To Sonar developers: Here's what's wrong with the plugin windows [Now with proof!!!]

Re:To Sonar developers: Here's what wrong with the plugin property page window (Dave Modisette)

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 19:35:35 GMT

I just used your utility because the flicker in V-Vocal looked so unprofessional. Thanks for your effort.

Re:To Sonar developers: Here's what wrong with the plugin property page window (SONARtist)

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 11:03:54 GMT

Thanks TheSteven. I have already contacted the PlugIn developer with the issue. Now back to the proper thread ...

Re:To Sonar developers: Here's what wrong with the plugin property page window (TheSteven)

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 17:09:37 GMT

SONARtist

SilkTone : I would like to have your advice. This may be OT here, but if so, please say so and I'll start a new thread.
After reading thru' your other bug report concerning MIDI, I am wondering if what you have found is the reason that some softsynths continue playing already-triggered notes when the transport is stopped.

In particular, and in my case, Waldorf's LARGO is displaying some of the symptoms you describe. It should be acknowledged that LARGO has no such issues with any other host except SONAR, as reported by some posts. At least one other softsynth is affected (the name escapes me, but AMAZED had reported it not so long ago).

What do you think ?

Edit: Added AMAZED's comment here :-
I have experienced this quite recently with Gforce Virtual String Machine. When you stop the sequence a few notes are left stuck. There are certainly no events in the list that I can see that would cause this.

This is an issue with VSTs/DXs that don't properly response to a MIDI 'AllNote-Off' command.
Many plug-ins depend on the host to send a Note-Off message to each separate note.
This is an old issue and Cakewalk doesn't regard it as their problem.

You should drop the plug-in devs a bug report on this.

Here's previously thread on the same subject:
http://forum.cakewalk.com/fb.ashx?m=1595598

...Steven

Now back to the thread in progress...

Re:To Sonar developers: Here's what wrong with the plugin property page window (cornieleous)

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 16:53:16 GMT

But the problem is, as I said, getting Cakewalk to even listen to anyone. Yes sure I come across as annoyed, rude, arrogant, whatever. It is because I tried to get this point across to CW but I'm being ignored pretty much. The fact that they allow this kind of serious bugs to exist in Sonar is just troubling to me. As I said I really like using Sonar (as a hobby) but I am glad I don't rely on it for a living because if I knew about these kinds of bugs I would be concerned about having a paying client watch over my shoulder while I use Sonar. Yes, that is harsh but if CW was more open to discuss this kind of possible bugs with lowly people like me, then I would have a more positive attitude towards all of this. As is all I am to them is just someone rambling on about some imaginary bugs in Sonar.

I didn't see anything you said as rude or arrogant, perhaps just frustrated - and you have right to be. Some of these bugs can be found by any user during casual use within a few minutes, and for that reason I have at times questioned the effectiveness of the beta testing program - around here all that got me was a flame war instead of a level discussion. You have done some serious investigation, and found interesting results, and at the very least I should think you could get some type of response back from your bug report submissions. I can hardly blame you for posting here after not getting one.

I am also confused at the reaction some had to your initial post. You have posted your findings of something that appears to fix a problem without an obvious side effect, and get criticized for it. I guess just like with sports (never understood this personally) people defend what they 'think' they are a part of - around here its the same group all the time doing this. The only people who should have a right to that type of defensive response should be actual Cakewalk employees, and even then I should hope they would respond openly instead of defensively - some of the time they do. To the rest of the forumites...what are you defending for? Team Cakewalk is doing just fine on the field without you.

Lastly, none of us knows what talent Cakewalk has in the programming department. They might be veteran software engineers, or they might have some rookie programmers, or maybe they have veteran programmers who cannot also engineer (plenty of programmers with years of experience have terrible design habits while believing themselves geniuses). Or maybe their legacy code base is such a mess that most of the bugs are a result of developing around it and trying to replace it with better code. None of us really knows, and assuming either way is futile. Large companies can and do have incompetent people in important positions (not saying that is the case here) just as easily as they have experts so we cannot assume to know just because we like the product. Having said all that, I personally think it is likely that Cakewalk does employee some very bright minds, but I have seen some interesting bugs make it to the product that leave room for improvement in their process.

D.

