Real Time Support Needs to be available for dynamic problem solving

[JakeJordan]

Ive been emailing support each weekend,  i get the reply a few days later with more questions, to which i reply and it's been going on for over a month with Cakewalk Sonar failing to install, after uninstalling and doing a clean install.  HELP!  Im a loyal user since 1988/1989.

[Amberwolf]

If you post all the stuff already tried and asked to do, in the order done and asked, step by step, with exact results at each step,  along with your complete system information, someone here on the forum might be able to help.  

Without knowing these things, I could only suggest all the things that are already posted around the forum for the various install type of issues, as there isn't yet a place to start other than the very beginning. 

[David Baay]

Let's start with basic machine specs, O/S version and the symptoms of failure.

And has any other version of SONAR/CbB ever been installed on this machine or is currently installed and working?

[JakeJordan]

Ive invested 3 months of screen shots, this step and that step.  I could do it all over again here, but feel it is the most annoying way to take care of a problem.  I would pay someone to help me if necessary.  As of a week ago, no more replies from cakewalk support via email, they basically said "lets start a new chain" and the Cakewalk rep proceeded to provide solutions about how to load a project in safe mode, completely ignoring the fact that my install has had an error which each and every update for over a years.  Im a paid member, the specs are super hig ($5000 laptop), will get them to you.

Meantime here is my letter to them now via email since I think they have no just shoved me under the rug which is unacceptable.

October 5th, 2025 email to support:

Does Cakewalk have accountability?

I feel like you have dropped the ball.

Since Jan 2025, i have been experiencing install errors.  While i initially tried your way of screen shot and emails, this is proven wholesomely inadequate.

I have asked for screenshare sessions and been informed under no exceptions, will this be grated to me.  This means you are helping me in a static 2-dimensional way, refusing to go onto my actual machine and look at what is causing the errors.  This is a moronic way to resolve the install problem.

Over a week ago, i submitted a screen video of how my install looks. I did not have the courtesy of a reply.  

Your technical help desk is basically flawed on every level, i believe the person assigned to my issue has given up without stating this to be the fact, i derive this by the absence of a reply AND by the fact that he started a new email chain, and the questions / suggestions in there were irrelevant to my situation as they related to how i should open a project in safe mode when the initial problem has always been that Cakewalk, with each and ever update, sometimes weekly, fails to install with an error.

So i believe your technical staff are unqualified and you for reasons not made clear to me, do not want to look at my machine to help me install it.

Why?  

I have been a Cakewalk user since 1988/1989 and I tell you what, this is a disgrace.  I have 30 years of work and you guys have run me around in circles with screen shots, wait a week, screen shot, irrelevant reponse asking for me.  I am frustrated, angry and highly disappointed.

Who is accountable at Cakewalk?  You MUST have a level II tech or a level III tech person that knows more than the everyday problems users have?  

I have hired my own technology people, smart engineers and they followerd all the steps Cakewalk suggested, none worked.  There seems to be some issue in the way Cakewalk installs and in the way it always wants to install something on my One Drive which i have not had for years and never needed in prior Cakewalk installs. 

I await and beg of you to care for a response.  If you leave me in the dark here, to lose all my work, you leave me no choice, but i will revolt with all the options to me, starting with going to every Cakewalk group i can find online and I will tell all, and everyone, for as many months as I can, how poor the software is, the ineptitude of the support and the risk of anyone wanting to do serious work on this DAW, to best go elsewhere.

Yours sincerely, 

Herman

[JakeJordan]

i have a video of the install, its 24 meg, too large to put in here.  Im in Los Angeles, would be available 10am-11pm in my time zone to entertain anyone wanting to do a screen share and attempt to get me a successful install.

[David Baay]

Are you able to install any other new software? These  look like pretty low-level file system permissions issues that would be best addressed by Window Support. 

[mettelus]

A few high-level comments based on the limited information above:

1. Make sure your system is setup so One Drive is not defaulted to anything (including documents). This article is probably a good starting point to review as it mirrors your first issue, but Google searches with a specific issue detailed as much as possible tend to yield better hits.
2. Re-download an installer. I had a bad installer (one of the 2GB parts for X2) that caused me grief for months. One of my very first posts on the old forums was a flaming mad rant on that (but got MD5 hash checks added to download files!). A couple of your screenshots suggest that installer may be bad, but could also be attributed to where your TEMP directory for installs is pointed (did you ever modify that?).
3. Check the permissions on folders that cannot be written to. When moving files from another computer, they can often be set to read only, and permissions may be another problem. There is a nice "Take Ownership" utility that has been around for years that simplifies this. When logged in as an Administrator, you can simply right click a folder/file/whatever and "Take Ownership" and do whatever actions you please at that point. This is a script and needs to chum through every file, so make your selections as small as possible with it (I do one folder typically).

[Bass Guitar]

The OP does make a valid point about support. I figured that most replies were AI generated because after a few months of submitting issues the response was always exactly the same. That’s just fine as it seems to be the way things are going now. 

