WHICH VERSION WAS THE PROJECT RECORDED?

[Milton Sica]

WHICH VERSION WAS THE PROJECT RECORDED?

My question is if there is any way to identify, before opening the project, the version in which it was last recorded.

Something in the configs, some XML tags or something?

I ask why I am seeing some problems when I reopen some projects that had been finished in other versions and when opening with newer versions some files in wav format are not loaded in the open project.

[John Vere]

Windows explorer can display different date formats including last modification. This is very accurate for when you wish to compare files. 
A great way to avoid future confusion is to simply include the date in the titles of “save as” backup copies.  

[Milton Sica]

14 minutes ago, John Vere said:

Windows explorer can display different date formats including last modification. This is very accurate for when you wish to compare files. 
A great way to avoid future confusion is to simply include the date in the titles of “save as” backup copies.  

Thank you for your help.
Your suggestion is very good.
Even so, I think it would be interesting for the application itself to record this information.

I believe that this registry could help developers to understand some kind of error presented, especially when we know that many users do not always migrate to the latest versions.

[tparker24]

One way would be to run the CWAF (Cakewalk Audio Finder) tool, which reports (among many other things) the Cakewalk version.  For example, the latest version of Cakewalk is 28.02.0.039.

You can find the CWAF tool in Cakewalk in the Utilities menu.

You can click Help in CWAF for the documentation.

Edited June 4, 2022 by tparker24
Corrected .339 to .039. Minor Typo.

[Milton Sica]

21 hours ago, tparker24 said:

One way would be to run the CWAF (Cakewalk Audio Finder) tool, which reports (among many other things) the Cakewalk version.  For example, the latest version of Cakewalk is 28.02.0.039.

You can find the CWAF tool in Cakewlk in the Utilities menu.

You can click Help in CWAF for the documentation.

Excellent way. It is possible to check the recording version of the project.

However, the code used is not the same as what we currently see.

I think it would be the case that there is more equal information between the column shown in the CWAF and the help screen of the current version.

Application help screen.

And even, if possible, some message that guides the user like:

Attention this project was last recorded in a previous version of the DAW. There may be issues upgrading to this version.

Or something similar.

[David Baay]

I believe the version reported in File Stats int he browser and CWAF Tool is the version in which a project was originally created (i.e. saved for the first time). This is useful, but not necessarily the same as 'last recorded', obviously. But this seems like a case where the desired feature would be useful in only in this particular circumstance and not often at any other time. To really be helpful in troubleshooting version-related issues CbB would need to record the version  under which every significant edit was made to a project - not just recording -  and even then, going back to that version might not help.

CW is very good about maintaining compatibility across versions in both directions. I've had very few issues opening old projects in newer versions or even opening current projects in the last release of SONAR to confirm suspected regressions. And I've never had a problem opening audio files in any version that I can recall. Given the stability of the .WAV file format, I wouldn't expect otherwise, understanding that all the metadata related to clip editing, Audiosnap, Melodyne, etc is stored in the project, not in the .WAV file, with the exception of looping metadata in a Groove Clip which should follow a standard format. 

 

[Milton Sica]

2 hours ago, David Baay said:

I believe the version reported in File Stats int he browser and CWAF Tool is the version in which a project was originally created (i.e. saved for the first time). This is useful, but not necessarily the same as 'last recorded', obviously. But this seems like a case where the desired feature would be useful in only in this particular circumstance and not often at any other time. To really be helpful in troubleshooting version-related issues CbB would need to record the version  under which every significant edit was made to a project - not just recording -  and even then, going back to that version might not help.

CW is very good about maintaining compatibility across versions in both directions. I've had very few issues opening old projects in newer versions or even opening current projects in the last release of SONAR to confirm suspected regressions. And I've never had a problem opening audio files in any version that I can recall. Given the stability of the .WAV file format, I wouldn't expect otherwise, understanding that all the metadata related to clip editing, Audiosnap, Melodyne, etc is stored in the project, not in the .WAV file, with the exception of looping metadata in a Groove Clip which should follow a standard format. 

 

Thanks.

What I think would be important to have is, at least, the information of which version was the last recording of the project.
As a verification facilitator and support for the improvement of the tool, because in some cases I have gotten errors in projects recorded in older versions that, when opened in the most updated version, do not bring the wav files corresponding to the track and timestamp into the project from the project.

I think that this information, if it does not yet exist, being registered after recording the project, it could be registered and informed to the user.

On the other hand, one can also see the issue of VERSIONING.

Perhaps, in this case too, it would be possible to register the version that was recorded and, who knows, in the future, even be able to open the project with the version to which it corresponds.

