Temproary lockups after recording on 5.1, desperate

[tubedude]

Very important I get this fixed today, clients are in... and this seriously affects workflow.
This was out of the blue. Everything was fine and then Sonar 5.1 started stalling or freezing for about 10-30 seconds after I press stop when recording. Its as if the wave forms arent writing correctly. I changed nothing prior to this happening. I have since removed about 20gigs of projects, defragged in the hopes it would correct it, and its still doing it. It takes longer when stopping after recording 8 tracks at once, but not much. It even takes about 10 seconds when stopping after recording one track for about 1 second. I also noticed that when I apply v-vocal, it does the same thing while printing the waveform. If I try to do anything during these times, the program freezes up for about 10 seconds more and acts strange. It will do nothing during this time except sit there and flash a little.

If I cant get any ideas, I am going to remove Sonar and re-install and hope that works. Is there a safe way to remove it without affecting my projects that are in there already?

Thanks for any help
Paul

paul at demokingproductions dot com

[dachay2tnr]

Have you tried clearing your picture cache? Worth a try, at least.

[metal_god]

Just make sure you don't select to delete project/audio folders or better still back them up. Also check your taskmanager for CPU usage and try a spyware/antivirus scan. If that does nothing just check your settings and if still nothing a full reinstall might work.

[tubedude]

Originally Posted by dachay2tnr

Have you tried clearing your picture cache? Worth a try, at least.

Thanks guys. Where is the picture cache located?

[dachay2tnr]

Originally Posted by tubedude

Thanks guys. Where is the picture cache located?

It can be located anywhere, since you can control this from the Options controls in Sonar.

If you have not fiddled with it, it is probably located in the default location: C:\Cakewalk Projects\Picture Cache

You can delete all the files in there. Sonar will redraw them as needed when you open up a project. It could be a little slow the first time, but should be better after that. Just make sure before deleting that they are .wov files, not .wav files. Wov's are the picture files.

[tubedude]

Originally Posted by dachay2tnr

It can be located anywhere, since you can control this from the Options controls in Sonar.

If you have not fiddled with it, it is probably located in the default location: C:\Cakewalk Projects\Picture Cache

You can delete all the files in there. Sonar will redraw them as needed when you open up a project. It could be a little slow the first time, but should be better after that. Just make sure before deleting that they are .wov files, not .wav files. Wov's are the picture files.

I found the picture cache in the projects folder, it was all the way empty, nothing in it at all there to delete except the folder itself.
More research... tonight it was taking up to 2 minutes to get access after recording. Occasionally it would say or flash (not responding) up at the top where it says Sonar on the blue line. I checked my processes, and during normal running Sonar was pulling about 30% or so, right after record it was spiking and holding at 99% for like 45 seconds. I uninstalled, re-installed, re-installed the update, and still no relief. Any other ideas?

[tubedude]

A friend recommened I check the RAM and swap it out, could be a bad ram stick.

[dachay2tnr]

Originally Posted by tubedude

I found the picture cache in the projects folder, it was all the way empty,

Something is wrong if your picture cache is empty. Unless you have previously deleted the files, or if you have never opened up a project, there should be files in there.

It sounds like maybe you have created the cache in a different location. To find where it is located, with Sonar open go to Options > Global and click the tab for Audio Data. Near the top you will see an entry for "Picture Folder:" with an address in the text block. That is where your picture cache is located.

If you have done any recording or opened any project files, there almost by necessity has to be .wov files in the cache.

[metal_god]

Originally Posted by tubedude

A friend recommened I check the RAM and swap it out, could be a bad ram stick.

it could be this if you ever get any non responsive errors do a report to windows then it will give you a link with possible fixes and will tell you what the prpblem is. When one of my sticks of RAM went it just said problem with DDR memory so i took it out and everything was fine (obviously i had 2 in there)

[jmorris]

Originally Posted by dachay2tnr

Have you tried clearing your picture cache? Worth a try, at least.

Dachay2tnr, I have an issue as I have written before with wave form not showing up just a straight line. I hear 'em, just dont see them. If I clear picture cache they will just be written again? Is this done byt deleting all the pic's in the folder?
Jim

[jmorris]

Originally Posted by dachay2tnr

It can be located anywhere, since you can control this from the Options controls in Sonar.

If you have not fiddled with it, it is probably located in the default location: C:\Cakewalk Projects\Picture Cache

You can delete all the files in there. Sonar will redraw them as needed when you open up a project. It could be a little slow the first time, but should be better after that. Just make sure before deleting that they are .wov files, not .wav files. Wov's are the picture files.

Damn , sorry I scanned to quick and did not see this! Here is my answer..thanks!

[tubedude]

Good news... I got frigging around with it after someone said it wasnt natural to have an empty picture cache. I was trying to open it from the startup screen in Sonar, and it was showing a blank. SO I remembered the ".wov" file thing, and typed in *.wov and it gave me back over 3,000 files. I was like "damn". But it wouldnt let me highlight more than one to delete, wouldnt show them again unless I typed in *.wov, etc... THEN it occurred to me. Duh. I closed Sonar and opened it up from cakewalk files in the harddrive. Select all --> delete and gone.
OPened Sonar back up, armed 8 tracks, recorded for about 30 seconds, stopped. It printed all 8 tracks in about 5 seconds, and I could move the mouse around and click on other stuff, etc, while it worked. I tried it several times. Perfect again.
Awesome. Happy stuff.

Question though: I never ever ever cleared it out of my other harddrive, which was straight Sonar 1,2, and 3 for 3 years, almost every day. This new drive is less than 3 months old with a fresh install of only Sonar 5, and it already needed cleaned out and BADLY affected performance. Never a problem on the other one.

Thanks for the help!

[tubedude]

Dachay- if you ever come through town I'll have one of my ho's take care of ya

[acidrock]

Originally Posted by tubedude

Dachay- if you ever come through town I'll have one of my ho's take care of ya

You shouldn't have said that,now you'll never get rid of him!

[jmorris]

so, we should all delete our pic cache once in a while? I am understanding this correctly right? My suff is all backed up on 2 other hard drives but what I'm hearing I think is to go to where my picture cache folder is, delete contents, and when each project is reopened the wave forms will be re written, maybe slowly but they WILL be written....right? Just dont want to screw up

[tubedude]

I dont know that we SHOULD or not, but I do know mine worked marvelously again immediately and when I opened an already existing project, that everything loaded up as fast as normal. I'm not sure what the picture cache does, but deleting it didnt seem to affect anything except in a good way.