Hi folks,
 
just putting this out there, because I so often see people with random crashes and bad behaviour, and straight out blame Sonar and Cakewalk.
 
Word of caution - beware the latest GE-force (320.49) driver !.
 
I just had an unbelievably horrid time, with Sonar, that seemed to echo what I see in other threads quite often.
And the problem had nothing to do with Sonar.
 
OK, so down to the problem .
 
I do a lot of video work ... so I have lots of video and graphic production software on my DAW too.
I know many of you keep you DAW free of other software, which theoretically can be a good thing.
But personally, I find it a big advantage having other software on the system that gives it a real workout, with real life scenarios ... not just some memory testing or other basic diagnostic software.
 
Here's what literally KILLED Sonar - and made it APPEAR that Sonar was a buggy, badly behaved piece of software.
"Graphics Driver Udate".
 
The Whole Story:
I'd hit a snag with a video project, using Sony Vegas Pro, checked and found there was an update available for Vegas.
So I installed the Vegas update and retried what I was doing ... Vegas no longer did a 'Total Crash', but hung itself up instead.
 
So, I thought - OK, check for other updates, and my Nvidia driver has had a few updates available since my last installed version.
 
- I updated my Nvidia driver to the latest (320.49).
- Tried my Vegas project again - no difference.
 
Then, I tried Sonar - and everything turned to the slushy stuff -BIG TIME !.
 
I began to experience huge issues in Sonar, just like I see others post about here.
- Random crashes, White screen, Sonar spinning its wheels on 10%-20% CPU, never to recover.
- Sonar Problem reporter unable to connect and send the report
- Windows reporting things like faulting module TSAR1.dll
- Unable to open projects - projects that opened yesterday, ones that had not been touched for months, nothing consistent other than damn difficult to see any pattern.
- Losing sound from VSTs, and not being able to get them back without a restart of Sonar
- Drop outs, very often, for seemingly no rhyme or reason - often resulting in the above (a VST losing sound)
- Lag in response to lots of things - eg: Pressing play ... cough cough ... is it going to play ?, Oh right, just had to wait
 
You get the picture.
Exactly the kind of thing to drive anyone mad, and make it Appear that Sonar is Doggy Doo - when it was NOT the case at all.
 
The Doggy Doo Doo was in fact the updated Graphics Driver - no Beta or anything, WHQL certified.
 
Now, here's the thing that troubles me, when it comes to the scenario amy of you might have.
How on earth would you relate these issues to the graphics driver ?.
 
For me it was quite simple, for the following reasons.
1) I always make a system image before and after performing any kind of update or install.
 
2) I have some real life software and projects, that really work the graphics/GPU side of things, with results that I know.
 
3) I run tests, not only with Sonar, with with a few packages as above, when I update things.
 
Here's a glaring result from one of my tests:
Adobe After Effects project, using a few plugins that work the GPU.
 
Known good result, (once finding a well performing and stable Graphics driver version)
5 minute AE project - takes 52 minutes (or less) to render.
 
With the updated Graphics driver I installed on Saturday, which killed Sonar:
5 minute AE project (exactly same settings) took 48 minutes to render the first 1 minute of the project.
Over 4 hours to finish the render.
 
So, I restored my system back to the previous state, and hey presto;
- Sonar works beautifully again
- test AE project now renders in 52 minutes or less
- Life is back to normal
 
 
I hate the problems that graphs drivers can cause.
I spent over a year, and more than 12 driver updates from ATI, before having to chuck out that card.
And when I chucked that card, all my major problem flew out the window with it.
 
The answer from ATI - you should have bought a higher end card form us, here's a recommended list.
And the card I had, was in their high end list when I bought it (Radeon 5850 from memory), with a price tag over $700 here.
 
Hmm ... Nvidia isn't perfect either, as you can see.
 
I'm posting this, beacuse I just want people to realize that although you may have problems and symptoms that you would never logically think were related to your graphics card or driver ... don't discount it, and make sure to check it out.
 
I know you may not have things like video production software you can use to test like I do.
 
But here's a suggestion anyway.
It may be worth having a completely different, non-fancy, relatively cheap graphics card on hand that you can swap out just to see if there's a difference.
 
I just hope this helps someone, sometime.
 
 
Cheers - Cliff

Excellent Post, Thanks Cliffr.

I realize this is a stupid question, but do you remove all traces of the old driver (e.g. with Driver Sweeper) before installing the new one?

sharke
I realize this is a stupid question, but do you remove all traces of the old driver (e.g. with Driver Sweeper) before installing the new one?

 
Hey dude, there's nothing stupid about asking any question - what's stupid, is NOT asking when you there's something you don't know :-)
 
I didn't use any removal tool, the NVidia driver install gives you the option to either;
1)  Update (express install - their recommended)
2)  Custom install, which completely removes the previous version before installing - and loses all your settings.
 