They are evaluations and reflections that came from these errors that I saw in some projects.

[tparker24]

8 hours ago, Milton Sica said:

Excellent way. It is possible to check the recording version of the project.

However, the code used is not the same as what we currently see.

I think it would be the case that there is more equal information between the column shown in the CWAF and the help screen of the current version.

FYI, here's my understanding of the differing version numbers:

The "Application help screen" format is:  YYYY.MM  bbb

But the CWAF format (for CbB) is:  YY +6 . MM . 0. bbb

So, in your example of "Version 2022.06 and build 008", CWAF would report that as 28.06.0.008.

And going the other way, a CWAF of 24.11.0.31 would correspond to 2018.11 build 31.

Note: The CWAF format is a bit different for the older pre-CbB files:

   SONAR 1-8 (correspond to 2001-2008):  Y +9 . v1 . v2 . bbb.   E.g. the last SONAR 8.5.3 was 17.5.3.282
   X1-X3: Don't know
   Platinum: Don't know

Just my understanding ... I could be wrong.

[David Baay]

 

5 hours ago, Milton Sica said:

What I think would be important to have is, at least, the information of which version was the last recording of the project.

What I'm saying is that recording, though one of the most fundamental things, is  also one of the most trivial and version-independent things that CbB does, and not likely to contribute to any issue opening old projects. In other words, I think you're 'barking up the wrong tree' as we say over here.

When you say, "some files in wav format are not loaded in the open project",  is there an error that files aren't found or do you get empty clips with no audio file associated or no clip at all or...  something else?

 

[Milton Sica]

14 hours ago, David Baay said:

 

What I'm saying is that recording, though one of the most fundamental things, is  also one of the most trivial and version-independent things that CbB does, and not likely to contribute to any issue opening old projects. In other words, I think you're 'barking up the wrong tree' as we say over here.

When you say, "some files in wav format are not loaded in the open project",  is there an error that files aren't found or do you get empty clips with no audio file associated or no clip at all or...  something else?

 

Thank you for your help.
In Brazil "barking at the wrong tree" is "praying to the wrong saint".
I understand that the version information is a minimum detail in the universe that the application does, of course!
Precisely because it is so simple that I think it would be quite possible to have this information more accessible.

CWAF has already helped me a lot and the calculation presented by @tparker24..... is very interesting.

In my case, there are projects that wavs files are not loaded after opening. MIDI registers only.

There is no error information.

[David Baay]

1 hour ago, Milton Sica said:

wavs files are not loaded after opening

I still don't fully understand what the exact symptoms of "not loaded" are. Is it that tracks that formerly contained audio clips are empty or the clips are present but are empty? I did a quick search and found one  report of empty clips disassociated from their audio files, but it was never resolved and I don't recall seeing any other reports of this. Is this what you're seeing?

If this is it, you should send the project to the Bakers so they might have a chance of finding and fixing the root cause.

[Milton Sica]

2 hours ago, David Baay said:

I still don't fully understand what the exact symptoms of "not loaded" are. Is it that tracks that formerly contained audio clips are empty or the clips are present but are empty? I did a quick search and found one  report of empty clips disassociated from their audio files, but it was never resolved and I don't recall seeing any other reports of this. Is this what you're seeing?

If this is it, you should send the project to the Bakers so they might have a chance of finding and fixing the root cause.

I explain:

The audio files are present in the audio folder, but they are not included in their places on the tracks where they should be.

The track is empty.

 

[David Baay]

If clips are completely missing, I think the most likely explanation is they were inadvertently deleted from the project at some point and it was saved in that state. Or the project crashed before saving the session in which the recordings were made. If the project had been closed without saving the recording session, the audio files would not have been preserved. And any corruption of the project or audio files after the fact that could cause loading to fail would almost certainly result in an error of some sort. 20-20 hindsight: using Save As or the built-in File Versioning feature helps avoid this.

[Milton Sica]

4 hours ago, David Baay said:

If clips are completely missing, I think the most likely explanation is they were inadvertently deleted from the project at some point and it was saved in that state. Or the project crashed before saving the session in which the recordings were made. If the project had been closed without saving the recording session, the audio files would not have been preserved. And any corruption of the project or audio files after the fact that could cause loading to fail would almost certainly result in an error of some sort. 20-20 hindsight: using Save As or the built-in File Versioning feature helps avoid this.

This would be a good explanation to clear up the error if, in fact, it had happened. What didn't happen.
Even so, under such a hypothesis, both my backup file and the versioning ones would have kept track information.

This loss of references to wavs files without their inclusion in the project is something that, I think, deserves to be evaluated by the developers.