Sonar still does the dropout...

[A1A2]

I've did some research, tried everything and Sonar is still dropping out on me. The weird thing is, the project was going just fine the night before, and the next day, Sonar automatically drops out within seconds after I hit "play".

A little info about my setup:

XP Pro (with no updates)
P4 2.4ghz
512 DDR ram
Delta 66 with 5.10 version driver (WDM, I believe) with latency set to 518

Sonar XL2.2 with buffer set to 3 and buffer slider all the way to the right (safe), no input monitoring, and ran wave profiler to make sure it detected the newest drivers installed.

This is driving me a little crazy cuz even my previous projects that never had a problem are not dropping out as well...I tried reinstalling Sonar and the Delta driver, still hasn't had any luck so far...

Any suggestions?? thanks

ps. How do I make sure my card and Sonar are using WDM instead of MME

Al

[eichler]

Try setting the buffer size lower - I have a similar system (Delta 66) and it seems to work better with fewer buffers.

However, have you checked to see that there are no IRQ conflicts?

[A1A2]

hi, eichlerm,

I've tried setting the buffer size lower (2) and the problem remains. How do I know if there is an IRQ conflict? Currently, my card is working with every other audio programs, so, I am assuming the card is working properly.

Al

[AlChuck]

Hey A1A2,

What are you choosing for your inputs from the Delta? The ones labeled "multichannel," by any chance? If so, switch to the "ordinary" ones (the ones without the word "multichannel" in the description).

Also be sure the recording and playback timing masters are not set to one of the multichannel ports.

[A1A2]

AlChuck,

hello there. I checked and I did have those multichannels selected. Are "multis" not recommended?? I went in and got rid off anything that had the word "multi" in them, but still no luck.

One interesting thing tho. I deleated several tracks and playback, no more dropouts This got me worried thinking that my CPU was the cause! but, wait, the exact same project was working with just as many tracks/plug-ins the night before...it's getting real confusing.

Also, Sonar wouls also drop out if I playback something and try to zoom in/out too fast

Al

[eichler]

Originally posted by A1A2
hi, eichlerm,

I've tried setting the buffer size lower (2) and the problem remains. How do I know if there is an IRQ conflict? Currently, my card is working with every other audio programs, so, I am assuming the card is working properly.

Al

The first time I installed my Delta there was an IRQ conflict with the video card.

Go to device manager and sort by Resources by Type - should be able to see IRQ conflicts there.

[Wurlitzer]

Have you done the AUD.INI twek? Cured my dropouts.

[A1A2]

Originally posted by eichler
The first time I installed my Delta there was an IRQ conflict with the video card.

Go to device manager and sort by Resources by Type - should be able to see IRQ conflicts there.

Hi, Eichler

I went into device manager>View>Devices by Type. Is that what you meant by "sort"? I didn't see any indication of IRQ conflict, at least no funny yellow question marks. Is there supposed to be any sign indicating IRQ conflict?

You brought a good point tho. I removed the soundcard from my PC for the summer and had just installed it back. Maybe I should pull all the PCI cards out and install them back one by one again.

Al

[A1A2]

Originally posted by Wurlitzer
Have you done the AUD.INI twek? Cured my dropouts.

do you mean changing stopOnstarved=0 or something alike? I tried it but had no luck with that tweak.

Al

[Wurlitzer]

Yep, that's what I meant. As I said, it made all the difference for me.

Your problem must lie elsewhere though.

[Jim Y]

A1A2, You said you've tried everthing? Have you tweaked Windows? www.musicxp.net
Something running in the background is probably the culprit. Virus Scan, CD auto insert notification etc...

All Delta drivers start 5.10. What do you have? .26, .27 or .29?

Have you got another "sound" device in the pc like the on-board AC97? Go to Sonars Options /Audio and disable anything but the delta drivers in the device list. Also check the delta drivers are the timing reference for record and playback.

