Problem with Virtual Keyboard Failing

[Lauren Margaret Brown]

I just installed Cakewalk a few days ago on a Windows 10 HP laptop.

I'm having trouble with the virtual keyboard controller. It works like a charm when I open a new project and add a new instrument track. (I've been using Surge as my synth.) The keys work, the sound works, the recording works. I can record several tracks and am able to use both the piano keyboard and the computer keyboard.

Then I go and edit a track a bit, add an effect or two and go back to the keyboard and the synth to record again. Sound no longer works -- not just when recording, but at all. I can't trigger the synth to play. The same happens when I try to add another instrument track. Synth comes up, virtual keyboard comes up, the screen shows my keys depressing, but no sound.

I've checked that the virtual keyboard is the input (Omni). Recording on the current track is armed. Mute is off. I've tried different presets, different synths. Nothing works.

Once I exit the program and open with an empty project, everything works again.

I'm sure there's some setting I am missing but I've had no luck figuring it out.

Thanks for any help!