Where is the rollback installer for the last (stable) version?

[pwalpwal]

to summarise troubleshooting 101, if something works ok in other hosts but not a particular one, then that one is the "main suspect"  🤷‍♀️

[pwalpwal]

and to follow up that, why aren't plugin devs testing in sonar?

[Colin Nicholls]

On 2/28/2025 at 10:48 PM, Aaron Doss said:

The current version is only usable for about 10 minutes before the UI becomes so slow that I have to close or force kill the application and re-open it.

Does this happen with a brand new empty project, just recording audio (no plugins) ?

I would put money on this problem not being related to the latest update, but some other factor. Yes, it sucks not being able to roll back to a previous version; doing so would be a very handy way of eliminating the new update as the source, which would save us all a lot of time

So many things might be the issue. 

When was the last Windows Update ? 

Are there any new Services running that you might not have noticed?

Have you updated your graphics driver? Are you able to roll back to a more generic video driver and see if there is a change in Sonar behavior? 

Try changing your I/O buffer setttings , just to see if this affects the symptoms you're observing.

Can you switch from ASIO to WDM or something like that, again , just to see if it has an effect?

Check the locations on your hard drives for audio files, etc. Plenty of free space? Installed anything recently that might make a difference there? Perhaps run a health check on the drives.

Edited Sunday at 05:16 PM by Colin Nicholls

[Will.]

1 hour ago, pwalpwal said:

and to follow up that, why aren't plugin devs testing in sonar?

Look up their notes. 2016 Splat was still on it,  and 2024 not anymore. 

Cakewalk used to be mainstream, but I guess when something becomes free it is not considered as "mainstream" any longer.  So - The human species often sees and renders something as such, not worth investing time fixing bugs for a "free" product - isnt that how business works?

And just like any other product that suffered some bruises - Its tough and takes time to rebuilding your reputation as a brand.

It was sad not seeing a table at NAMM. 

[pwalpwal]

23 minutes ago, Will. said:

Look up their notes. 2016 Splat was still on it,  and 2024 not anymore. 

Cakewalk used to be mainstream, but I guess when something becomes free it is not considered as "mainstream" any longer.  So - The human species often sees and renders something as such, not worth investing time fixing bugs for a "free" product - isnt that how business works?

And just like any other product that suffered some bruises - Its tough and takes time to rebuilding your reputation as a brand.

It was sad not seeing a table at NAMM. 

it's not just since they went free, they've never been considered mainstream, i guess because windows only? but yeah, since forever when did they last have a namm table? tbf, if it's free why don't plugin devs test in it.., etc, and so on

[Wookiee]

1 hour ago, pwalpwal said:

and to follow up that, why aren't plugin devs testing in sonar?

The more subtle question is why aren't plugin dev's testing on PC's period? Because that is a bigger truth than just not testing in Sonar.

[pwalpwal]

8 minutes ago, Wookiee said:

The more subtle question is why aren't plugin dev's testing on PC's period? Because that is a bigger truth than just not testing in Sonar.

because sonar's the only pc-only daw?

[Will.]

6 minutes ago, Wookiee said:

The more subtle question is why aren't plugin dev's testing on PC's  

This was actually in my previous reply to  @pwalpwal but decided to remove it, as it might spark another debate 😂 

Andew said that they do test on PC's Just the more mainstream ones. 

[Wookiee]

Err don't comprehend, just because something is the only one, which is actually incorrect Sonarisn't the only PC only DAW. .

If you don't test on a PC then you can't be testing for use in any DAW running on a PC from, Cubase, to Studio One, from  Mixcraft (which is PC only) to Bitwig, from Pro Tools to Reaper.

[Will.]

13 minutes ago, pwalpwal said:

they've never been considered mainstream

You say what? Research will show otherwise. That X1 period 2009 - it was found everywhere. Cakewalk won NAMM that year. 

[Wookiee]

3 minutes ago, Will. said:

This was actually in my previous reply to  @pwalpwal but decided to remove it, as it might spark another debate 😂 

Andew said that they do test on PC's Just the more mainstream ones. 

Historically Cakewalk always got slagged off in the early music technology press for being PC only and only supporting DX & DXi plugins. When the omnipotent beings gift to all electronic musicians was either Logic or Cubase. Irrespective of how clunky they both were on either PC or early Apple platforms. 

It is also strange how when Apple purchased Logic and dropped Windows support, the fact that Logic was now a single platform DAW was not an issue, but fir Sonar it was. Neither was it an issue that it dropped native support for VST & VSTi plugings, which it still doesn't support without some serious cludging. 

[Aaron Doss]

1 hour ago, Colin Nicholls said:

Does this happen with a brand new empty project, just recording audio (no plugins) ?

I would put money on this problem not being related to the latest update, but some other factor. Yes, it sucks not being able to roll back to a previous version; doing so would be a very handy way of eliminating the new update as the source, which would save us all a lot of time

So many things might be the issue. 

