Sometimes, options in Preferences change without any action from me.  For example, sometimes I will open a project and start to go to work, and most of the tracks won't play.  Upon inspection, I see that the Ins and Outs are set to things that don't make sense (for example, a MIDI track may have the Console as the input).
 
When I open Preferences, I can see that the options under Control Surface have changed, even though I have not been in Preferences.
 
This is the most recent example, but I have seen other device options change automatically in Preferences.
 
Has anyone ever seen values change on their own in Preferences?
 
 

I've seen that when I had a driver issue. I went back to an older interface driver and had better luck. It was weird. 

I vaguely remember someone saying this sort of thing can happen if control surfaces got unplugged/replugged or powered down - that sort of thing, not for the current project, but any of that just happening at some point, and then things get altered.

I am dim, and my memory is dimmer still, so the above could be WAY off base as well, it's just in my head that way for some reason so I thought I would mention it.

Bob Bone

Might have been plugging into a different port as well, 

Bob Bone

Like Bob said, I've seen it just with Control Surfaces and only if I've started Sonar with one of them unplugged, then things can get a bit scrambled.

I made about 3 project templetes and never had this issue again.
my main beef was having to reset preferences every time I stared a new project.

give it shot and tell me what happens.

Thanks, all. Will keep you posted on results.