Sonar 4 Producer Crashes

[ardy77]

Just got a new computer strictly for music dual core AMD Athlon 3800+/ 2GB RAM/ 500GB RAID array...I must tell you that everything runs much quicker....but as soon as I get about 15-20 tracks of audio up with a couple busses and about 8 total effects running...Sonar craps out on me consistently...

Normally it happens when I'm recording audio...either Sonar dies when I press the stop key during an active audio recording session or it doesnt even register the audio as having been recorded....it sucks because I thought I got some good vocal takes and BAM...Sonar doesnt display the data!

Very frustrating...it seems I am not hardware limited here...the more I add to this song...the more frequent sonar crashes...tonight I was adding more audio tracks and it already died 7 times causing to reboots....unreal!!

[Qwerty]

What sound card? Is it on its own IRQ? What driver mode in Sonar? What version of Sonar?

Update the sound card drivers, make sure it is on its own IRQ, use ASIO or WDM drivers and make sure Sonar is up to at least 4.0.2 or 4.0.4.

Then what happens?

Q.

[DM1]

I had the same thing happen, and it was caused by bad ram. Maybe try running a memory diagnostic like this one: http://www.memtest86.com/

[ardy77]

memtest ran with no errors. Using Sonar version 4.0.2 with an Emu 1820m Pci interface (ASIO drivers). I have the latest drivers for the Emu from their website.

Not sure about the IRQ thing...how can I check that?

-Another strange problem is that 50% of the time when I record audio...Sonar plain ignores it...it's as if I pressed 'play' instead of 'record'. Very very frustrating'....also when sonar hangs it requires a full system reboot...I cant even force kill the process in task manager...heck, I can't even shutdown windows gracefully...the process plain WONT die!! I have force reset using the power button on the PC.

Could it possibly be the fact that I'm running a RAID array (perhaps the Raid controller driver is causing problems when Sonar tries to save audio to the harddrives?)...I might remove my raid array and just use the physical drives directly...

Thanks for your input.

[Qwerty]

RAID or not shouldn't affect Sonar - it just calls the operating system's I/O system and gets what it is given by Windows. If it is working for everything else, it should be fine...

If you installed Windows using the default configuration of "ACPI Compliant System", then all you would need to do to shuffle IRQ's is to physically change the slot that the PCI cards currently occupy.

You can check the assignment by right mouse clicking on the My Computer icon and finding 'Device Manager'. Once in there, click the VIEW menu and choose RESOURCES BY TYPE -- one of the options will the IRQs.

Good luck!

Q.

[K-dub]

My experience has been that the most likely culprit is a rogue plug in or soft synth you may be running. I run a dual athlon rig myself, and S4 regularly locked up when the peripherals didn't agree.

My advice is to look to them first -- there are a couple notorious offenders ... notably from PSP (like the Lexicon delay plug or Vintage Warmer) -- great plugs, but they don't work flawlessly in Sonar ... and traditionally have caused me some lockups with my system.

Or it could be some other plug/synth ... try eliminating some from the tracks and see if your performance immediately improves.

Best,

Kev

[TravisK]

My experience has been that the most likely culprit is a rogue plug in or soft synth you may be running

Said it before i got the chance. When it craps on you, uncheck plugins until you find the one that is causing it. Plugins can do this so easily, and it really sucks because it always seems like it's one that I love and want to use.

[disposeable]

Originally Posted by Qwerty

What sound card? Is it on its own IRQ? What driver mode in Sonar? What version of Sonar?

Update the sound card drivers, make sure it is on its own IRQ, use ASIO or WDM drivers and make sure Sonar is up to at least 4.0.2 or 4.0.4.

Q.

IRQ??? that's ancient juju! now there's ACPI. In an ACPI computer the operating system, not the hardware, configures and monitors the computer. it would be really really difficult, if not impossible, to get a PC running with ACPI turned off on a modern motherboard because it has too many devices integrated into it.

[disposeable]

sonar4 is really stable on XP and runs great... except with VST, where it will always crash sooner or later. the problem is that moronic VST adapter, instead of natively supporting VST.

i'm also running version 4.02 and most VSTi synths will crash sonar within an hour, some synths will crash it within minutes. what i do to get around this is use cubase to experiment with VSTi synths and when i know what i want to use, i load the synth in sonar and then immediately freeze the synth, copy the audio from the frozen track to another track, then unload the synth from memory and delete it's track. yeah, it's a total pain in the ass, but it works.

cakewalk will NEVER fully support VST because it'd be like admitting that steinberg, their main competition, is superior technology. and in sonar5 they claim to have native VST, but they don't - it's just the same old VST wrapper bullshit obfuscated one level

[Qwerty]

Originally Posted by disposeable

IRQ??? that's ancient juju! now there's ACPI. In an ACPI computer the operating system, not the hardware, configures and monitors the computer. it would be really really difficult, if not impossible, to get a PC running with ACPI turned off on a modern motherboard because it has too many devices integrated into it.

Who said anything about turning off ACPI?

Using an ACPI compliant system, you are still able to change the assignation of IRQs by manually swapping the cards sitting on the motherboard's PCI slots.

This technique will still allow you to modify which IRQs are shared. You will find that some devices are happy to share an IRQ while others are not.

Regards,

Q.

[disposeable]

Originally Posted by Qwerty

Who said anything about turning off ACPI?

Using an ACPI compliant system, you are still able to change the assignation of IRQs by manually swapping the cards sitting on the motherboard's PCI slots.