When was the last Windows Update ? 

Are there any new Services running that you might not have noticed?

Have you updated your graphics driver? Are you able to roll back to a more generic video driver and see if there is a change in Sonar behavior? 

Try changing your I/O buffer setttings , just to see if this affects the symptoms you're observing.

Can you switch from ASIO to WDM or something like that, again , just to see if it has an effect?

Check the locations on your hard drives for audio files, etc. Plenty of free space? Installed anything recently that might make a difference there? Perhaps run a health check on the drives.

I have a ticket open with support on this.

This issue does not happen with an audio only project.  but it does happen with a midi track (driving external devices) or a VST track.

I dumped my system info earlier in the thread.  I am up to date on drivers and patches.

The audio engine works fine it's the user interface that slows down.  The previous version of Sonar worked fine and the current free version of cakewalk work fine.  

I am running Nvidia driver version 572.16 which is behind by two versions, however when I contacted support about it they said to stay on that version because that is stable and the new versions 572.47 and 572.60 are known to be unstable with Sonar.

My system is overkill on all resources for sonar, I built it for video production and it's completely overpowered for music production.

I may have found the issue in the current version, they added a GPU acceleration feature for the piano roll and I think that is causing the slowdown, I have disabled it in the advanced settings and it seems to be running ok so far.  But I have not used it extensively yet.  I will find out for sure this afternoon.

 

[Wookiee]

5 hours ago, pwalpwal said:

i they've never been considered mainstream, 

Two questions.

1. If it isn't main stream why did the piano great Mr Ray Charles use it in his studio?

2. If it is not mainstream why are you using it? Would you not rather be in with the cool kids, down with the main peeps, in with the mainstream crowd. 

[pwalpwal]

13 minutes ago, Wookiee said:

2. If it is not mainstream why are using it? Would you not rather be in with the cool kids, down with the main peeps, in with the mainstream crowd. 

that literally doesn't make sense

but you have to agree that proaudio/sonar/cbb has always been pretty much excluded, i've always blamed marketing, the one exception being anderton's sos column (no longer there), even when partnering with big players like roland and then bought by gibson, this forum still blames those corps for lack of success

maybe you don't want a discussion/suggestions and will now delete this pwal account also? (please don't)

[Wookiee]

@pwalpwal back in the 90's there was a lot of very unnecessary infighting between the technical press. During the 80/90's transition you have to remember it was not a matter of PC/Apple but also Amiga's, and Atari's and all the other computer platforms trying to dominate the DAW market. 

There was lot of evidence that those who could afford to "pay" the press got exposure. Twelve Tone Systems, the company that gave birth to the Cakewalk products was a really small one or two man band, who had no money could not afford to make such payments. 

Unfortunately those who have so called "power & influence" are very fruit based computers biased. Consequently they push the fruit based computer platform. 

[Wookiee]

4 hours ago, pwalpwal said:

that literally doesn't make sense

but you have to agree that proaudio/sonar/cbb has always been pretty much excluded, i've always blamed marketing, the one exception being anderton's sos column (no longer there), even when partnering with big players like roland and then bought by gibson, this forum still blames those corps for lack of success

maybe you don't want a discussion/suggestions and will now delete this pwal account also? (please don't)

Because I missed the word YOU out of the question why do YOU use it. Simples 

[Bass Guitar]

Definitely something not right with graphics. 

Try this. Dump a movie file into Sonar. 

Now open the video view and undock it. 

Play the movie and stop. 

Now resize the video view. It will not refresh to the new size until you start playback.

Switch to the Console view then back to the video view, Still shows the console view until you start playback. 

I don't have Cakewalk but I'd be interested to see if it behaves the same way because I sure don't remember this. 

I have a few other Daws and none of there Video preview screens behave this way. It's annoying and makes Sonar unusable because you can't stop and edit the audio when your trying to see when the drummer hits the snare!  

I'm seeing weird performance issues like this as well. Hard to put my finger on it. 

Edited yesterday at 12:44 AM by Bass Guitar

[pwalpwal]

16 hours ago, Wookiee said:

Because I missed the word YOU out of the question why do YOU use it. Simples 

history and familiarity 👍

[Aaron Doss]

UPDATE (SOLUTION FOUND)

Disabling the piano roll GPU acceleration fixed my slowdown issue.  It's strange that they defaulted this option on when it's also marked as an "experimental" feature.

Support also recommended staying on Nvidia Driver version 572.16.   The latest versions of the driver are buggy with Sonar.

Edited 18 hours ago by Aaron Doss

[pwalpwal]

3 minutes ago, Aaron Doss said:

UPDATE (SOLUTION FOUND)

Disabling the piano roll GPU acceleration fixed my slowdown issue.  It's strange that they defaulted this option on when it's also marked as an "experimental" feature.

Support also recommended staying on Nvidia Driver version 572.16.   The latest versions of the driver are buggy with Sonar.

glad you figured it out 👍