benjaminfrog


I installed updates for the first time in months on Sunday. The first time I tried to open a project after that, X2 crashed. I tried it in X1... same deal. I then went back to X2 and opened the project in Safe mode and disabling all the plugins. That worked, so I went through one at a time disabling the plugins and found that it was the very last one, a Frank's Midi Plugin.  I deleted it and went on my merry way.

Then it happened again today. Not feeling like going through that god-awful manual process again, I decided to just reimage using a backup I created a couple weeks ago. Hopefully that resolves the issue. I'm at work now, so I won't be able to test it till tonight. 

Although I can't say with absolute certainty that it was one of the updates that caused the problem, it's the only thing that changed on my computer prior to the project no longer working.

I had all the current updates. This was just the latest round of updates that included somewhere around 18 updates. By the way I now have other problems and now X2 has crashed when it did not before.

melmyers


I concur that a massive 13 files Windows 7 update on 11/14/2012 has made my normally hyper-fast computer slow and sluggish. Even something as simple as shutting down the computer now takes much, much longer. In the past, shutting down would take 5 seconds or less. Now, the Windows 7 "shutting down..." screen sits there for over a minute before finally shutting down.

I haven't been brave enough to install X2 yet, but I can tell you that X1 is running more erratically than before the Windows update, but there is no one recurring problem with X1, as far as I can tell.

I do install updates on a regular basis, I had it set to ask before updates are downloaded. So I was surprised when the banner came up during the middle of a session telling me of the need to reboot. That is just one reason I called this post beware of windows updates! from now on I will turn off the service while recording!

noynekker

Marcus Curtis


I have not had any serious issues until the updates were installed and the computer wanted to reboot. I had no idea that windows was updating itself. I turned automatic updates off. I don't know how it got turned back on again...ahhh the mysteries of buggy software.

Now I am waiting for the next update and I hope it is soon. stupid windows updates It hijacked my computer as well.

 
 
I would never have turned on my windows updates to "download and install automatically", but somehow I've also just noticed they are back on ?
Perhaps a windows update turned this back on ?
 
I regularly update windows, and also have not experienced any issues related to Sonar X2 or anything else on my system.
 
+1 for keeping a complete system image backup, which I do monthly.
For this I use the windows 7 backup, which now includes all system data, and software installed, for a complete restore.

exactly...I Suspect the anti-virus software turned it back to automatic. By the way my Anti virus software is windows essentials. Usually I will use msconfig to shut down the services I don't need while recording. Then I will turn the services back on when I am done recording. In this case I was recording two acoustic guitar parts, nothing major. It should have not taken a long time to record those parts. Needless to say I learned my lesson.

I was able to resolve this problem and this is what I did. I allowed Windows to re-install the updates. I then went into Sonar and I still had all the same problems and issues.

I reset the VSTs in preferences and then closed Sonar. I uninstalled and then re-installed all the drivers for my audio interfaces and my midi controllers. I then started Sonar and then Sonar re-scanned all the VST plugs. The driver conflicts were gone and the stability returned. Now X2 is back to being stable again and I have the updates from Microsoft too.

This is just anecdotal but Marcus' comment on re-installing the audio drivers may be good advice for people having problems with Sonar stability.

A few months before X2 came out and having X1 run flawlessly for a year I started having X1 hang on startup, couldn't kill the sonarpdr.exe process, have to reboot, etc. After troubleshooting everything I could think of and finding nothing, for the hell of it I re-downloaded and re-installed the very same audio driver I was already using and presto... Haven't had a problem since and X2 has been as stable as X1 was for me.

Don't have any idea why or if it would work for anybody else but it wouldn't hurt to try.

So, corrupted drivers by the sound of it (fingers crossed). I had similar problems with drivers some time ago, and a re-install sorted it out, which is why I suggested you give it a try. 

I've no idea what caused the problem in the first place though or whether it was a Sonar issue or a Vista/Windows one.

System restore doesn't cut it and in any case an image takes less time to do than a system restore. http://disk-image.com/

 
Thanks for the link Jon. I have been confused about what backup/imaging software to get and use. I will get this. I trust your judgement for some strange reason... lol.
 
Thanks... one more thing off the list!
 
J

tlw


So, corrupted drivers by the sound of it (fingers crossed). I had similar problems with drivers some time ago, and a re-install sorted it out, which is why I suggested you give it a try. 

I've no idea what caused the problem in the first place though or whether it was a Sonar issue or a Vista/Windows one.

What I figured out was this. It was not the updates that caused the problem. It was the update process! I wonder if I would have had these problems if Microsoft did not update during a time when I was not using those drivers. Maybe I would still have the problems I don't know.


It has been my experience over the years when Microsoft installs updates, it downloads them then in most cases it installs them. The message in the update window will indicate what number the update is when it is installing.


Once done if any update has anything to do with the operating system the update process will ask for a reboot. Sometimes when you reboot the computer upon shutdown the updates go through a reconfiguration process. When I watched this there seemed to be a 3 step reconfigure on shut down and boot up


The latest round of updates downloaded them and installed and reconfigured the computer upon shutdown. When this happened Microsoft shut down most of the services running in the background. I closed the project I was working on and shut Sonar down, but maybe Sonar was not completely shut down and part of the program was working in the background when Microsoft began to take over the computer.


I think and suspect that something happened during the reconfiguration process to make the drivers unstable. Maybe something that was changed in the registry file caused a conflict. If it were the updates themselves then Sonar would still have problems.


I ran several tests last night and everything is now working fine. I want to thank everyone for their input and help.

If you suspect Windows install errors, you could check the log file for errors.
It's at C:\Windows\WindowsUpdate.log

When files need to be deleted/renamed after a restart, the operations are logged in:
C:\Windows\PFRO.log

You can find these easily by go to C:\Windows and sorting be date descending - they are at the top.

There may be other log files (placed by special processes) you see there that could help out.