The strange thing is that I had some backup (3) made by the auto-save feature (which I'll disable, since I save every 30 seconds, no jokes) but since they are so close in time (10 minutes between each) the project was already half corrupted and I could not open the oldest one.
 
Anyway, I'll think about a new way to backup my files more often, probably abusing the "save as" function.

Save and Backing up are 2 different things. One should never think they are backing up when you just save a project. Saving just saves it with the original CWP and audio folder and at its original location. Backing up will save it to a new hard drive with a new CWP and audio folder.
 
One is not the other and the other is not the one
 
CJ

[quote=]  I saved the project, took A WHILE and rebooted. 
With any file that you thing may have problems Never ever ever ever simply hit save.
Instead save with an altered name in a fresh folder. If corrupted, chances are your original file will still be OK and you’ve just lost an hour or twos work.
 
I speak with some expertise on this, because sadly I learnt this the hard way. doh

I really hate these threads because they come up way too often. If there's absolutely one thing a DAW should never do under any circumstance, and may require one or more fail safes: it's corrupt project files. When it comes to all the issues and feature requests Cakewalk should have on their development list, making it so Sonar never corrupts a project again should be number 1 on the list. If this means saving backup files of the projects, and backups of those backups, unbeknownst to the user, then so be it. Ultimately, they should find out what's causing the corruption in the first place and fix the bug. In addition, they could rollback a "save over" when the save is not successful by doing a check prior to overwriting. There's a lot Cakewalk could be doing on that front.
 
As a user, is it a best practice to keep multiple versions of a project, and backup regularly? Yes. I certainly do it. Should Sonar corrupt projects as often as it does? No. There's something wrong with that. I've never lost a project in Studio One, Reaper, or Photoshop (I bring it up because it's "pro" software). Could you imagine video editing software doing the same on a multi-million dollar movie?

I don't understand how a program just "corrupts" a file, as if it were a virus or some other malicious process... Surely there is some string of user operations (even if they shouldn't cause harm) that bring about said corruption...? Or does the file seriously just sit there by itself and just *magically* become corrupt?
 
I know it's often just random quirks somewhere amongst the millions of bits and bytes of code, but, as Newman would say... I want to know WHY.