Scratching My Head

[Steev]

Well this is a new one on me, anyone else ever have this ultimately buzz killing, DIS pleasurable experience happen in the heat of the moment during a mixing recording or session?

I'm not sure if this is a problem with the latest CbB  v2022.11 (build 013), or a problem with the latest release version Windows 10 22H2. 

 I have checked to make sure ALL my drivers are up to date, swapped out my Kensington Track Ball with 2 different wired mouses and even tried a wireless mouse.

  But still every once in a while, when I'm really deep into concentrating on the task at hand, my mouse pointer turns from a normal typical cursor/pointer arrow into this whatever this thing/symbol is in the pic below. ? VERY frustrating when it happens during MIDI piano roll editing and or audio wave form and comp editing, and even normally simple patching and routing CbB track, buss, aux I/O internally or to and from my Focusrite Scarlett 18i20. ?

It may be just a coincidence, But I watched my cursor/pointer turn from an arrow to this thingy in sync while stepping on the "Record" button on the foot switch for my Behringer X Touch MIDI DAW controller. I even thought of disconnecting the X touch which is kinda like have 17+ mouses and transport controllers, only much better and easier to use.

I'm thinking it might be a Windows10 problem because, although, it only happens when I'm using CbB may trigger this condition but shutting down the DAW doesn't turn it back into an arrow, it just turns the thingy from color into black & white and I have to reboot my computer system to turn it back to normal arrow.

I even had to take this screenshot with my iPhone because this thing doesn't even show up during a screen capture. But even if it did, it renders SnagIt screen capture GUI software inoperable. Almost like it's frozen, but I can still move the cursor around and still use keystrokes, but this thingy is invisible to SnagIt, so what's the point? ?

Oh where would we be without a sense of humor.. ?

Edited November 27, 2022 by Steev

[Steev]

On 12/2/2022 at 5:36 PM, Starship Krupa said:

I have never seen anything like that. The worst issue I've had with cursors in Cakewalk is how often a cursor will "stick" in one mode. All I can offer is a few troubleshooting suggestions that you may already have tried.

Try setting custom cursors in Windows, or if you have already done this, go back to the standard Windows set.

Completely uninstall all Kensington (or any other) mouse/trackball control software and let Windows use your pointing device as a class-compliant device with the Microsoft driver. Sometimes mouse software gets cute with adding its own cursor set, and that may have somehow gotten corrupted.

Other than that, wow, mystery.

15 days and counting. SOLUTION FOUND! ?

Using CUSTOM WINDOWS SETTINGS listed under "Additional Mouse Settings" does the trick by selecting "option 3" for "changing pointer color"!

It's actually such a simplistically brilliant solution, because Windows is "monitoring" & constantly changing and adjusting the color & size of the pointer/cursor to "White" over a dark background to "Black" over a light background. 

THANKS Starship Krupa! ?? Proving once & for all again... "Two Heads are Always Better then One!"

 

Edited December 16, 2022 by Steev

[Starship Krupa]

I have never seen anything like that. The worst issue I've had with cursors in Cakewalk is how often a cursor will "stick" in one mode. All I can offer is a few troubleshooting suggestions that you may already have tried.

Try setting custom cursors in Windows, or if you have already done this, go back to the standard Windows set.

Completely uninstall all Kensington (or any other) mouse/trackball control software and let Windows use your pointing device as a class-compliant device with the Microsoft driver. Sometimes mouse software gets cute with adding its own cursor set, and that may have somehow gotten corrupted.

Other than that, wow, mystery.

[CoveCamper]

I've had this happen to me about 7 times now in the last year. Mine looks a little different to yours though. Here is what mine looks like:

Do you have a AMD processor?

From everything I have found out on the net it is a bug in AMD processors. I have always just rebooted my computer, but I have read that you can shake your mouse (move the pointer from one side of your monitor to the other about 3 times real fast ) and it goes away for some. I also have heard that if you use dual monitors to go real fast between the monitors with your mouse and it might go away.

I do not have Cakewalk installed so it is not that. I use Cubase Artist 12.

I have Windows 10 Pro  21H2 installed.

I have a AMD processor.

It has not happened to me since I researched it, so I will try one of these methods when it does. One thing is it seems to happen when I have not rebooted in a long while.

Good  luck Steev

Edit - I also remember someone saying that it happened to them on Windows 7 also.