I actually did both (with a full image restore between), with exactly the same results.
 
First time, I did the express install  - which I notices installs MS .NET framework v4, which I don't need.
 
Second time, (after restoring my system - Acronis) I did the custom install, and chose not to install the MS .NET framework v4, just in case that had anything to do with the really bad bahaviour.
 
I've updated the Nvidia driver two or three times since installing the card, never a problem until this driver version.
 
It screwed my weekend unfortunately - but on the flip site, fortunately that's all it screwed
 
What blew me away and why I posted here, was just how much and how badly it screwed Sonar, with the same damn nightmarish symptoms I see others reporting on this forum.
 
I'll tell you right now, if I hadn't known better, I would have cursed Sonar and Cakewalk, and wanted to throw the whole lot out the window - it was simply unusable. And you don't get any kind of friggin' hint what the real problem is - scary $hit if you ask me.
 
You know, this could have been "Cliff, with a brand new system, all the latest updates, that SUCKED, thinking it must be Sonar that Sucked".
 
It struck me, that Sonar doesn't need any fancy graphics hardware, and most people don't need fancy video software, so the best thing I could do for the community is simply post my experience, and suggest it could be handy to have an affordable alternate graphics card on hand, for when you're plaged with the badness and strangeness that makes no sense.
 
Hope that helps.
 
Cheers - Cliff
 

Thank you for the valuable info Cliff!

Great info.
 
Its this type of thing that goes some way to explain the why some peoples systems are stable and others experience frequent crashes. I experienced a period of crashing and buggy behaivour with Sonar 8.5. The problem - Paintshop Pro X. It installed some background software the loaded when Windows started. It appears that was affecting the stability of my system. I Killed those processes and Sonar behaved normally. Unfortunatly there appeared to be no way to stop them loading so I uninstalled Paint Shop Pro and the system went back to being rock solid apart from a very occasional crash of the ESI Juli@ drivers when two audio applications were open.
 
I now have a dedicated DAW and use my old box for other applications.

Good Post OP!!! Massive +1
 
I know from experience too that updating graphics drivers can cause a barrage of nasties.
 
If your graphics driver works fine and your system is stable THEN DONT UPDATE THE GRAPHICS DRIVER!!!!!! (i.e if it aint broke dont try and fix it)

AWESOME info and responses.
 
I truly wish that more folks would understand the countless interactions that go into a computer system, not only from a hardware standpoint, but also from all of the installed applications software, as well as drivers - including BIOS, chipset, and device drivers.
 
There are LOTS of reasons Sonar can get whacked, where Sonar is actually a victim - just trying to carry Skittles back home from the store, only to have some reckless application have problems with its 'hardware profile', then crash Sonar, then claiming self defense.  When Sonar crashes, it can't defend itself - and all people know is that it crashed.
 
Sometimes, Sonar DOES quite clearly cause issues, and when they are severe enough, and wide-spread show stoppers, Cakewalk releases one or more sets of hot-fixes.  This happened with 8, X1, and X2, and I would venture to say prior releases as well, as needed.  PLEASE do NOT consider this post of mine as a launching point for another flurry of posts on update releases and all of that - it is my intent here to merely indicate that there are in fact system-specific conditions that can cause great grief and misery when trying to work with Sonar.  By posting those issues here in the forum, we have a collectively pretty good track record of getting to the bottom of a lot of those.  That is usually done by a combination of supportive and thorough discourse and diagnosis, and the occasional light bulb going off above our heads.
 
Sorry - that was fun.  The point is that it is often quite easy to overlook these complexities, and their potential for introduction of issues.  We see that all the time in the forum, where one person can't do this or that, and it crashes Sonar, where other folks do not have that result, even after literally performing the exact same steps.  Just hang in there when these kinds of things happen, and maybe between us all we can help each other find ways past them.
 
Sometimes, it just sucks to go through the pain of it, but that's how it all goes at times.
 
Bob Bone

Hi CliffR
 
How do you know it was the driver at fault?
 
You don't.
 
It could be the way SONAR was seeing a sudden change in drivers and not the actual driver's characteristics.
 
By using a system restore you eliminated the opportunity to find out... which means that we didn't actually learn any thing... we just went for a short adventure and returned to square one with a story about what might be over the horizon.
 
Maybe a complete re install of SONAR would have fixed you right up?
 
I'm just pointing out the fact that diagnostics isn't as simple as it may seem.
 
 
best regards,
mike
 
 
 
 

 
 
I'm also wondering... what is going on with your computer that it is crashing Vegas?
 
If it can't run Vegas crash free then it hardly seems like that system can serve as a bench mark for making conclusions such as were posited in the original post.
 
best regards,
mike