I have been using Sonar 8.5 Producer on my Win 7 laptop, together with a TASCAM US-144mkII audio interface. I had tried X1 but the new interface had issues fitting into the laptop screen as well as an issue with midi notes not playing, so didn't use it. 

I now have a new laptop with better screen resolution and have upgraded to Sonar X2 and it's the only option as X1 and 8.5 aren't available for download, and between house move and a baby can't find the my 8.5 install CDs. Which is annoying as 8.5 worked, and people seem happy with X1.5 working too. 

So installed X2 and copied the projects I am working on over to the new laptop. I installed TASCAM drivers and started X2 up. Loaded one of the old projects and it played fine - had the same issue of dropped midi notes, but this time found some articles talking about MIDI buffers to solve the issue. So I found the options and reset the MIDI playback buffer size to 1024 and increased the number of MIDI buffers as well. 

I then did some VST registrations for 3rd party products, all of which worked fine on 8.5 and I have taken them out the VST folder so they can't be responsible for the symptoms. On one of these occasions the external sound card was removed but I have run the re-run the Profile Audio which has always solved this issue before.

And the symptoms are essentially are that it appears to playback fine. The (what I think) new Audio Engine item indicates is active and the cursor is scrolling happily along. But there is no volume going out from the wave files tracks - all the audio volume levels are showing nothing. The only track which is showing volume is the MIDI pattern in my Session Drummer 3 set of tracks. However the drum bus it payed through to shows nothing.

For projects I hadn't tried before the wave file images are all empty and marked as Record xx (Busy) - the path in the 'Associated Audio Files' option is correct and when I click 'Recompute Pictures' the image is not drawn.

I've been using Sonar Producer for 10 years now and never been stumped by a total failure like this. Any ideas?

Oh, the new laptop is Windows 7 so there shouldn't be any Windows 8 style issues

In your store account you should see down loads for all you CW purchases. I can with my account. Sonar 8.5 is listed and is down loadable.  

It's not downloadable for me - I guess it's because bought the boxed product :-(

Actually Sonar X1 *is* available for download so will give that a whirl.  Would probably prefer 8.5 though for comforts sake.

Interestingly the website says I've been using Sonar for 113 years ;-)
01/01/1900    SONAR 2 Studio

Ah pooh, it's the Expanded Edition which is just a patch. I'll try to get hold of an earlier one via customer service I guess if a fix can't be found.

OK - It has been over a week I haven't had a reply from technical support about this issue or customer support about trying to get an earlier version of Sonar and I'm stuck with the X2 software I do have not playing anything. Time to jump to Reaper.

Right-click the SONAR icon and make sure to run as administrator. Verify your driver settings in Preferences, for example, the correct interface is selected, the correct mode, the Playback Timing Master points to the interface outs etc.

I'd do a complete re-install.

1) Completely un-install SONAR from your computer. This is normally done from Start | Programs | Cakewalk. This will not remove any of your project files or audio data.   

2) Open the Run Command
In Windows Vista and 7 this can be done by holding down the ‘windows’ key and pressing ‘r’   

3) At the prompt type regedit and click OK.  

 ***Backup your Registry before making edits - you do this by clicking the File menu, Export Registry File.   ***
 
4) Now delete the following Registry keys:  
 HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Cakewalk Music Software\SONAR Producer\X2
 HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Cakewalk Music Software\SONAR Producer\X2   

NOTE  that this will remove any effects presets and key bindings you may have made in Cakewalk. You can back these up separately if you like, using Options|Key Bindings, Tools|SONAR Plug-in Manager, and Options|Colors. Hit F1 in these views for detailed instructions on how to do this.  

5) Open the 'Run' command again.  

6) Copy and paste the following into the prompt:   %appdata%\Cakewalk   

7) This will open your Cakewalk Application Data folder, right-click on the SONAR folder and choose rename.  
8) Rename this folder SONAR X2 Backup. 

9) Open the 'Run' command again and type msconfig Click OK and then click on the Startup tab at the upper right of the window that opens. 

10) Uncheck all items listed, click OK, then restart your computer. You can always recheck those items again at a later time. 

11) Then reinstall SONAR. Make sure to have any virus scanners disabled on installation. It is not required or recommended to turn off any windows services.  

To the original poster:

Please understand that whatever is happening is caused by some local condition on your computer or with the installation, as there would be scads of folks complaining about this kind of issue, if it were anything else but that.

So, for anybody here in the forum to be able to help you, and we collectively do a lot of assisting folks who are trying to install and configure, we need to know more information about your setup - meaning your computer specs as well as your interface, and the settings you are using both in Sonar and for the interface.

So, with that in mind, please provide the following information:

1.  Please list your system specifications - you can look at the bottom of my post or anybody else's who posts their specs in their forum profile's 'signature', for an example.  We need to know the OS version, memory, laptop brand, interface brand, that sort of thing - again look in the specs I post at the bottom of this for an example.

2.  What is the default sound device you have specified for Windows?  It should be your audio interface for best results.  To set this, go to Control Panel, and under Hardware and Sound you should see a link for Manage Audio Devices and be able to set the default device to your laptop.

3.  If you open the audio interface control software, what Sample Rate is specified, and what ASIO Buffer Size is specified?

4.  In Sonar, under Edit>Preferences>Playback and Recording, what is the Driver Mode set to?  (For best results, most folks use ASIO)

5.  In Sonar, in Preferences>Audio>Driver Settings, what Sample Rate is specified there, and also at the bottom of that screen what is the Total Roundtrip value listed as?  Please note that the Sample Rate must match whatever you have set in the audio interface control software.  Also, please list the Playback Timing Master and Record Timing Master settings - also found on that same screen.

6.  Is your audio interface USB for Fire Wire?  If USB, try making sure it is plugged into a USB 2.0 port, as some interfaces freak out and do weird things if they are plugged into a USB 3.0 port.  If the audio interface is Fire Wire, some folks have flaky results with their interfaces due to the manufacturer of the Fire Wire chips used on the computer.

7.  Do you get sound output through your audio interface if you play a song file (MP3 or WMA) through the Windows Media Player?  Just to make sure that this is working properly outside of Sonar.

8.  There is a freeware product called DPC Latency Checker that you can download and run (no install required, just download and double-click on the application in its folder to start it).  If you just let this run for a bit, you will see detected latency over time as it scrolls along.  There is a threshold there, and it will tell you your current latency, the maximum detected latency for this running of the program, and it will also tell you if anything in your system is causing enough of a latency issue to disrupt the ability to do audio processing on your laptop.  Great little utility - (unless they fixed it since I checked, for Windows 8 the internals of Windows changed so that the latency values are not shown correctly, but that is ONLY if you run the Latency Checker on Windows 8 - for Windows 7 it works just fine).

I again cannot emphasize enough that your situation is almost certainly caused by either a configuration issue or an errant install.  PLEASE do not throw in the towel on Sonar so soon into it, as it is extremely likely that working through this with the help of us forum folks will lead to things starting to work for you.  Sonar X2 is a great product, and running on a lot of folks computers without having these issues that you are.  So, please, hang in there.

I will look for your reply with the requested information - and look forward to helping you to get this configured and installed and working properly.  Others here in the forum will jump in too, once you have listed the above information.

Bob Bone