Newest IE8 Install breaks Sonar 8?

EDIT: I've updated the title of this thread. These first couple posts might not make sense, but we have found some "clues" that might point to the newest version of Internet Explorer 8 being the problem.

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I'm trying to be patient, but I'm absolutely furious. I made a mistake and launch the Sonar shortcut while I had a game running. Sonar froze and I killed it with the process manager. Well, now Sonar refuses to launch. Also BFD standalone will not launch either. I've tried:

-Restarting
-Uninstalling, then reinstalling Interface Drivers
-Uninstalling, then reinstalling Sonar 8 and 8.3.1

I just installed the O/S fresh yesterday and everything was running beautiful. At this point I don't know what the hell to do. Any ideas?

Alright, I ended up doing a system restore to eariler today and that did the trick.

Apparently it is something to do with Windows Update. The restore I loaded was before I did some updating. After the restore, things were working great, then I went to Windows Update to do the updates that I did after that point. Then Sonar and BFD standalone wouldn't open again, same exact problem so I reloaded the point again now all is good.

I'm tired of messing with it. I need Sonar to work so screw the updates. I guess I will do without Internet Explorer 8 and Media Player 11 for now.

I also have Sonar 8.3.1 running with IE 8 and WMP 11 installed. But I'm on XP Pro SP3 (32bit).

Mike

Ok, tried it. Had to do a restore again. Then I tried installing only WMP11 and everything is ok, so it seems that the IE8 installation is doing something that screws up Sonar.

One thing that's interesting is that every time I do the restore, I see that Sonar has re-enabled the "scan vst plug-ins on startup" setting, even though I turned that off before creating the restore point. Reinstalling Sonar 8 + 8.3.1 does not seem to help at all. IE8 worked fine for me in the past, but I guess I've gotta do without.

Dave, you might want to change the title of this thread so as to alert others of the problem. I have a feeling this will impact a lot of Vista users, basically anyone running Vista with Automatic Updates enabled.

EDIT: The update apparently plugs a security hole in DirectX, wherein code could be secretly downloaded and run via MPEG playback. Maybe this fix broke WDM/KS. Just a hypothesis, the confirmation of which would be that the hang doesn't occur if you use ASIO.

Bit, I read the thread you posted and I'm wondering if it might be something to do with the PACE iLok drivers + IE8. I use Soundtoys plug-ins and the Music production kit for Pro Tools so maybe that is the problem. Everything is working good now without IE8. I hadn't even tried launching PT, but it works now. I will investigate this more.

Here's the official position of Digidesign:

Digidesign is currently investigating reports of Pro Tools not launching for some users after installation of Internet Explorer 8.

At this time it is recommended that customers avoid installing IE8 until we complete our investigation.

Here's the link. It doesn't provide much information, other than instructions for removing IE.

Haha, I don't wanna scare the crap out of people. I also have an older setup that runs S8.3.1+IE8 perfectly, but I installed IE8 on that one over half a year ago, so maybe the newest IE8 has "extras"? If any of you guys are using IE8, maybe you can visit the windows update page and see if it tells you there is a newer update (such as 8.0.something)

BTW, I'm running ASIO on XP Pro SP3.

Thanks guys!

IE8 does not break SONAR, not an XP3 version, ASIO, as per the original post. Only iLok.

I would look more towards a corrupt registry entry, after you "forced" SONAR to close, that would be my way of thinking before any sort of re-install. But then I'm curious, and thats my 2€ cents worth.

BTW, if you download the Firefox plugin for Windows updates, it launches IE ...... Look for an IE update on around 13th/14th of each month unless its mindblowingly critical.

Cheers,
Jerry

I doubt it is IE 8. I don't think there is a reason why an upgrade of IE 8 should cause audio issues. Of course people will proclaim all sorts of things which turn into rumours.

Anyways, I am running Sonar 8.3.1, IE 8, Vista sp2, iLok (East West Symphonic). Everything is working.

If Sonar 8.3.1 can't even start, then most likely something has mucked up in its configuration settings. A hard shut down of Sonar should not have caused that but I guess it is possible. There should be a way to troubleshoot Sonar start-up to solve that sort of problem. I would guess that tech support should have ideas on that. You certainly should not have to re-install or restore Windows to get a fualty application running. That is overkill.
If Sonar can't start with corrupt configuration settings, that is something the Cakewalk people need to work on. At the least it should spit out diagnositic messages about faulty settings, not just hang. It is very likely that diagnosing Sonar start up problems has been covered extensively on other threads on this forum.

ORIGINAL: bitflipper

What should I name it to? "Can't Launch Sonar 8 after installing IE8"?

That sounds good. Or even more directly: WARNING: IE8 BREAKS SONAR - DO NOT INSTALL

I installed IE8 just earlier today and it didn't breal Sonar 5 or Reaper 3.

I have a dual boot laptop with XP pro SP2 + Vista 32.
I have a Dual boot DAW WIN XP pro SP2 & VISTA ultimate x64 (SP2b) all run IE8 and all the latest updates along with SONAR 8.3.1 in both 32 and 64 bit where I can.
That's 4 systems on 2 different PCS all running well.

Hi Dave -

I had an unusual problem last week that I think might be related. The problem I experienced isn't exactly the same as yours - and I'm still running SONAR 6.2.1 - but I smell some similarities. I'll detail what I saw, in case it triggers any useful thoughts.

My studio machine is *only* a studio machine, and does no games, internet, word processing, email, etc... it's just SONAR and other audio applications. The network ports are disabled, and it only has online capabilities when I plug in a USB wifi adapter to do software and OS updates. About a week or so ago I put the machine online and did a Windows Update and Microsoft Update, as well as some Line 6 and RME updates. After updating, everything *seemed* to be working properly - until I tried to open a project with Waves plugins in it. SONAR got stuck in the middle of the file opening process, and never unhung.

The bigger problem was that after this happened, SONAR would not open at all. It seemed like the VST scanner was trying to scan plugins at startup, and would just hang there. Interestingly, POD Farm also started taking an extremely long time to open.

While I suspected iLok, a reinstall of the iLok drivers didn't help. Fortunately, I was due for an update from Waves (Studio Classics) 5.9.7 to 6 - I had been putting off the update until I had some downtime, but this issue forced my hand. I installed version 6, installed the latest iLok drivers from their site, and was back in business. HOWEVER - even though SONAR now runs and Waves plugins are functional, I can no longer open a file from SONAR's opening screen or from the recent file list. Manually opening a SONAR project with Ctrl-O or the Open icon is usually fine; using the welcome assistant's file open features usually hangs the program.

Hopefully some future combination of Microsoft, Waves and Pace updates will restore full functionality. In the meantime, I just have to remember to open files with Ctrl-O.

No problems with me. Vista 32. Tascam FW-1884 with asio. Sonar 8PE. Updated to IE 8 a month now.
I plan to do the SP2 in a few days.