Re:To Sonar developers: Here's what wrong with the plugin property page window (garrigus)

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 16:14:03 GMT

A1MixMan

Not sure if this is related to the topic at hand, but I really hate the fact that you can't resize the plug in windows in Sonar. Having a high screen resolution makes reading some of the plug ins nearly impossible. I wish there was a fix for this.

Mixman... this isn't a solution, but you might find the Magnifier accessory in Windows useful. Choose Start > All Programs > Accessories > Ease Of Access > Magnifier in Windows Vista.

Best,
Scott

--
Scott R. Garrigus - Author of the Cakewalk Sonar and Sony Sound Forge Power book series. Get Sonar 8 Power - Today! Go to: http://www.garrigus.com/ - http://www.musictechshop.com/ - http://www.cooltechshop.com/

Publisher of DigiFreq - free music technology newsletter. Win a free SoundTech Vocal Trainer Package, go to: http://www.digifreq.com/digifreq/

Publisher of NewTechReview - free consumer technology newsletter. Win a free i2i Stream Wireless Music Pack, go to: http://www.newtechreview.com/newtechreview/

Re:To Sonar developers: Here's what wrong with the plugin property page window (SilkTone)

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 16:13:35 GMT

SONARtist

SilkTone >> Note that the MIDI related bug described in the linked page is different from that originally discussed in this thread. We are currently discussing two completely different bugs so just keep that in mind. You should not use the utility I provided in an attempt to fix the MIDI related bugs. That utility is purely meant to address the issues with some plugins having problems drawing properly to the screen. As far as I know there would be no way to address the MIDI related bugs with an external utility. Only CW can fix that.

I should have been clearer ... when I said "test files" I actually meant your MIDI test files, not the utility which is the main topic of this thread. My bad, sorry. And apologies to everyone for hijacking this thread. I will now disappear :-)

Ah, I see what you mean. Sorry, I misunderstood. In that case you should not use any of the files linked to in the MIDI bug, since it won't help you. What I did there was I created the most straight-forward VSTi plugin I could that would demonstrate the bug in Sonar. So its purpose is to expose the bug, not provide a way to work around it.

The reason I did that was because there is no way to reproduce the MIDI bug with anything that ships with Sonar. So far I have been unable to find any VSTi plugin that ships with Sonar that passes through or creates MIDI notes that you can use via the "Enable MIDI Output" functionaly. This means that whenever this bug reproduces, there is always a 3rd-party plugin involved, meaning CW can always say it must be a bug in the 3rd party plugin. As such, I decided to create the most simple plugin I can that passes through the MIDI data so that the bug can be demonstrated. I also provided the source code so that CW, or anybody else for that matter, can verify that I didn't do anything weird in the plugin that is causing the bug.

On the other hand the utility linked in this thread that deals with the incorrect window flags can very well be used to fix that problem as described in one of my posts above.

Re:To Sonar developers: Here's what wrong with the plugin property page window (SONARtist)

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 15:40:33 GMT

SilkTone >> Note that the MIDI related bug described in the linked page is different from that originally discussed in this thread. We are currently discussing two completely different bugs so just keep that in mind. You should not use the utility I provided in an attempt to fix the MIDI related bugs. That utility is purely meant to address the issues with some plugins having problems drawing properly to the screen. As far as I know there would be no way to address the MIDI related bugs with an external utility. Only CW can fix that.

I should have been clearer ... when I said "test files" I actually meant your MIDI test files, not the utility which is the main topic of this thread. My bad, sorry. And apologies to everyone for hijacking this thread. I will now disappear :-)

Re:To Sonar developers: Here's what wrong with the plugin property page window (SilkTone)

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 13:38:00 GMT

SONARtist

SilkTone, many thanks for your great explanation. And I do understand your logic, although I am not a programmer any longer (I used to be, but it was ERP apps and not in Windows :-)

I am wondering if I should download your test files and apply them to my environment and see what happens. I use external MIDI controllers (MOTU) / keyboards to trigger the softsynth so I think I should be able to see what's happening with "note-on/note-off" etc. Will give it a try.

Correct me if I am wrong, but your utility is getting "in between" the (recordable) MIDI track and the VSTi which ultimately produces the sound.

Reading all your posts, I have a very high regard for your programming and debugging skills, and it is a shame that CW is not responding in a favorable manner. Thx again.

