Help!!!Isn't S4 Pro backwards compatable???

UGGGH! I recently was working on a project that I had opened and closed without incident over the course of two or three days. Well this morning I tried to open the project that is saved as a bun file .cwb. S4 Producer seemed like it was opening the project normally and then stopped and gave me an error: The file you are attempting to open is not compatable with this version of sonar. Huh!?!??? I have the latest update installed on my DAW, ver 4.02. I have not made any changes to my system or to sonar I might add prior to attempting to open this file. The last project that I was working on with S4 was this very same file and it was saved by S4 as a bun file. I now don't have any other versions of sonar installed on my DAW at this time. Even if I did how could this be?? Shouldn't S4 ver (4.02) backwards compatable? I have removed S4 and all previous versions from my DAW since this problem has occurred and reinstalled S4 Pro and the updates with still no joy! Please help, I was preparing to use this project this weekend and was 3/4 of the way complete with this song....

Here's what's helped me in the past.

If you are trying to load the project from a CD-R, then copy it to your hard drive and try it from there.

Open the project in Safe Mode. File>Open and shift + mouse click on your project file.

HTH.

The bun file is located on my 2nd hard drive. I may try to open it in safe mode though...

Without a doubt, step one is to open it in safe mode. If you get anywhere with it, even if it just pops up one effect or synth option to load, you're most likely fine. It's just a matter of isolating the problem plugin. In some cases, opening in safe mode and clicking YES to load everything still let it all load up okay...so could be good.

If, however, the project gets nowhere in the loading process and gives you that error straight away, you might be hosed. I've had corrupt project files before, I keep a rolling copy in a folder called "working backups" just for this purpose.

Good luck.

The bun file is located on my 2nd hard drive. I may try to open it in safe mode though...

Do your best to get away from using Bun files. This symptom seems to pop up more with people that use bun files for storage than anything else. (My observation, not scientific)

Per project folders is the best way to save your files. Zip them if space is a factor.

Thanks for your replies mod bod. Unfortunately I haven't been able to open the project in safe mode either but I did find out something kind of scarey dealing with this problem. I loaded sonar on to my lappy top and was able to open this same, (thought to be corrupted) file across a network straight off my DAW's hard drive with no problem. Any plug in not installed on my notebook was simply omitted from the opened file. Which could possibly indicate one thing. I may have picked up some sort of virus that is causing S4 not to recognize it's own files. I am going to save the project as a .CWP as you suggested and attempt to reopen it on my DAW. Have you ever heard of such a thang? This is scarey because I don't really want to mess with my registry or slick my C drive to fix this problem. I have found other projects saved as bun files that have my DAW has mysteriously started to have problems opening now. I am starting to get nervous. I think a HD back up may be in order....

Thanks for your replies mod bod. Unfortunately I haven't been able to open the project in safe mode either but I did find out something kind of scarey dealing with this problem. I loaded sonar on to my lappy top and was able to open this same, (thought to be corrupted) file across a network straight off my DAW's hard drive with no problem. Any plug in not installed on my notebook was simply omitted from the opened file. Which could possibly indicate one thing. I may have picked up some sort of virus that is causing S4 not to recognize it's own files. I am going to save the project as a .CWP as you suggested and attempt to reopen it on my DAW. Have you ever heard of such a thang? This is scarey because I don't really want to mess with my registry or slick my C drive to fix this problem. I have found other projects saved as bun files that have my DAW has mysteriously started to have problems opening now. I am starting to get nervous. I think a HD back up may be in order....

Man, when computers are reading and writing files and being pinged by other devices begging for resources, it's a wonder everything isn't messed up all the time. It boggles my mind. You just have to remember that becaused it's a computer things are going to get muffed up sometimes. It's not a matter of "if" it is "when". You've got to be prepared and back up things with multiple names. Mysong 1, Mysong 1a, Mysong 2 etc.

Maybe run Scandisk or something.