This technique will still allow you to modify which IRQs are shared. You will find that some devices are happy to share an IRQ while others are not.

Regards,

Q.

ROTFLMAO!

yeah, go ahead, swap the cards around all you like - won't change a damn thing - XP will continue to allocate IRQ's seprately for the primary services (hd, vga, usb, etc) and then there's about 2 IRQ's left over which all your cards will share - like it or not.... AND there's NOTHING you can do about it.

of course, on old motherboards, like the one you have- i'm sure, that had an older version of ACPI maybe, just maybe, it could be done. but i've actually tried exactly what you state on several PC's and you know what - the cards all get assigned to IRQ 9 no matter what slot they're in. and you know what even more - doesn't make a damn bit of difference, because as i said before you're talking about damn old tech that is completely as obsolete as MFM driver controllers - XP handles IRQ's just fine, and IRQ sharing IS NOT AN ISSUE any more.

you obviously know nothing about PC's, so stop embarassing yourself. if someone wants some advice on windows95 or 98, i'll give him your name.

[Qwerty]

You're funny - and wrong!!

You need to read your motherboard manual regarding the sharing of IRQ resources. The population of your PCI slots will determine which IRQ resources are shared with which mobo devices.

I run XP Pro on a socket 478 P4 3GHz CPU. If my sound card is put into the second bottom slot, then it will share it's IRQ with one of my USB controllers. If I move the sound card down to the bottom slot, when the PC reboots it is assigned it's own IRQ which is no longer shared with one of the USB controllers.

You can read more information about how this works for my motherboard at this location -

http://dlsvr01.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/...800_deluxe.pdf

Start around page 44 in the .PDF file - section 2-16 on the motherboard. This should explain the concept for you.

In the second bottom slot the sound card does not function correctly. In the bottom slot it does.

Do you understand now funny man or do you want to keep digging?

Q.

[Qwerty]

BTW - VST technology works fine for me with Sonar v4.x.x and v5...

...funny man...

Q.

[disposeable]

Originally Posted by Qwerty

You're funny - and wrong!!

You need to read your motherboard manual regarding the sharing of IRQ resources. The population of your PCI slots will determine which IRQ resources are shared with which mobo devices.

I run XP Pro on a socket 478 P4 3GHz CPU. If my sound card is put into the second bottom slot, then it will share it's IRQ with one of my USB controllers. If I move the sound card down to the bottom slot, when the PC reboots it is assigned it's own IRQ which is no longer shared with one of the USB controllers.

You can read more information about how this works for my motherboard at this location -

http://dlsvr01.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/...800_deluxe.pdf

Start around page 44 in the .PDF file - section 2-16 on the motherboard. This should explain the concept for you.

In the second bottom slot the sound card does not function correctly. In the bottom slot it does.

Do you understand now funny man or do you want to keep digging?

Q.

hey, qweerty, you fucking moron, according to page 44, ALL PLUGIN PCI CARDS WILL BE ASSIGNED IRQ #9 under ACPI. it doesn't matter if they're in slot 2 or any other slot, they will still be assigned to IRQ #9.

i defy you to post a print screen capture of an ACPI enabled setup on your motherboard where any plugin PCI card is NOT assigned to IRQ #9. can't be done.

PUT UP OR SHUT UP!

[Qwerty]

Why so much anger?

...and BTW - you are still wrong!

Q.

[Qwerty]

Shall I send my humble pie recipe over to you now or am I right in thinking you probably have your own favourite recipe...

Q.

[warble]

Qwerty, do you have a recipe for apple pie? Sounds good right now.

Thought I'd throw in my own screen grab too. On my MB (Asus A7V8X-X), I believe slot 2 is shared with 6. I found slot 3 to be the best for my Layla PCI card.

Ardy77: I'd agree with the posts above regarding plug-ins. Not exactly sure what you're using in your project, but I'd follow the advice from K-dub as a start.

[Qwerty]

Thanks Warble! I'll PM the recipe

I was looking at your list and comparing to mine and wondered where is your keyboard?

If you have a neural interface, I want one too dammit!

Q.

[jamie_drum]

Speaking of analyzing other people's IRQ list--where is your sound card Q? I see your UAD-1 (and wish I had one). Didn't see the sound card. Don't say firewire now...

[Qwerty]

Originally Posted by jamie_drum

Speaking of analyzing other people's IRQ list--where is your sound card Q? I see your UAD-1 (and wish I had one). Didn't see the sound card. Don't say firewire now...

IRQ 21 - Direct Pro 24/96 or LX6

Works really well, now... 4 in's, 4 outs. Unfortunately the manufacturer, Aardvark, went belly-up so no 64-bit drivers for me...

So, no FW now, (and I think I turned it off in the BIOS), but I do have my eyes on the RME Fireface.

Ciao!

Q.

[Qwerty]

Ardy77: Any progress on your issue??

Q.

[warble]

Originally Posted by Qwerty

Thanks Warble! I'll PM the recipe

I was looking at your list and comparing to mine and wondered where is your keyboard?

If you have a neural interface, I want one too dammit!

Q.

Nah, no neural interface (although that would be kickin'). I'm using a Logitech wireless and the reciever is connected through USB.

[Qwerty]

OK - cool, I am using one of the Microsoft wireless keyboards, except that it has a receiver which also has a plug which goes into the PS/2 port for the keyboard => that must be the difference.

Thanks!

Q.