problems with mode(Mute/Solo/) grouping all tracks together..And requiring MASTER MODE

oh yes, i have this problem and it is PISSING ME OFF. Sonar 8.5.3 Producer, WinXP SP3.

Solo will not UNsolo for me AT ALL unless i click on the master indicator at the bottom of the screen. this is incorrect behavior. while toggling the S button on the track, the green S indicator on the status bar doesn't change (once S is enabled, it stays that way).

sent to tech support:

"the Solo buttons on tracks no longer works correctly since 8.5 (or 8.5.3??). i can solo a track, but the toggle to UNSOLO does NOT work at all. the button visually switches, but the track mutes and nothing else unmutes.

steps:

1. solo a track by click on the S button.
2. [all tracks but the solo track are muted]
3. unsolo the track by clicking on the S button.
4. [solo button goes back to normal state, all tracks are muted, but no indicator shown except bottom of screen status bar shows S for broken solo mode]

WinXP SP3, Sonar Producer 8.5.3

Why is this happening? Will you fix it? i will NOT upgrade to Sonar X1 just to get a fix for this. that's not fair."

 i will NOT upgrade to Sonar X1 just to get a fix for this. that's not fair."

Calm down, its not broken. It works fine. Im using 8.5.3 XP SP3 juts like you are. The Bitmeister is onto something

hi everyone. no, it has nothing to do with Exclusive Solo. i just found out what the problem is: Simple Instrument Track.

Solo behavior is normal unless i add a softsynth that uses a Simple Instrument Track. the Simple Instrument Track has incompatible behavior with Solo. try it.

the "solution" seems to be to create ONLY the audio output track. behavior returns to normal. since i don't need a MIDI track attached to the instrument (its sequencing data is coming from other pre-existing tracks) i can skip it. Simple Instrument Track seemed like a sensible thing to use based on its name, but clearly it's wrong. too bad there's no clear way for users to understand this. (i "solved" this by accident, when i loaded the same MID file and tested Solo without adding the TTS-1)

my project's setup was basically a multitrack MIDI file i imported (converted from a MOD). i was using Cakewalk TTS-1 as a GMIDI player so i could hear my changes while i edited the MIDI data (Sonar is just a halfway step between tools for this project).

what was happening: with a Simple Instrument Track present, when you Solo a track, the track solos as it ought to but so too does the Simple Instrument Track. when you try to unsolo the main track, it unsolos but the instrument track (in my case, TTS-1) stays solo. it makes sense in a backwards way (the synth output should be heard at all times), but the general behavior is broken if using the Simple Instrument Track. this (and the brief visual jumble when adding the Simple Instrument Track, where you can momentarily see two tracks appear then consolidate) shows just how unplanned this design is. Sonar's been getting more and more clumsy like this over the years. did they change this kind of behavior in X1?

yeah, i suppose you could call this "user error" but it's a clumsy design with inconsistent behavior, so i say screw blaming the user. all the tracks are collapsed by default, so the solo state indicators aren't even visible (why would i expand a track i have no need to look at?). there's NO visual cue that this is what's happening. it shouldn't behave this way. so again i call it a bug (of design).

Thanks for everyone's responses. at least you're participating