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....

Please post a screenshot of the "audio error" message. We don't have any message that says "audio error" in SONAR. That might be relevant to your problem. The closest error text I could find was "Audio Hardware error encountered." 
Also the second message is not a windows error message. It is an informational message displayed by SONAR itself to tell you that the device was disconnected.

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.

OK so you are dropping out for some reason. Do you always get a disconnect message when you drop out?
Or the drop out is a symptom of the disconnect.

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.

(am pretty wiped at the mo, hope this makes sense and is of indirect help)
My ongoing experience with my MOTU 4Pre (fw) is uncannily simlar.
My observation IS that the "dropout is a symptom of the disconnect"(cf, Noel above).
My further observation is that there IS indeed a change in sampling rate perceived by my Motu audio console...but it is not generated by me altering a single thing in the prefs menus or importing any audio...and in fact I only became aware of it after I switched the Motu fw off and on, post "disconnect" message(..thanks Bob for inadvertently drawing my focus to this...!):
 Also in common with choinga, my board also has Realtek audio...(which, post-disconnect, Windows 7 gleefully resorts to making it the default device against my wishes, yet still decides not to play regular 16/44.1 audio on);
    It is when I re-enable the firewire device that I then notice(in the Motu audio console) the sample and buffer-rate has myseriously and unpromptedly changed.
  I change it to match X3[tho' to be honest I was not observant and only noticed if roundtrip latency was still warm and fuzzy at 9.3ms]...we're OK again; all is jacky-dandy until then at some undetermined stage when it isn't; cycling through even one instance of Dim Pro is what seems to generate more instances of the disconnect.
   Awesome stuff re the sampling rate all.
(Choinga, just for the sake of ticking boxes, my onboard Realtek audio is on a Gigabyte X79-UD3(Intel i7 4820K))
 
(Well, I might just squash a few komodo dragons with my 4x4 in Far Cry 3 before beddy-byes)
 

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

hmmm...interesting.
 
So, I never have that issue with the RealTek sound card taking over as the default.  That has never happened.  Nor do I get any random changing of any other settings.  I'm using a MSI motherboard...don't know the model off the top of my head but it's not a cheap one. :)
 
I also have an Axiom that is connected both USB for power and to my RME via MIDI.  I might try disconnecting that and see if anything changes at all...or at least investigate the USB power settings.  I have the power setting set to high performance now and set the monitor and drives to never shut off for my testing.

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

well, it wasn't the Axiom.  I ran the loop and it went for some time - several hours - but alas, the "YES/NO" screen is sitting there waiting for me to do something...
 
I'm at a total loss.  This machine ran X1 without this problem and now with X3 I'm seeing this on a regular basis with exactly the same hardware configuration.
 
Well, maybe X3e will magically fix it. :)