I upgraded to Sonar a few days ago and already starting to regret it

[PJH]

I've started to regret my decision to upgrade already. The first thing I've come across are the difficult to see vertical grid lines which cannot be altered if using the Tungsten theme.

The second problem is more serious. I have a VST synth loaded in a multitrack that consists of about 24 wave tracks and everything was working perfectly until I had to save and close. On re opening the file Sonar shuts down immediately. 

The interesting thing is that I'm able to open it perfectly in CBL. No problems.

Not a great start.

[HOOK]

Yes.  The inability to simply change the shade of the vertical grid lines has been a real challenge for me and I'll never understand why this option was deleted and abandoned.  I've had to learn to live without them.

As for the suspected VST problem you'll want to contact @Noel Borthwick and probably hook him up with a copy of that project so he can figure out why it's doing that. They're usually pretty quick to find a solution.

[Wookiee]

@PJH What is the plugin? Is it ment to be a multi-timbrale instrument? 

I suggest send your project, without any audio, files with audio are offten huge, to Support at support@cakewalk.com.

[Noel Borthwick]

3 hours ago, PJH said:

I've started to regret my decision to upgrade already. The first thing I've come across are the difficult to see vertical grid lines which cannot be altered if using the Tungsten theme.

The second problem is more serious. I have a VST synth loaded in a multitrack that consists of about 24 wave tracks and everything was working perfectly until I had to save and close. On re opening the file Sonar shuts down immediately. 

The interesting thing is that I'm able to open it perfectly in CBL. No problems.

Not a great start.

Regarding the crash please send the dump file that should have been created, so we can identify if it was indeed a plugin crash or not. You can find the dump file in %AppData%\Cakewalk\Sonar\Minidumps or %AppData%\Cakewalk\Cakewalk Core\Minidumps\Plugins
Look at the timestamp to find the actual file corresponding to the crash.

It doesnt mean a lot that it didn’t crash in CbB, since there could be myriads of reasons why a plugin may crash in one scenario and not another. If it is indeed a plugin crash we have no super powers to solve it but we can take a look.
Please also read this article and this one for more information about plugin crashes.

[John Faughey]

2 hours ago, HOOK said:

Yes.  The inability to simply change the shade of the vertical grid lines has been a real challenge for me and I'll never understand why this option was deleted and abandoned.  I've had to learn to live without them.

As for the suspected VST problem you'll want to contact @Noel Borthwick and probably hook him up with a copy of that project so he can figure out why it's doing that. They're usually pretty quick to find a solution.

The vertical grid lines is definitely a thing they should update sooner than later....i am surprised that more people have not mentioned it.  it makes editing a bit more challenging in my opinion

[HOOK]

3 minutes ago, John Faughey said:

The vertical grid lines is definitely a thing they should update sooner than later....i am surprised that more people have not mentioned it.  it makes editing a bit more challenging in my opinion

Agreed.  For me, it has been real detriment to my particular work flow on the creative side as well.

[David Baay]

26 minutes ago, John Faughey said:

The vertical grid lines is definitely a thing they should update sooner than later....i am surprised that more people have not mentioned it.

I have seen this mentioned a few times with regard to the dark themes. The gridlines are good in the Mercury Classic theme I prefer.

[PJH]

I reloaded the project in safe mode and it looks like it was the Fabfilter Pro R reverb plugin.

As I mentioned before the same plugin doesn't crash CBL.

Regarding the vertical grid lines, has there been any mention that the issue is being addressed?

[PJH]

It seems that I was a bit hasty. After removing the plugin I was able to carry on working in Sonar but after saving and re opening the next day, same thing. Sonar states "project successfully loaded" and then the program disappears and I'm back to the desktop. No message, no dialog box.

Once again though, it opens perfectly in CBL.

[gustabo]

7 hours ago, PJH said:

It seems that I was a bit hasty. After removing the plugin I was able to carry on working in Sonar but after saving and re opening the next day, same thing. Sonar states "project successfully loaded" and then the program disappears and I'm back to the desktop. No message, no dialog box.

Once again though, it opens perfectly in CBL.

Did you send your project in to Noel/Cakewalk as was suggested?

[Bass Guitar]

2 hours ago, gustabo said:

Did you send your project in to Noel/Cakewalk as was suggested?

This!  Do it.  Noel offered his help and you sort of ignored him.  He takes these things seriously and they need the report as it is what in the end makes Sonar stable. We all benefit from users cooperating with this. 

And if you go into the crash dump you will be able to possibly see what caused the crash. But there's always more to it that is best those who can decipher have the info. 

Windows Debugger, also known as WinDbg, is a tool made by Microsoft to help troubleshoot bluescreen minidumps. Windows Debugger is a tool that helps you read the minidump file. 

 

[PJH]

21 minutes ago, Bass Guitar said:

This!  Do it.  Noel offered his help and you sort of ignored him.  He takes these things seriously and they need the report as it is what in the end makes Sonar stable. We all benefit from users cooperating with this. 

And if you go into the crash dump you will be able to possibly see what caused the crash. But there's always more to it that is best those who can decipher have the info. 

Windows Debugger, also known as WinDbg, is a tool made by Microsoft to help troubleshoot bluescreen minidumps. Windows Debugger is a tool that helps you read the minidump file. 

 

Find out the facts before blurting out stuff that you are completely unaware of. 

Noel and I have been communicating regarding the issue.

[pwallie]

17 minutes ago, PJH said:

Find out the facts before blurting out stuff that you are completely unaware of. 

Noel and I have been communicating regarding the issue.

tbf you never said as much, calm down

[Bass Guitar]

Why do I bother, the last 3 answers I gave on this stupid forum resulted this sort of reply. Signing off. 
 

[PJH]

33 minutes ago, Bass Guitar said:

Why do I bother, the last 3 answers I gave on this stupid forum resulted this sort of reply. Signing off. 
 

Yeah, I'd like to apologise for my outburst BG. I went against my better judgement and decided to take out an annual subscription (which I normally wouldn't do as I prefer "owning the software"). I was annoyed with myself for doing this and I took it out on you. Not acceptable so I do apologise.

I've corresponded with Noel and he's given me a few options to try. I'm going to test tomorrow and get back to him.

It's a strange problem. The project will load (the dialog box at yhe bottom right states "loaded successfully " and then I think it's loading the GUI and all of a sudden I'm back to the desktop.

If I open the project in safe mode and I allow all the plugins in the project to load one by one, the project then opens perfectly. If I then save it under a new name it opens fine.

If I then go back and try and open the previous version it kicks me back to the desktop.

Anyway, I do appreciate the suggestions and will post any fixes if we find any.

 

[David Baay]

2 hours ago, PJH said:

If I then save it under a new name it opens fine.

So that sounds like a solution, though it doesn't explain the cause of the problem with the original project. Any time a project won't load normally but will load fully using Safe mode, I'm inclined to think some sort of 'race condition' is occuring on loading plugins or other content. Re-saving may have changed to order in which things load, eliminating the race condition. I'm guessing this is part of Noel's investigation.