With your pc, you should easily run a 512 sample Delta buffer with only 2 Sonar buffers and and the latency slider at minimum. I suspect you might even get the Delta buffer down to 256 or lower. Come on, I'm running a Delta and Sonar on an Athlon1800
/ VIA pc with these settings. You should get better!
I think having a seperate hard drive for Sonars Audio folders is good thing to add - with any pc recording software.

One other problem could be something to do with the P4 and some plug-ins. This causes excessive CPU use and you should try removing plug-in FX to see if one's the culprit and if it is, check to see if there's an update available.

[Porter]

Also, a silly little question, did you install any programs between the software working and not working properly?

Porter

[A1A2]

Just pulled out all of my PCI cards, reinstalled them one by one, appearently there isn't any IRQ conflicts, but Sonar is still behaving funny...

Jim Y:

I've done the tweaks you've mentioned when I first built this system. The delta driver I'm using is .29. I tried deleating all the plug-ins/auxes, and the CPU usage went down to almost zero, but still drops out at the same spots of the song.

I'm beginnning to suspect if my cwp files are corrupted

Porter,

no program was installed before Sonar went nuts.




Am I the first to experience this? Or this issue has been brought up before?

Al

[AlChuck]

Did you try loading one of your "corrupt" projects and checking all the Input and Output assignments on each track?

If any of them are set to Multichannel whatever on my system, everything goes bananas -- my SB Live starts playing non-existant MIDI messages randomly, and eventually the audio drops out and playback stops. Even if they are muted tracks.

After rebuilding my computer last month, I find I have to go through this with every project I had from before. Pain in the neck but whatcha gonna do?

[James Argo]

Hmmm, this is strange...
You have powerfull machine I think. If the dropout always happens in the same spot, then I suspect there's something within the spot that blows the playback. Check each track in detail around that spot. Otherwise, the cwp files could be corrupted somehow. Have you tried another projects / songs ?


Jaymz

[Leeking]

yeah, That happened to me quite recently, my sonar was working fine and suddenly I get dropouts and clipping stuffs...

finally I found out my aud.ini file was kinda big with lotsa repeated parameters. I deleted the aud.ini and reconfigured sonar and everything is back to normal.

BTW, the stopstarved=1 tweak works for me. Good tips!

[A1A2]

Thanks for being so patient with me, you guys are really great!

AlChuck:

Yeah, the word "multi" is no longer in sight after I went in property and unchecked drivers with the M word.

James:

I first thought it was the Waves plug-ins eatting up my CPU whenever they are being used, too; but the spots are rather random, not at the beginings of tracks that use plug-ins. As I mentioned earlier, I even deleated every plug-in/aux, and the dropouts still occur "around" the same spots, not always at the exact same second tho.

The only variable I can think of right now is the volume automations...umm...gotta look into that now.

Leeking:

Can you be a little more specific? Did the aud.ini file size get bigger? How did you "reconfigure" after deleating that file?

Many thanks, guys!

Al

[Leeking]

Originally posted by A1A2

Leeking:

Can you be a little more specific? Did the aud.ini file size get bigger? How did you "reconfigure" after deleating that file?

OK, my notepad took a while to open the aud.ini and it was a long list of repeated parameters.....

To "reconfigure", you can delete off the whole aud.ini and be prompted to run wave profiler again the next time you start up Sonar.

[bamboo]

What about other projects you have? Some projects MAY be problematic because of audio data fragmentation or for some other reasons. If other projects are OK, you can try saving this project as a bundle, deleting the original one and opening/saving the bundle as a Sonar project again. In this way various bits of audio data are placed consecutively, w/o fragmentation.
As a last resort, try opening a brand-new project and copying/pasting your data into it. I know it's pain in the neck but it helped me more than once.

[A1A2]

Leeking,

I see. appearently that's not where my problem is because I tried it last night and the problem remains.

Bamboo,

You are onto something here. I tried the cut and paste to a new project last night (without the plug-ins tho) and things were a lot better. It only dropped out once and it was ok once I hit play again from where it stopped. I will try the bundle thing tonight when i get home, hopefully it will solve my problem completely.

Al