Ok, as the subject says, I cannot cut a section of bars from the timeline.  Previously I would select all tracks, then I would mark the bars for removal at the top of the track-selection and would select "edit, cut special, delete hole" and the bars would disappear.  When I do this now, both Cut and Cut Special are greyed out.  How do I cut bars? 

If there's no content in those bars, Cut and Delete have nothing to operate on. You'll have to select everything and drag it earlier. Just be sure the start of the selection is at the start of the first clip, not the start of the project, or you won't be able to drag earlier. If you have tempos or automation to move, Cut-Paste might be better a option.
 
Another option is to paste some dummy content into the section you want to delete. 

i noticed that yesterday too?.... delete hole not working

Just speculating: I wonder if, say, active Melodyne or V-Vocal clips could cause that. No locked clips?
Or...do I remember wrong...was it once so that you couldn't cut-delete if the split points were on a MIDI-note tail?
You had to shorten/move the note so the split point was "free". Or something..:o/

The content on a track somewhere in the bars you're deleting is a valid point. Do you have that?

My method for all sorts of bar movements takes advantage of the Select By Time choice under the Edit menu.

To delete bars or fractions of bars or chunks as needed:

1. Select All (double click on any track)
2. Under Edit choose Select By Time
3. In the Select By Time dialog choose your start and end points.
4. Control Alt X (that's Delete Special). Pick whether you want to delete the hole, delete the markers etc.

Same or similar process for copying and pasting blocks of bars and putting into other sections of a song.

There still needs to be data "in the hole" in order to delete the hole.

You do need some data within the selected range for delete to work. I find this slightly annoying as there are times you just want to delete an empty space, and just dragging clips does not move markers, tempo changes etc. Older versions of Sonar allowed one to delete empty sections.

Workaround is not difficult fortunately. Just put something in the empty space first.

neirbod
You do need some data within the selected range for delete to work. I find this slightly annoying as there are times you just want to delete an empty space, and just dragging clips does not move markers, tempo changes etc. Older versions of Sonar allowed one to delete empty sections.

Workaround is not difficult fortunately. Just put something in the empty space first.

^^ this is what I do.

But I wish we didn't need the workaround. If I have some empty space in the middle of a song (which is perfectly valid musically, let alone there might be other reasons such as editing ideas together), then I should be able to delete that empty space methinks

I have not had good luck with cut and delete hole in a long time (many versions ago).  I always have to delete and then slide.

Ahh, ok, there is no data in the hole.  I will manually move the tracks then.
 
Thanks!