Edited December 2, 2022 by CoveCamper

[Steev]

On 12/2/2022 at 5:36 PM, Starship Krupa said:

I have never seen anything like that. The worst issue I've had with cursors in Cakewalk is how often a cursor will "stick" in one mode. All I can offer is a few troubleshooting suggestions that you may already have tried.

Try setting custom cursors in Windows, or if you have already done this, go back to the standard Windows set.

Completely uninstall all Kensington (or any other) mouse/trackball control software and let Windows use your pointing device as a class-compliant device with the Microsoft driver. Sometimes mouse software gets cute with adding its own cursor set, and that may have somehow gotten corrupted.

Other than that, wow, mystery.

Thanks man, I have always used the standard generic Windows settings for pointing devices to be used as a class-compliant devices. I can't really see the point or even any advantages in all the extra eye candy bling, quite the contrary, and haven't installed any useless vendor driver packages for things like a monitor or a mouse since the 90's, so completely forgot about them.

BUT..  Now that you mentioned it, and put it on my mind, I went and looked at my Microsoft update logs and found the WINDOWS Pro 10 DID FIND & AUTOMATICALLY INSTALL a driver package for my Kensington trackball which has been working just fine, as expected for maybe 4 or 5 years now without them. ?

 I do believe you just may have very possibly found the solution & hit the nail on the head. ?

It may take a few days to a week before it will happen again, but I'll certainly be back let you know by then.

And THANKS! It's guys like you that made the Cakewalk/SONAR and now the CbB user forums the best forums I've ever experienced on over 30+ years! ?

 

[Starship Krupa]

13 minutes ago, Steev said:

 I do believe you just may have very possibly found the solution & hit the nail on the head.

Cool! I hope so. Sometimes all it takes is another pair of (virtual) eyes and a good question to prime the troubleshooting pump, right?

I do install the Logitech software for my beloved multi-button mice, for the reason that it allows me to program the side buttons as Ctrl and Alt. Very handy for copying, splitting, and zooming in Cakewalk. So far, no issues except that Logitech seems to want to make it harder and harder to program a button for double-clicking. Odd, because for me, that's the most useful mapping. Middle button=double click.

[Steev]

On 12/2/2022 at 6:09 PM, CoveCamper said:

I've had this happen to me about 7 times now in the last year. Mine looks a little different to yours though. Here is what mine looks like:

Do you have a AMD processor?

From everything I have found out on the net it is a bug in AMD processors. I have always just rebooted my computer, but I have read that you can shake your mouse (move the pointer from one side of your monitor to the other about 3 times real fast ) and it goes away for some. I also have heard that if you use dual monitors to go real fast between the monitors with your mouse and it might go away.

I do not have Cakewalk installed so it is not that. I use Cubase Artist 12.

I have Windows 10 Pro  21H2 installed.

I have a AMD processor.

It has not happened to me since I researched it, so I will try one of these methods when it does. One thing is it seems to happen when I have not rebooted in a long while.

Good  luck Steev

Edit - I also remember someone saying that it happened to them on Windows 7 also.

WOW that's EXACTLY how the cursor looks in Windows outside of the CbB DAW.  Bandlab had recently enhanced the DAW GUI making it very 3D like pretty if you have a high-performance graphics card. But not as pretty on my Intel i7 computer. I'm sure the i7 CPU could handle it, but it doesn't have as high-performance graphics as my AMD machine, so the bling gets scaled back to 2D pretty.

Yes I do run my custom-built computer workstation in 2017 (by me) on an AMD FX 8370 with AMD FirePro W7100 graphics card. mounted on an ASRock Super Alloy 990FX high performance MoBo which supports USB 3.1/Thunderbolt interfaces, with Secure Boot v1 chip. It's just a tiny bit over the legal age limit for the Win 11 upgrade requirements of Secure Boot v2 chip.

But be that as it may, it ran Windows "Insiders Addition" beta version of 11 Pro installed on a separate USB 3.1 external SD encloser box as good as Win 11 on my older AMD machine in dual boot mode where I could boot to either v10 or v11, or in VM mode where I could run both OS's at the same time and actually better than could run on my 2021 Intel i7 machine. However, since Microsoft officially released v11 publicly, it's no longer supported my AMD machine.

 But that's OK for now, because there's certain things, I really don't like about v11, and it's still not as stable or trouble free as the mature and pretty much ROCK SOLID v10.