Note that the MIDI related bug described in the linked page is different from that originally discussed in this thread. We are currently discussing two completely different bugs so just keep that in mind. You should not use the utility I provided in an attempt to fix the MIDI related bugs. That utility is purely meant to address the issues with some plugins having problems drawing properly to the screen. As far as I know there would be no way to address the MIDI related bugs with an external utility. Only CW can fix that.

As far as what exactly the external utility does: It scans all open windows and searches for those that have the typical Sonar plugin signature. These include standard Sonar plugin windows, BitBridge windows, jBridge windows and V-Vocal windows. Once it finds one, it traverses the windows contained within that window and sets each one's flags to the proper values. Once that is done, it doesn't do anything else, so it gets out of the way at that point. Once it sets the flags, all drawing in the plugin windows start working properly and that is why it no longer needs to do anything else.

When you press the Fix Windows button in the utility, it will do one scan at that instance, so if you open a new window, you will need to press the button again. On the other hand, if you enable the Auto Fix option in the utility, it will re-scan every 2 seconds so that if you open a new plugin window, it will get fixed at the next scan.

Re:To Sonar developers: Here's what wrong with the plugin property page window (SONARtist)

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 13:34:26 GMT

Thanks markmcg. I'll see if I can find something like this in Largo (one never knows !!) and get back.

Re:To Sonar developers: Here's what wrong with the plugin property page window (markmcg)

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 13:28:41 GMT

"SilkTone : I would like to have your advice. This may be OT here, but if so, please say so and I'll start a new thread.
    After reading thru' your other bug report concerning MIDI, I am wondering if what you have found is the reason that some softsynths continue playing already-triggered notes when the transport is stopped.

    In particular, and in my case, Waldorf's LARGO is displaying some of the symptoms you describe. It should be acknowledged that LARGO has no such issues with any other host except SONAR, as reported by some posts. At least one other softsynth is affected (the name escapes me, but AMAZED had reported it not so long ago).

    What do you think ?

    Edit: Added AMAZED's comment here :-
    I have experienced this quite recently with Gforce Virtual String Machine. When you stop the sequence a few notes are left stuck. There are certainly no events in the list that I can see that would cause this. "

SONARist,

I believe this is the same issue that Sample-Modeling addresses in the maunal for The Trumpet sample instrument for Kontakt:

   " Tip: Sonar users might experience hanging notes upon stopping the playback. This is due
    to the fact that Sonar sends an “All-Notes-Off” command when the Stop button is pressed.
    The problem can be easily solved by checking the box “Accept all notes off/ all sounds off”
    under “Instrument Options -> Controller”, as shown below. "

Not sure how you change this for LARGO or the G-force instrument.

Mark

Re:To Sonar developers: Here's what wrong with the plugin property page window (SONARtist)

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 13:23:02 GMT

SilkTone, many thanks for your great explanation. And I do understand your logic, although I am not a programmer any longer (I used to be, but it was ERP apps and not in Windows :-)

I am wondering if I should download your test files and apply them to my environment and see what happens. I use external MIDI controllers (MOTU) / keyboards to trigger the softsynth so I think I should be able to see what's happening with "note-on/note-off" etc. Will give it a try.

Correct me if I am wrong, but your utility is getting "in between" the (recordable) MIDI track and the VSTi which ultimately produces the sound.

Reading all your posts, I have a very high regard for your programming and debugging skills, and it is a shame that CW is not responding in a favorable manner. Thx again.

Re:To Sonar developers: Here's what wrong with the plugin property page window (SilkTone)

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 12:36:47 GMT

SONARtist

SilkTone : I would like to have your advice. This may be OT here, but if so, please say so and I'll start a new thread.
After reading thru' your other bug report concerning MIDI, I am wondering if what you have found is the reason that some softsynths continue playing already-triggered notes when the transport is stopped.

In particular, and in my case, Waldorf's LARGO is displaying some of the symptoms you describe. It should be acknowledged that LARGO has no such issues with any other host except SONAR, as reported by some posts. At least one other softsynth is affected (the name escapes me, but AMAZED had reported it not so long ago).

What do you think ?

Edit: Added AMAZED's comment here :-
I have experienced this quite recently with Gforce Virtual String Machine. When you stop the sequence a few notes are left stuck. There are certainly no events in the list that I can see that would cause this.

