Crashed again. I've got way too much invested in this project to give up, but I just can't keep on like this. I am very reluctant to go nuclear and start with a fresh project and copy midi from one project to the other track by track, because a) that would take forever, and b) I have no idea what the problem even is, so there's no telling I wouldn't go through that whole exercise and then have nothing resolved. Cakewalk support of any kind would really come in handy here. Their "Fault Reporter" dialog which comes up every time reads to me like "Please use the fault reporter to report this problem to Cakewalk support, so that it'll give the impression like we're doing something for you, but really, it's a black hole and no one will ever do anything with your report or even get back to you."
 
Isn't there some sort of "Cakewalk diagnostic utility" which will look at my project and tell me what the problem is?
 
I was abruptly fired in June with no warning under ethically questionable circumstances. Still am not working, savings disappearing quickly. Got in a bike accident which was not my fault but which cost me $4000 and loss of my bike. My pregnant niece has terminal brain cancer and it's neck and neck whether she will survive long enough to have the baby, and there's a question whether it will be normally developed if she does. My daughter totalled our car on the highway and was almost killed but walked away from it which was lucky since I wasn't working and therefore had no health insurance. But we're down to one car for the three of us. Our cat died suddenly last month. Our dog was diagnosed with MRSA a few weeks ago. (And of course, there's Trump.) In my unemployed hours, it would be a great tonic to be able to work on music, something which has given me decades of enjoyment and would really be a salvation to me this summer, but all I've done for two months is struggle with RAM and upgrades and plug-ins and crashes and a thousand and one supposed remedies which have not fixed it. Needless to say, I'm very short on, well, just about everything. I really really really would like Sonar to just work for me during this difficult time. It's such a missed opportunity for music to soothe. I need help.

If you have EW Play, can you just use that or some other Sonar-included soft synth for your project,  or are there GM sounds you really need to use TTS-1 for? 
 
Also, with dozens of EW Play instances, are you possibly overtaxing your Dell i3 and/or RAM?  EW samples can be pretty big.  I just had a crash today using a couple of Play instances (at least the crash screen told me it was a Play fatal error).  Maybe the problem is something in the files other than TTS-1.  Try making an alternate project file with some or all of the Play instances stripped out and see if you still have the same problem.

I would be happy to use EW Play for the other instruments, but you guessed correctly that I need sounds I don't own in EW Play. It's not that I need TTS specifically, but since my synth rack synth stopped working, rather than troubleshoot yet another I/O problem, I decided to ditch external synths for good and go soft synth only. I figured TTS was reliable because it ships with Sonar, and all I really will be using it for is the occasional reference track. Although I need a nice upright bass and really like the one TTS provides, so that would be one I'd probably commit to the final mix. (Surprised SI-Bass does not provide an upright. EW Play is too orchestral sounding, I need more of a jazz sound.)
 
As far as the multiple instances goes, the CPU usage always sits around 10-15%, and RAM is around 40%, so that's not it.

I wonder if this fix might still be relevant. If you can't get to the setting before Sonar crashes, maybe try loading it into an otherwise empty project. and set it there first.
 
- http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.aspx?m=2132303&high=TTS-1+96khz
 
Good luck !
 
 

Anderton
@Brando -IIRC some plug-ins require the older version of iLok to work, and there are details on the PACE/iLok site.

Craig - Right on again. I uninstalled 3.17 and installed 3.15 and scanned the associated dll's. All is right with the world once again. Thanks for the help. Greatly appreciated.

TTS is basically a no-frills GM soft synth.  Surely you have something else that you can substitute...
 
For example, did you happen to grab the AIR XPand!2 when it was on sale for $1?  That would be a suitable replacement, and a step up, options-wise.

JonD
TTS is basically a no-frills GM soft synth.  Surely you have something else that you can substitute...
 
For example, did you happen to grab the AIR XPand!2 when it was on sale for $1?  That would be a suitable replacement, and a step up, options-wise.

Yeah, well I didn't get that, thanks a ton. I heard there was an eclipse yesterday too. 
 
Anyway, I figured NI had some sort of free Kontakt GM Synth available. Hey, Kontakt Player comes with 500 instruments free. That ought to do fine. So I've spent all afternoon feeling very stupid because I can't get Kontakt Player to do really anything at all. Kontakt Player installs with a library of 500 free samples, but I see none. Oh, there's something called Factory Selection which has only 50 instruments. I'll install that, just to see if I can get anything at all. It installs! Won't play. 
 
Thanks everyone, I'm giving up. While it would be great to soothe this savage beast, dicking around with software is making things worse. I'm cutting bait.

Anderton
I had that problem after an update. Did a VST Reset and Rescan (my goto for any plug-in weirdness) and then it loaded fine. Maybe it's coincidence, but maybe not.
 
I just tried loading via both the insert menu and browser drag-and-drop, and the TTS-1 loaded without drama.
 

what is a VST reset?

jkoseattle
I can't catch a break.
 
After messing with my external synth which stopped making sound a few weeks back after a decade of service, I decided to go all soft and switch to TTS for what I used the rack synth for. But now TTS crashes Sonar every time I open an instance of it in my project. I don't see an option to reinstall TTS from Command Center. My project has about 20 EastWest instruments in it.  
 
I'm at my wit's end with this thing. I've upgraded Sonar, I've upgrade EW Play, I've tried a million things. I've been messing with this stuff forever now and haven't actually made any music in weeks. Is there any way someone with some diagnostic chops can look at my project or help me troubleshoot? 

I never use TTS but wanted to make a quick metronome for a project separate from the normal metronome and it crashed 2 out of 3 times. Hmmm

While I'm not so sure it will help with TTS crashing, I have been willing to look at SONAR crash dumps and can tell you what crashed and what I think.  Not sure it's been all that helpful though, but it's at least a clue.
 
Zip up your last 5-6 crash dumps and put them on the net somewhere and post a link to them.  Dropbox/Google Drive/One Drive/whatever.  Make sure you include the crash files that correspond with the project and time it crashed.  (Sort the files by date).  SONAR Platinum stores its crash dumps in
 
%APPDATA%\Cakewalk\SONAR Platinum\MiniDumps
 
(you can paste that into the Windows File explorer).  The dump files end in .dmp and will named by project then the date and time of the crash.
 
As a rule if a specific plugin is crashing on you, repeatably, your only choices are find the magic setting to make it happy/stop crashing (unlikely with TTS-1), get the developer to fix it, or to stop using it.
 
If I was faced with TTS-1 crashing I'd most likely just bounce it to audio and replace it in the project with a wav file.  Another choice would be to use a General MIDI soundfont with a soft synth like sfz (or a half-dozen other soundfont playing synths).  There are generic MIDI soundfonts out there that sound as good as TTS-1.  Unless you need every instrument in the General MIDI spec you should be able to find a patch for some soft synth that is just as good.