Blah, blah, I'm rambling.... And I could be wrong. I did plug in my USB 3.1 external SD drive and try and see if it would happen with Win 11 to see if it was an OS problem and it didn't. But I only tried for a couple of days because my beta version of v11 isn't supported by MS anymore so it's several months behind in security updates.

I too have read a few tales where this condition is blamed on AMD CPU's, but so far I believe I'm reading nothing but anti AMD propaganda conspiracies theories, that lacks support of any empirical evidence that supports pointing devices aren't solely dependent upon Operating Systems and not CPU architecture. 

But I could be wrong. ?

And THANK YOU! I really DO appreciate your help! ??

[Steev]

1 hour ago, Starship Krupa said:

Cool! I hope so. Sometimes all it takes is another pair of (virtual) eyes and a good question to prime the troubleshooting pump, right?

I do install the Logitech software for my beloved multi-button mice, for the reason that it allows me to program the side buttons as Ctrl and Alt. Very handy for copying, splitting, and zooming in Cakewalk. So far, no issues except that Logitech seems to want to make it harder and harder to program a button for double-clicking. Odd, because for me, that's the most useful mapping. Middle button=double click.

 Ahh, YES INDEED. If I had dollar for every time looked past the obvious and I missed something right under my nose I'd have enough spare money pay someone else to make my music for me and spare enough to take my computer to the local "Computer Guy" and let HIM straighten my cursor problem whlst I sit back drinking beer! ??

 BTW are you by any chance running Windows 11? One of the things I don't like about is it no longer supports right clicking for copy/paste. WTF? ? WHY⁉

But I guess you wouldn't notice that if your mouse software does.

[Starship Krupa]

14 minutes ago, Steev said:

 BTW are you by any chance running Windows 11? One of the things I don't like about is it no longer supports right clicking for copy/paste. WTF?

WTF indeed. You've got to be kidding me! I use context menu copy/cut/paste CONSTANTLY. Has Microsoft given some rationale for that? Why remove functionality?? Ah, the endless impulse to "fix" things that are so not broken.

I'm not running Windows 11. Even my newest build (from Craig's List parts) doesn't meet the requirements to run it. Now I'm glad for that. By the time I get around to running Windows 11, context menu copy/cut/paste will have been restored, even if it's with a 3rd-party shell add-on.

[Steev]

11 minutes ago, Starship Krupa said:

WTF indeed. You've got to be kidding me! I use context menu copy/cut/paste CONSTANTLY. Has Microsoft given some rationale for that? Why remove functionality?? Ah, the endless impulse to "fix" things that are so not broken.

I'm not running Windows 11. Even my newest build (from Craig's List parts) doesn't meet the requirements to run it. Now I'm glad for that. By the time I get around to running Windows 11, context menu copy/cut/paste will have been restored, even if it's with a 3rd-party shell add-on.

 Me too, context menu copy/cut/paste is a natural reflex. Burned into my brainpan since the 90's, I don't even realize I'm consciously doing it. Even Apple, the last holdouts of the one button mouse gave up the ghost and finally supported it and scroll wheels too!

I don't know why Microsoft does stuff like that, moving the buttons and levers around, RENAMING THINGS.

 Although to be fair, I noticed v11 to bit a bit quicker and snappier then v10 in my Intel i7 machine. Can't tell the difference in my AMD machine which runs naturally at 4.1 g/hz, 100 g/hz faster than average rating of 4.0 g/hz, and turbo boosts over 5+ g/hz but not for long, only a few seconds at a time before thermal throttling kick in, and only with Vegas Pro video NLE if it needs and extra kick in the gas., FX series AMD's were always super-fast and muscular.

I would imagine it turbo boosts during cold start boot up. Ever since installing an SSD, it takes about 3.5 seconds to boot to Win 10 post BIOS, and maybe only 2x that booting a 30-50 track audio/MIDI CbB Project with God only knows how many audio plugins running, a large full synth rack of various Cakewalk, Waves, REASON STUDIO 11 Synth Rack Plugin. I don't know if you are familiar with that, but it literally runs the Reason DAW as a VSTi plugin, using CbB as a host. The only thing that's missing from the Reason DAW is the sequencer and SSL 4000 mixer. Truly Awesome mixer, but so is CbB's and I had purchased all the add on ProChannel modules during SONAR days, and being a big WAVES fan and evangelist, I don't NEED no (truly awesome & authentic) stink'in Reason's licensed version of an SSL desk.

And that being said, I'm rambling on here putting some extra time into MS Edge and on the cursor clock, and it hasn't changed and is STILL AN ARROW! ?