It is possible that the problems you see could be caused by the bug as described here. The problem is that that particular bug could cause a wide range of seemingly unrelated problems, so it is difficult to know for sure. These are the kinds of issues I have seen that I believe are directly related to that bug:

When you use a VSTi that has 'Enable MIDI Output' enabled and it is sending MIDI notes out, other unrelated tracks that are recording MIDI from an external controller will also record MIDI notes that the VSTi is sending out. Note that in this case the unrelated track is clearly set to record only from the external controller.
Even if you can use some of the work-arounds to prevent these stray MIDI notes from being recorded into the wrong tracks (like using a specific channel of the controller as opposed to omni on the controller), you can still experience weird behavior like notes you are recording mysteriously being cut short, etc.
If you use a VSTi that processes/creates MIDI notes, those MIDI notes it sends out can often become stuck.

Now I have a suspicion that this is also a possible cause for unexplained crashes. I can't confirm this but this particular type of bug can cause a range of bad things to happen including crashes.

From a technical point, this bug is caused by buffers that are not thread safe. This means that if you have different threads doing their own thing (like in Sonar), and those different threads all access the same buffer in memory, one thread can change the contents of the buffer while another thread is trying to use that same buffer. The end result is unpredictable, and can be any type of weird, unexpected behavior including things like corrupted data (stuck notes) and random crashes.

I have carefully looked at the memory that Sonar uses when it sends a MIDI event to a plugin. I noticed that even if there is just one MIDI event, the memory buffer is clearly allocated to be able to contain many events at the same time. This seems to imply that they don't allocate the memory specifically for each event, but re-use the same memory over and over. That makes sense since if you want fast performance, you don't want to re-allocate the memory over and over. But this also seems to imply that the buffer can potentially be used by other threads, when they should have allocated such a buffer for each thread, as opposed to re-using the same buffer between multiple threads. That is a big no-no in a multi-threaded app. You can actually re-use the same buffer in a multi-threaded app if you use a monitor/lock that prevents multiple threads from accessing the same memory at the same time. In such a case, just before a thread wants to use the shared memory, it acquires the lock. If a different thread tries to do the same thing while the first thread still has the lock, the second thread will become blocked until the first thread releases the lock, allowing the second thread to wake up and acquire the lock. These are all standard multi-threaded programming techniques.

But in the case of Sonar, I did the following test: In my test plugin, when I receive a MIDI event, I make a local copy of the contents of the buffer that Sonar presents to me. At the end of the same function, I compare the local values to that of the buffer again. Initially, the values would match as you would expect. What I did then was add just a very small amount of delay from the time after I copied the values, to when I check the values again. What I found was that the values no longer matched what was in the buffer. What happened in this case was that my thread was pre-empted, and a different thread than re-used the same buffer, resulting in the contents of the buffer being altered while my VST was still in the middle of processing the events. This is really a serious bug and should not be happening in a mature product like Sonar. I believe this is the cause of all these weird MIDI related bugs, and possibly even some crashes.

But the problem is, as I said, getting Cakewalk to even listen to anyone. Yes sure I come across as annoyed, rude, arrogant, whatever. It is because I tried to get this point across to CW but I'm being ignored pretty much. The fact that they allow this kind of serious bugs to exist in Sonar is just troubling to me. As I said I really like using Sonar (as a hobby) but I am glad I don't rely on it for a living because if I knew about these kinds of bugs I would be concerned about having a paying client watch over my shoulder while I use Sonar. Yes, that is harsh but if CW was more open to discuss this kind of possible bugs with lowly people like me, then I would have a more positive attitude towards all of this. As is all I am to them is just someone rambling on about some imaginary bugs in Sonar.

So to answer your question: Yes, it is very possible that this could be the cause of the stuck notes, but it is hard to know for sure.

Re:To Sonar developers: Here's what wrong with the plugin property page window (SONARtist)

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 10:43:32 GMT

SilkTone : I would like to have your advice. This may be OT here, but if so, please say so and I'll start a new thread.
After reading thru' your other bug report concerning MIDI, I am wondering if what you have found is the reason that some softsynths continue playing already-triggered notes when the transport is stopped.

In particular, and in my case, Waldorf's LARGO is displaying some of the symptoms you describe. It should be acknowledged that LARGO has no such issues with any other host except SONAR, as reported by some posts. At least one other softsynth is affected (the name escapes me, but AMAZED had reported it not so long ago).

What do you think ?