My issue was never resolved. They gave up. I gave up. 

I appreciate the offer by a forum member who was willing to help , but personally I don’t think anyone should do that for free. Bandlab is a multi million dollar company that most certainly can afford to pay real people to answer questions. 

It is my thinking that the generic responses are limited to standard issues users might encounter. But anything else will stump the AI. Just for laughs try it yourself. 
 

 

Edited yesterday at 01:52 AM by Bass Guitar

[David Baay]

2 hours ago, Bass Guitar said:

I appreciate the offer by a forum member who was willing to help , but personally I don’t think anyone should do that for free.

Might as well close the forum, then.

[Starship Krupa]

4 hours ago, Bass Guitar said:

I appreciate the offer by a forum member who was willing to help , but personally I don’t think anyone should do that for free.

Why not? What, then is the purpose of the forum, and why do you bother to participate?

I see the forum as like those old "Leave a Penny/Take a Penny" trays. I've contributed pennies over the years, and I've taken them as well.

There is a value for me in helping people solve their issues. It keeps me sharp, and I don't always have an answer ready to go. Sometimes I have to do research myself in order to help, and that extends my knowledge. There is no value for me in withholding troubleshooting suggestions to a fellow user. I don't feel the need to try to "teach Cakewalk a lesson" or whatever. I prefer Jake being able to install the software over him not being able to install it.

@JakeJordan is a fellow Sonar user who's having trouble. If I have any ideas to contribute, I will.

No in-house support system will be able to solve all problems. Did someone at Cakewalk suggest that Jake ask on the forum? I don't know, but I doubt they did. It sounds like they took the matter to the limit of their capacity to help. Should the company invest in increasing that capacity? Dunno. Not my call.

10 hours ago, JakeJordan said:

There seems to be some issue in the way Cakewalk installs and in the way it always wants to install something on my One Drive which i have not had for years and never needed in prior Cakewalk installs.

I think you're on to something there.

According to Google, the error code you're seeing in the first dialog, code 0x80070002, is often due to missing or corrupted system files. They suggest running the DISM and sfc commands to check system file integrity.

To do that:

1. open a command prompt as an administrator.
2. type DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth and hit Enter
3. type run sfc /scannow and hit Enter

Here are some questions, and forgive me if any or all of them have already been asked:

Are you running the Sonar installer as an Administrator?

Is the user that you usually use to log on to Windows in the Administrators group?

If you open Explorer, do you see an icon at the left for "OneDrive - Personal?"

What do you get if you run OneDrive.exe and check OneDrive Settings?

If you browse to C:\Users\Public\Public Documents\Overloud\REmatrix Solo\IRLibraries\, what do you see? On my system, I see the FACTORY.rir file, and the groups that have permissions are SYSTEM, BATCH, Administrators, INTERACTIVE, and SERVICE. My user is in the Administrators group, so I'm covered there.

What happens if you choose to Skip writing FACTORY.rir?

[Bass Guitar]

@Starship Krupa. @David Baay

Yes I get your point but I sort of draw a distinction between helping users use and learn the software and troubleshooting crashes. 

I too have always found helping others users will teach me more about the software. Im on 3 Daw forums currently. 
 

It was one thing that the company never released any official tutorials during the 6 years of free Cakewalk. I see in the Next sub forum the AI  assisted staff replied that this was coming soon. 

Notice how the hundreds of YouTube creators disappeared overnight the minute Sonar went subscription. They won’t have that sort of success anymore because all the other Daws all have official tutorials made by Staff members. 
 

Here’s hoping that over time Sonar will become better supported by Bandlab and see some marketing to put it back on the map. 
 

 

[mettelus]

Remember when Roland use to do their 2-hour interactive webinars? I actually just tried Googling to see if they are still alive, but cannot find any. I forget now if they were ever posted to YT or stayed resident on Roland's site.

[Amberwolf]

You can try the wayback machine; sometimes pages get archived there along with the media itself. Sometimes things people locally stored get added to the media collection separately. 

Edited 23 hours ago by Amberwolf

[JakeJordan]

On 8/10/2025 at 7:38 PM, David Baay said:

Let's start with basic machine specs, O/S version and the symptoms of failure.

And has any other version of SONAR/CbB ever been installed on this machine or is currently installed and working?

 

[Jonathan Sasor]

So the images of the previous install issues both seem to indicate something unusual going on with how Documents is being handled in Windows. Either some crossed paths or permissions maybe? Neither of those items are particularly important to getting Sonar itself to run normally. The first one is something preventing just a shortcut link from being created in user documents, and the second being factory content for the Rematrix ProChannel Module. 

Just to reiterate, these issues are definitely related to something locally being unusual with Windows on your system, or it being in an unusual state. There's only so much support reps can do to troubleshoot things, it's beyond the scope of what they can do if Windows is not behaving correctly in the first place. 

In any case, if you're able to skip both of these errors, Sonar should otherwise be fine. If you keep seeing additional issues, then there's likely a system fix required.