[Starship Krupa]

I looked it up and it seems that they moved the copy/cut/paste commands to the bottom row and are labeling them with icons instead of words. Is that the case on your system. If so, that doesn't seems as bad as eliminating them entirely.

[msmcleod]

9 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

WTF indeed. You've got to be kidding me! I use context menu copy/cut/paste CONSTANTLY. Has Microsoft given some rationale for that? Why remove functionality?? Ah, the endless impulse to "fix" things that are so not broken.

  

9 hours ago, Steev said:

 Ahh, YES INDEED. If I had dollar for every time looked past the obvious and I missed something right under my nose I'd have enough spare money pay someone else to make my music for me and spare enough to take my computer to the local "Computer Guy" and let HIM straighten my cursor problem whlst I sit back drinking beer! ??

 BTW are you by any chance running Windows 11? One of the things I don't like about is it no longer supports right clicking for copy/paste. WTF? ? WHY⁉

But I guess you wouldn't notice that if your mouse software does.

 

There is a registry setting you can use to get those back... I did that, as I rely on a bunch of shell extensions for TortoiseSVN / TortoiseGit.

https://pureinfotech.com/bring-back-classic-context-menu-windows-11/#:~:text=Enable classic right-click context menu on Windows 11&text=Right-click the CLSID key,and select the Key option.

[marcL]

1 hour ago, msmcleod said:

  

 

There is a registry setting you can use to get those back... I did that, as I rely on a bunch of shell extensions for TortoiseSVN / TortoiseGit.

https://pureinfotech.com/bring-back-classic-context-menu-windows-11/#:~:text=Enable classic right-click context menu on Windows 11&text=Right-click the CLSID key,and select the Key option.

That's what annoys me with Windows, the newer the edition the more registry settings are required to reset good old features! ? Somewhere I have noted a lengthy list of them!

Lately when I was working on my W7 recording system I found it so comfortable that hovering over a couple of open Windows Explorers showed a path list instead of a couple of irritating thumbnails! And I have to agree with people on the web saying that in most cases the thumbnails don't represent a lot. But hurray, I found a registry setting to implement this on W10! ?

[Steev]

5 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

I looked it up and it seems that they moved the copy/cut/paste commands to the bottom row and are labeling them with icons instead of words. Is that the case on your system. If so, that doesn't seems as bad as eliminating them entirely.

 You can still do it by scooooling the mouse cursor over to those pretty little buttons and scrooooling back and forth again & again, again, ans again. You just can't do it with a simply High light> "right click/copy", > move cursor to desired place and hover>"left click/paste"> DONE!

 It's a real PITA for simple things like "EASIEST WORKFLOW" comp copy/paste editing in any DAW or NLE, and don't even get me started with have to use how to use and navigate thru Microsoft Office Pro 2021 all over again, once and for all AGAIN. ?

[Steev]

3 hours ago, msmcleod said:

  

 

There is a registry setting you can use to get those back... I did that, as I rely on a bunch of shell extensions for TortoiseSVN / TortoiseGit.

https://pureinfotech.com/bring-back-classic-context-menu-windows-11/#:~:text=Enable classic right-click context menu on Windows 11&text=Right-click the CLSID key,and select the Key option.

THANKS! Much better solution then adding MORE 3rd party shell extensions that's looks easy enough.

But not today, all this is cutting into my jam time and I already spent way too much time in the registry looking for stray remnants of my unwanted/never asked for Kensington trackball driver package out of my AMD workstation, which was a bit aggravating, and I am NOT a big of editing Windows Registry without a very level and sober head, good clean glasses, and a steady hand. I already drank WAY TOO MUCH coffee and only criteria I'm meeting this morning is clean glasses. 

 And my Intel running Windows 11 computer is currently synced to transfer/export audio from SPLAT project files into a Pro Tools projects running on my Mac computer running in real-time via ADAT and MTC. Time consuming but very reliable way with having to remix and deal with incompatible plugins.

 SONAR has no problems reading PT projects, less automation and plugins, but that's not the case vise versa. Pro Tools does NOT or play well with others.

[Steev]

5 hours ago, marled said:

That's what annoys me with Windows, the newer the edition the more registry settings are required to reset good old features! ? Somewhere I have noted a lengthy list of them!