Edit: Added AMAZED's comment here :-
I have experienced this quite recently with Gforce Virtual String Machine. When you stop the sequence a few notes are left stuck. There are certainly no events in the list that I can see that would cause this.

Re:To Sonar developers: Here's what wrong with the plugin property page window (Susan G)

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 01:19:43 GMT

Hi UnderTow-

Okay, understood. Thanks!" />

-Susan

Re:To Sonar developers: Here's what's wrong with the plugin windows [Now with proof!!!] (stratman70)

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 22:30:09 GMT

The biggest problem with "all" the plug windows is:
When you resize they should "keep the aspect ratio" or at least have the option to do so. That would be a great addition, IMHO!
You "always" lose something when you resize them. Photoshop, Paintshop Pro and most graphic programs have this ability. Even the $29. photo edit programs. I am no programmer, but seems it should be possible? Now that would be cool.

Re:To Sonar developers: Here's what wrong with the plugin property page window (UnderTow)

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 19:27:19 GMT

Thanks for sharing!

I've deleted any plugins that caused these types of problems. (Often demos that I didn't purchase partly due to gfx issues). Next time I will be sure to run your application to see if it helps.

UnderTow

Re:To Sonar developers: Here's what wrong with the plugin property page window (SilkTone)

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 19:17:43 GMT

While this was originally only meant to demonstrate the bug in question, I have since updated my little utility and now it might be useful to some people. If you don't have any plugins that exhibit weird drawing glitches in Sonar, then you probably don't need this (since those plugins already figured out how to force their UIs to draw properly by using some sort of work-around).

The latest version of my utility now has an option to "Auto Fix" any Sonar plugin windows. Basically all you do is run it, check the Auto Fix option, then minimize it. It will automatically fix any open VST windows, as well as any new ones you open. This includes V-Vocal. Without the utility, V-Vocal will flash wildly as you resize it. When the utility is running, V-Vocal will resize as smooth as butter.

jBridge has its own mechanism for dealing with these issues. For instance if you open, say, B4 II or Aplitube 2 in jBridge, but leave the jBridge options at its default, as soon as you partially move the plugin window off the screen and back again, the part of the UI that was off the screen will become blank. Alternatively you can just resize the plugin window to reproduce the problem. Previously, to fix this you needed to enable the jBridge option where it periodically forces a refresh of the plugin window. But when you run my utility, it will fix up the wrong window flags and from then on you will no longer experience any drawing glitches, and nothing needs to force any redraws to make things visible.

Download the utility from here.

Re:To Sonar developers: Here's what wrong with the plugin property page window (UnderTow)

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 19:01:20 GMT

Susan G

Hi UnderTow-

He did it as a result of my complaining.

Not trying to be argumentative, but did Ron tell you that (privately or in a post)?

Yes and I quote "I've already coded a fix for this for SONAR 6. The 64th note resolution has been that way forever, so chalk it up to inertia. As you pointed out it was a trivial change."

(I find the last sentence interesting considering what all the naysayers were saying on the forum at the time). The reason I feel ok with quoting Ron's correspondence with me is that he also responded publicly on the forum saying pretty much the same thing.

I think suggesting that any one User complaining about the lack of a feature or pointing out a bug loudly and often enough will get results isn't borne out by the facts.

It is but this point does need to be nuanced! In SilkTone's case, the research has been done. The effort has been made to contact Cakewalk through regular channels etc etc. In my case it really was an incredibly trivial thing to fix and I had also gone through all the official channels first.

I am not suggesting that everyone start loudly campaigning for their particular wish for the next version of Sonar. The regular communication channels are still the best way to request any new features or bug fixes.

UnderTow

Re:To Sonar developers: Here's what wrong with the plugin property page window (Susan G)

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 17:51:50 GMT

Hi UnderTow-

He did it as a result of my complaining.

Not trying to be argumentative, but did Ron tell you that (privately or in a post)? If so, congrats, but I think the far more common scenario is the one in which CW determines that a FR or bug fix affects enough Users that it's "worth" addressing. I'm not saying that means one is in fact more "worthy" than another, just that they have to do a balancing act for each release.

I've also seen things added or addressed over the years that I never saw posted about here, so obviously there's internal stuff going on too that we're not privy to.

It sounds like SilkTone has done an excellent job of documenting and reporting this, but I have to admit I have no particular feelings one way or another about the issue.

