are saying to ignore?  The error message that pops up looks like a Windows error message with SONAR X3d Producer in the title.  It takes focus on SONAR so if you don't do anything with it - of course, nothing comes back.  If you click NO and then wait a few seconds then the transport comes back and you can play/record until the next time it does it.  For grins on this last rebuild I switched the FW cable (I'm using FW800) and used a different port on my PCI FW controller.  Same problem.

I have gotten that error with my RME FF800 using FW and with my RME UFX using USB. I think Cakewalk needs to get with RME again and see if they can hash this thing out.

Do any of you experiencing this problem have Windows set to use your RME device? I explicitly have my onboard audio set for Windows use exclusively, a decoy if you will. That way Windows will never grab the RME driver and trigger sample rate mismatches or audio dropouts.
 
Also do you have Sonar set to "share drivers with other programs"?

mudgel
Do any of you experiencing this problem have Windows set to use your RME device? I explicitly have my onboard audio set for Windows use exclusively, a decoy if you will. That way Windows will never grab the RME driver and trigger sample rate mismatches or audio dropouts.
 
Also do you have Sonar set to "share drivers with other programs"?

same here - have a on-board audio that handles 'windows' stuff.  And yes, I have SONAR set to not share so that's what strange about hearing folks hypothesize about something else grabbing the RME while the SONAR transport is running.