I opened a project I had been working on and I got a blank project, nothing.  I had to go back three versions to get a CWP that opened to the project.  I had spent two days comping, editing and tuning three vocal tracks and they are now gone.  Looking in explorer, the wave files are there but they are empty, meaning the file size is 0kb.  It's also curious that the two most recent CWP versions are also 0kb.  I know that the waves were there before.  I have no idea what happened.
 
Has anyone seen this behavior?  I'm a little nervous to go back and start reediting just to loose it again.  Any help or advice would be appreciated.  Thanks.
 
Paul

Any thoughts at all?

Never had anything like this happen. I would look in the Windows event logs for write errors and make sure "Enable Read Caching" and "Enable Write Caching" are not selected in SONAR Preferences > Audio > Sync and Caching.

Were your back-ups empty also?? Try your back ups.
 
I've never seen that happen before. I'm betting that they were discarded by mistake somehow, some way. Some sort of auto clean up program on your pc or something or maybe you just mistakenly hit the wrong key or keys. Who knows, but I do know that Sonar will not delete your audio files, unless you tell it to.
 
Anyhow, don't be nervous to start editing again.
 
Cj

scook
Never had anything like this happen. I would look in the Windows event logs for write errors and make sure "Enable Read Caching" and "Enable Write Caching" are not selected in SONAR Preferences > Audio > Sync and Caching.

Thanks Steve.  Event logs sounds like a good place to start.  I will check the caching but I don't know how those setting would change by themselves.  This almost has to be a windows problem but I've never seen anything like it.


 
Paul

CJaysMusic
Were your back-ups empty also?? Try your back ups.
 
I've never seen that happen before. I'm betting that they were discarded by mistake somehow, some way. Some sort of auto clean up program on your pc or something or maybe you just mistakenly hit the wrong key or keys. Who knows, but I do know that Sonar will not delete your audio files, unless you tell it to.
 
Anyhow, don't be nervous to start editing again.
 
Cj

Hi CJ.  Yep, auto backups are there but the files say "0kb".  If the files were accidentally discarded they should be missing but they're not.  Both CWP files and all the audio files that were created during the editing are there, they're just empty, (file size = 0kb).

Here's how this went down:
 
I always create a new version of a project each day that I work on it and label it accordingly.  I worked on this project on Sat, Jan 18, 2014, again on Sunday the 19th and again on Wednesday the 22nd.  On Sunday I opened the file created on Sat, 1/18/14 and saved it as 1/19/14.  When I worked on it Wednesday, I opened the project file dated 1/19/14 and saved it as 1/22/14.  I know that the files were there on Wed. because I opened and worked on the project from Sun. (1/19/14).
 
On Wed. the computer was acting funny, glitchy but I was still able to work.  Somehow during that session or when I saved the project at the end of the session all the associated files were vacated.  They're all still there, they're just empty!  I had touched two CWP project files.  One, (1/19/14) to get started and two, (1/22/14) to save that days work.  If everything was being vacated on the HD, I would not have noticed as all the associated files were in RAM.
 
I'm nervous about starting on the project again until I do a complete backup to another drive.  Somethings wrong and I have no guarantee at this point that when I open the most recent CWP that opens to the project and begin editing, I might loose those audio files as well.  That would mean back to tracking.
 
I'll let you all know what I find out tonight.
 
Thanks.
 
Paul

Have you done a virus scan, there are not that a lot of viruses around nowadays that delete file contents as you open and work on them, but they do exist. Try your own virus scanner and then get a second opinion from an online virus scanner. This does sound like nasty virus work. It's the only explanation, apart from shoddy workflow, that I can think of, and I get the feeling you are not the shoddy workflow kind of person.

I've witnessed Generative Variant Katzy virus turn a whole laptop "empty" in ten seconds.
The files were there, I could restore most of them with a Linux-based software called Knoppix.
Luckily it wasn't my own laptop :o/.
 
My virus scanner spotted the same virus in a compressed file I downloaded from a plugin vendor last year.
 
Assuming something similar has happened to you, then, if your backup HDDs are connected to the machine all the time, they're contaminated as well, obviously. They should be connected only, when doing backups, if you want to avoid destruction like that.

Hello Paul G
 
Could be you are being under, or over powered?...LOL.
 
But seriously...Think about power surges, PSU being weak?, Power surge bar being taxed?, Brown outs when the heating comes on?, or you are doing laundry?, or the old Fridge and freezer kicks on?...all at the same time?, or here and there, when you are mixing and mashing things in Sonar?.
 
Some times the little things Get over looked...and some line noise on electrical can cause issues as well...
 
Just saying I found that out last night...but had it in mind to redo the electrical , and move all 220 lines to a new service line and electrical box....Because Just making electrical runs from the box exclusive for my Studio, does not eliminate the surges of the house...and the Power surge bar I use, is not sufficiently reducing those spikes, or drops in voltages.
 
Second.
Marvell 91xx controllers on some motherboards are buggy.
Might want to google that.
 
Third
The one I Like most, is get yourself a favorite beverage, and some munchies..and do a good read up on things here in the forums .
I believe some people posted missing tracks/corruption of project files, when saving...I know I have....Wink.
 
Yes run a virus check..
 
Four
Do the math, and add up the voltages of your devices in the system and that connected to the system.(including usb/firewire/add on cards)..and make sure your power supply is over specified for them...
 
Try turning off the heating system, and house hold electrical hogs that start and stop natively in house.
Just to be safer than sorry...while this is being routed...Save your files to a few mediums...check The Data through MY COMPUTER , before closing Sonar, to make sure your data is counted as more than Zero.
And some times just to make sure...there is a box you can tick when saving, to save all audio with the CWP file.
So you can make backups...
 
I think that is the first rule of computers...But if the OS or Software or Hardware is not doing that right...it seems pointless!
 
 
Just trying to help...more mead is needed all around the table!
 
Cheers!
 
 
 

rebel007
Have you done a virus scan, there are not that a lot of viruses around nowadays that delete file contents as you open and work on them, but they do exist. Try your own virus scanner and then get a second opinion from an online virus scanner. This does sound like nasty virus work. It's the only explanation, apart from shoddy workflow, that I can think of, and I get the feeling you are not the shoddy workflow kind of person.

Hi Wayne.  Thanks for the reply.  That's on my list of things to try although my DAW is not connected the web so I've never installed an AV and I have Windows' AV disabled.  Everything that goes onto the DAW drive is scanned by Norton's when it's downloaded to my main computer.


Paul