From what I've seen in the past, if there's a real groundswell for a feature or if lots of folks can repro the same bug (or even just a few, if it's a showstopper) CW will address it, but I think suggesting that any one User complaining about the lack of a feature or pointing out a bug loudly and often enough will get results isn't borne out by the facts.

-Susan

Re:To Sonar developers: Here's what wrong with the plugin property page window (UnderTow)

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 16:34:24 GMT

Amazed

I'm not certain that throwing down the gauntlet to Cakewalk in a public forum is the fastest way to getting this done. Put yourself in their shoes and let's assume you're right. If they suddenly fix it, how do they look?

I don't know about others but to me: Smart. Willing to listen. Humble. Willing to learn. Open minded. Quick to fix a now known problem with a known solution. Need I go on? :)

If they admit the issue first before they fix it, how do they look?

See above except for the last qualifier. At least, it depends when the next patch is released.

If they just deny it and claim you're an idiot, how do they look?

If it is ever found out that they are wrong and SilkTone is right they will have done irreparable damage to their own and Cakewalk's reputation.

Sometimes the fastest way home is not the most direct :)

And sometimes it is. :) After long complaining in public on this forum about the lack of time subdivisions in menus, Ron Kuper at some point posted a message saying he had fixed it and it would be included in the next update. He did it as a result of my complaining. Next update the new subdivisions had been added. Hurray hurray! (Not once did I think less of Ron Kuper for doing this. On the contrary).

UnderTow

Re:To Sonar developers: Here's what wrong with the plugin property page window (eratu)

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 16:20:45 GMT

I think Cakewalk cares, but they are humans and we can't expect them to be perfect, like anyone else. I've dealt with some Cakewalk folks and I get a sense they care very much indeed, well beyond what I've experienced elsewhere, working some crazy hours to squash a bug or make something better... but they have limitations just like anyone else. They have many, many things on their plate and I think it's a matter of doing what will be most effective for the undoubtedly massive laundry list they have to deal with. There are many things I'd love them to do, but I realize my tiny "vote" is no doubt one of many, many people that hope for things.

I commend you for your efforts, and the hard time you have invested into this issue. Of course, I have no idea why Cakewalk has responded (or not responded) the way they have, but I think you've done an admirable job analyzing what you consider to be a problem. I'm not making any comments/judgments on that either way since it is beyond my area of expertise, but it's clear you have thoughtfully raised awareness of this situation and invested a lot of work. May I suggest you submit all of this one more time, including this thread, and then print all this work out and mail it to them?

Then, what else can you do? Nothing, I guess. It goes into the "human" system over there at Cakewalk and then you hope for a positive response. I think it would be very appropriate for Cakewalk to thank you for your time on this, and maybe even give you some details why or how they have (or have not) dealt with this issue.

Hopefully it will get put on their list to seriously look at soon, or even better yet, they will invite you into their inner circle by being a beta tester and/or look at you as a third-party developer and give you whatever level of contact is appropriate for third-party developers... so maybe there's another level of connection you can build with them to move this to the fast-track?

I think dealing much more with this in a public fashion here *might* have some negative results in that they may potentially view you as a harsh critic (or worse), depending on how you take it from here. Just human nature, I'm afraid. If that happens, they may not take your hard work as seriously as the work merits, which would be a shame for all involved.

As a developer I can imagine this is very frustrating to you, so I really hope whatever happens that you and Cakewalk can foster a positive, mutually-beneficial relationship. Good luck, and I wish you the best!

Re:To Sonar developers: Here's what wrong with the plugin property page window (SilkTone)

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 15:53:54 GMT

Amazed

Come on Cakewalk, just fix these simple bugs!!! It really is easy if even I can fix it

Silk,

I'm not certain that throwing down the gauntlet to Cakewalk in a public forum is the fastest way to getting this done. Put yourself in their shoes and let's assume you're right. If they suddenly fix it, how do they look? If they admit the issue first before they fix it, how do they look? If they just deny it and claim you're an idiot, how do they look?

Sometimes the fastest way home is not the most direct :)

Cheers.

Yes I understand what you are saying. To be honest, I don't think CW really cares about this and how they might possibly look if they fix/admit/deny this. I am well aware that software has multiple bugs and some of those are really simple or obvious, but it happens and that is why all software needs to go through a QA process that tests even seemingly obvious functionality.