Lately when I was working on my W7 recording system I found it so comfortable that hovering over a couple of open Windows Explorers showed a path list instead of a couple of irritating thumbnails! And I have to agree with people on the web saying that in most cases the thumbnails don't represent a lot. But hurray, I found a registry setting to implement this on W10! ?

Windows 11 does not support links that ae configured hook up to the mothership's support pages thru Internet Explorer that still used by many software vendors product portals. Like Focusrite, Novation, iZotope, Eventide, iLok, and even messes and trips up Waves Central and IK product managers.

I have no idea what it does to Bandlab Assistant, I'm still running SPLAT on my newer Intel machine  which I like to use to open very old archived Cakewalk projects with because it has many old DX & DXi Cakewalk plugins installed going back to the pre–SONAR Cakewalk Pro Audio days, 

SPLAT has survived intact though many years of upgrades and hard drive cloning's.  it's not even close to broken so I'm not bothering to fix it, and I never even installed CbB on my comparatively wimpy performing consumer grade components they use for off the shelf HP Intel i7 from the local big box store. .

 So even though I'm not sure I may or may not have caught the exploit, or I very well may be an immune infected carrier of the Meltdown exploit..  My computer can longer spread it.  It had zero effects or performance issues running on the AMD architecture.

It took a noticeable performance gut punch with Intel's patch update for the Meltdown exploit attacking Intel's patented Hyper Threading™ technology, but I got most, but not all of that back by upgrading system memory with matched sticks of High-Performance G Skill RipJaw RAM sticks, and now that good 'ol decent performing i7 puppy runs like a great performing i5 Border Colley. ? 

 My AMD FX 8370 doesn't support Intel's patented Hyper Threading™ technology that balances 4 physical cores with 4 virtual cores that registers in Windows as 8 cores.  AMD FX8370's have 8 physical cores, very powerful and very fast. The only real downside is AMD FX series create a lot of heat, they are glutenous and aren't as energy efficient and require larger power supplies and cooling solutions so they can gobble and burn up more wattage that's needed for other components and peripherals to run properly and give comparable Intel "i" series chips a right proper smackdown at the right proper milli second. Under power a computer running an AMD FX chip, and Intel will outperform it in a bench every time. Of course, without bench testing software, both are so fast and powerful it's humanly impossible which is faster.

But at least AMD was pretty quick issue a security patch to help stop the spread of exploits to Intel, I'm not sure that Intel would reciprocate. Intel's corporate greed and business practices got them FIRED by Apple who replaced them with their own smaller faster ridiculously powerful M1 chip, and cutting the pricing of Apple products, which again is very hard to tell because Apple ONLY uses premium grade parts and peripherals making them very pricy to begin with.. 

That being said, based on my 2012 Intel i5 iMac running a constantly supported & updated version of OSx High Siera with the newest versions of 3rd party software, I haven't had to put a dime into that 'lil 'ol iMac, Never even replace the hard drive because all important files are kept on servers, I have nothing to lose. And if it's ancient Western Digital 500 GB "Black" hard drive blows I'll spend a Franklin on a Western Digital 1 TD SSD. That old mule ain't all that fast, but either is Pro Tools v14 on the BEST of machines, and my iMac ROCKS a stable, STEADY, Pro Tools for almost 14 YEARS NOW!

 

Edited December 7, 2022 by Steev

[David Baay]

I'm a pretty old dog, and I pretty rapidly got used to the new cut/copy/paste/rename/share/delete icons.

[Steev]

13 hours ago, David Baay said:

I'm a pretty old dog, and I pretty rapidly got used to the new cut/copy/paste/rename/share/delete icons.

Yeah, but how much do you like them for an editing session of 32-60 tracks of a Cakewalk by Bandlab project? Prolly not too much more then I got used to my neighbors blasting Reggaeton music thru a cheap but LOUD soundbar. ?

Edited December 8, 2022 by Steev

[David Baay]

4 hours ago, Steev said:

Yeah, but how much do you like them for an editing session of 32-60 tracks of a Cakewalk by Bandlab project?

I mostly use keyboard shortcuts for these operations in CbB, but so far as I know, this change in Windows Explorer does not affect context menus within CbB or other applications...?

[Starship Krupa]

3 hours ago, Steev said:

Using CUSTOM WINDOWS SETTINGS listed under "Additional Mouse Settings" does the trick by selecting "option 3" for "changing pointer color"!

Ah, this is something I do on my systems. I increase the pointer size and turn it yellow.

Glad you found a solution! Happy to help fire the neurons.