But my experience with dealing with Sonar related bugs is not great. I have filed multiple bug reports and none so far have been fixed over the years, even the ones that have been confirmed. No-one from CW ever got in contact with me to get more info on any bug reports I filed. I spent a lot of time on this particular bug report, creating screenshots, creating a Sonar project file, creating a plugin that clearly demonstrates the bug, including the source code for the plugin, etc. Of course I didn't have to do any of it, but I thought at the time I was doing a good thing. But I won't bother doing anything like that again. I basically had to beg them give me a status update on the reported bug, and when I finally got some feedback, it was basically just a boilerplate "we have received the bug report and will be looking into it". That bug has been confirmed by CW but there have been no fix in later releases. I might as well be reporting these bugs to a wall, I'll get about equal results.

So if I seem to "throw down the gauntlet to CW", it is merely my frustration related to this ongoing attempt to get them to fix any of the bugs I have been reporting. I really like Sonar and it is because I want it to become a better product that I report the bugs in the first place.

Re:To Sonar developers: Here's what wrong with the plugin property page window (Amazed)

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 22:28:09 GMT

Come on Cakewalk, just fix these simple bugs!!! It really is easy if even I can fix it

Silk,

I'm not certain that throwing down the gauntlet to Cakewalk in a public forum is the fastest way to getting this done. Put yourself in their shoes and let's assume you're right. If they suddenly fix it, how do they look? If they admit the issue first before they fix it, how do they look? If they just deny it and claim you're an idiot, how do they look?

Sometimes the fastest way home is not the most direct :)

Cheers.

Re:To Sonar developers: Here's what wrong with the plugin property page window (Amazed)

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 22:18:17 GMT

bitflipper

So you would have CW set these options in SONAR's main window, possibly screwing up other child windows, just so the VST window doesn't flicker? The WS_CLIPCHILDREN flag is especially problematic, potentially causing many other drawing issues.

Some of these options cause problems that only show up with specific video drivers, or with specific combinations of other style flags, making it hard to test (as I found out the hard way - and I don't support nearly as many workstations as CW does). Just because a technique works for you on your computer doesn't mean the "fix" translates to the thousands of other, very diverse computers in the world.

I'm sure CW appreciates your help, but why would you assume that something so basic would be beyond Noel & company's expertise in the first place?

Common Bit, give the guy a break. He's having a damn good go at this. He just MAY be onto something and even if he doesn't have the exact problem nailed it may lead to somebody realising the real problem. And the devs at Cakewalk are just devs. If development got it right first time every time, there would never be any bugs would there?

Cheers.

Re:To Sonar developers: Here's what wrong with the plugin property page window (SilkTone)

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:08:59 GMT

OK,

I made a little utility you can download here that proves my point.

If you run the utility after you have opened a few VST plugins in Sonar, you can see the difference when you click on the button in the utility. It fixes all style flags in the open VST windows.

In particular, the differences are very noticable if you use jBridge with plugins like B4 II, Amplitube 2, etc. Don't enable any of the jBridge work-arounds for the plugin UIs. Once the plugin UI is open, click on the button in the utility and it will instantly fix all Sonar VST windows. Now when you move a VST window partially off the screen and back again, the UI will no longer become invisible. If you resize the VST window, the UI will no longer become invisible.

Bonus functionality: If you have any V-Vocal windows open, those will also be fixed. After clicking on the button in the utility, notice how smooth and without any flashing you can resize the V-Vocal windows.

Come on Cakewalk, just fix these simple bugs!!! It really is easy if even I can fix it " />

I would like to hear anyone's results after giving this a try.

Re:To Sonar developers: Here's what wrong with the plugin property page window (Sound Advice)

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 19:04:05 GMT

SilkTone

Sound Advice

SilkTone

Yes their knowledge of Sonar far exceeds mine. But that doesn't mean their knowledge of programming Windows itself is neccesarily better that every body elses.

That is a fact, but i thought you said it was basic obvious windows 101? surely they would know that wouldn't they?

but still, sometimes in the process of producing things for one reason or another something might get overlooked, so it's a good thing you submitted the fix either way.

even though it's low on the priority list, it sounds simple to fix, so i think it's probably quite likely they would fix it if they could. but i don't know how they run their company so i could be wrong.

Well if there is one thing I know is that in any software there are going to bugs, no matter how simple or obvious the bug looks in hindsight. It might very well not have been anyone's intention to leave out these flags, but we all make mistakes and especially in software where there are so many things that can go wrong. Things often seem to work right but in reality there could be subtle bugs where the cause is not obvious at all. So my point is just because those flags are not set, doesn't mean that was the intention. The part that is a bit strange to me is that this bug is still there after all these years/versions.

ya, i know what you mean, that's why it's good you submitted the report, but also what makes me a little skeptical that it was an accidental oversight. but like you said, ya never know.

Re:To Sonar developers: Here's what wrong with the plugin property page window (SilkTone)

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 18:58:14 GMT

Sound Advice

SilkTone

Yes their knowledge of Sonar far exceeds mine. But that doesn't mean their knowledge of programming Windows itself is neccesarily better that every body elses.

That is a fact, but i thought you said it was basic obvious windows 101? surely they would know that wouldn't they?

but still, sometimes in the process of producing things for one reason or another something might get overlooked, so it's a good thing you submitted the fix either way.

even though it's low on the priority list, it sounds simple to fix, so i think it's probably quite likely they would fix it if they could. but i don't know how they run their company so i could be wrong.

Well if there is one thing I know is that in any software there are going to bugs, no matter how simple or obvious the bug looks in hindsight. It might very well not have been anyone's intention to leave out these flags, but we all make mistakes and especially in software where there are so many things that can go wrong. Things often seem to work right but in reality there could be subtle bugs where the cause is not obvious at all. So my point is just because those flags are not set, doesn't mean that was the intention. The part that is a bit strange to me is that this bug is still there after all these years/versions.

Re:To Sonar developers: Here's what wrong with the plugin property page window (Sound Advice)

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 18:34:29 GMT

SilkTone

Yes their knowledge of Sonar far exceeds mine. But that doesn't mean their knowledge of programming Windows itself is neccesarily better that every body elses.

That is a fact, but i thought you said it was basic obvious windows 101? surely they would know that wouldn't they?

but still, sometimes in the process of producing things for one reason or another something might get overlooked, so it's a good thing you submitted the fix either way.

even though it's low on the priority list, it sounds simple to fix, so i think it's probably quite likely they would fix it if they could. but i don't know how they run their company so i could be wrong.

Re:To Sonar developers: Here's what wrong with the plugin property page window (SilkTone)

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 18:00:03 GMT

F@KKER

SilkTone,
are you stating that you have fixed these issues in Sonar yourself as installed on your machine?

I would be quite interested in a (undoable) patch if you would make it available.

F@KKER

Well, yes and no. The way it works is that if you develop a plugin, you can actually set the flags to the correct values when the plugin loads up, but only within that plugin's own window. You can't for instance fix other plugin windows at the same time. So there really isn't a patch that can be applied. The ultimate fix needs to come from CakeWalk.

Re:To Sonar developers: Here's what wrong with the plugin property page window (SilkTone)

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 17:55:54 GMT

Sound Advice

i wasn't implying you didn't know what you were talking about, just saying that they do know what they're talking about also, and certainly their knowledge with sonar and all it's requirements and compatibility issues and whatnot far exceeds yours.

but you did the right thing at any rate. you sent them a bug report. and they will most certainly look at it, and if it is an option for them to change it, then we'll for sure see it in the next patch for 8.5

Yes their knowledge of Sonar far exceeds mine. But that doesn't mean their knowledge of programming Windows itself is neccesarily better that every body elses. It doesn't matter what application it is, they all work with native Win32 windows (even .Net WinForms applications which wrap native Win32 windows), and they all have to follow the same basic guidelines.

I hope you are right about them fixing it. But my experience with CW when I have logged bugs (even ones they confirmed) in the past has not been very positive (hence my ticked-off attitude when dealing with these kinds of bugs). CW has to triage the bugs to figure out which ones they are going to fix. It is impossible to fix them all. So their triage criteria most likely includes things like how serious is the bug, how likely is it to affect many people, how many people actually ran into the bug, are there work-arounds, etc. You can see that using those criteria, a bug like this will probably be low on their priority list, meaning it will most likely never get fixed (even though the fix is really trivial). This is if they even take it seriously. Part of the problem is that if they have the same attitude as BitFlipper in that it can't possibly be a bug in Sonar, that the chances of it getting fixed becomes even more remote.

But we can hope though.