Sonar 2.2 Shutting Down on Project Open

M

mtardif

New member
I installed HALion String Edition (yeah, all 5 gigs worth) on my system yesterday to add an orchestra backing for a project I'm working on in Sonar 2.2 XL. I played with it for about 3 hours and was able to build a decent sounding orchestra track using the DXi. Up to that point everything worked fine. BUT...I never tried to shut down Sonar and open up the project again until today.

When I try to open it now, you can see that Sonar is loading into RAM all the used samples in the project (using task manager, win xp). Right about 579mb page file size, Sonar simply disappears from the screen. I tried to open my other projects, and they work just fine. It's just the one using HALion.

I immediately thought my system page file size was set to low, but it's set to 1579mb. I'm thinking still that it's got to be something with the amount of data it's loading to RAM. But...like I said...it was all working fine last night. I'm running a P4 2.53ghz with 1 gig of SDRAM.

I'm currently defragging my drive in hopes that will help. But...does anyone have any other ideas I can check out? I'd hate to lose this project, considering I can't even open it to back it up. Any help would be awesome :D
 
Try loading it in safe mode (hold down shift key while opening). It will prompt you for plugins. Don't load Halion, and then try loading it manually once the project is open (assuming it opens, of course).
 
Thanks...at least now I can get in there and back it up. I tried it in safe mode and it's definitely the HALion plug causing issues. I started all plugs but that one and it worked fine. Any ideas of what might cause this? I'm still stumped why I was able to use it and save the project last night, but get issues today when nothing has changed between. Thanks for your help.
 
I'm not familiar with Halion, so I don't know if I can be of much help. However, you can try raising the number of midi buffers in Sonar (Options>Global>Midi) to see if that helps. I would try upping them to 500 or 1000.

Another thing you might want to try is to uninstall and reinstall Halion.
 
Man this is driving me nuts. I bumped up the number of midi buffers Dachay but I'm still getting nothing. I then thought it could be that new DEP (Data Execution Prevention) Windows released with service pack 2 (basically monitors software and if an app uses excessive amounts of memory, Windows shuts it down). I added Sonar to the list of programs to exclude, but it still kept shutting down.

So...I tried a simple test. I took a new project and added 1 midi measure using only 1 violin section (ie minimal amount of memory). All worked fine while I still had Sonar open. I shut down Sonar, started it back up, tried to open the project and Sonar shuts down when it tries to load the HALion plug.

I'm trying all I can before I try uninstalling/re-installing because it takes so damn long to load the samples. I sent a note to the Steinberg folks in hopes they can help, but I'm not holding my breath. Any other ideas anyone can throw out are definitely welcome.
 
Well...Steinberg tech support replied to my email and said "Make sure you a not running any other programs when you try to open your project. That should free up enough memory to fix it."

Wonderful...just wonderful. Very helpful.

So...I went ahead and uninstalled/reinstalled...and still get shutdowns. I'm very positive it is now a windows issue and not something with the plug. I loaded the plug, and started loading lower quality instruments, shutting down Sonar and re-opening the project with each instrument load. I could actually open the projects this time with the plug running....until I hit around 500mb PF usage. Checked my PF size and its still at 1536mb, so I'm clueless.

If anyone knows any systems guru's that have fixed issues like these, send em my way if you could.
 
have you allowed windows to manage the pagefile instead of limiting it yourself?

I had a tune once with an extremely large number of samples and Sonar would choke and quit. I had to load them in small groups, bounce to audio track, delete the midi tracks, save close, and reopen loading another group of tracks and bounce, till I could open open the project without it dying on me. Using B4 seemed to grossly limit my sample tracks potential and cause shutdowns.

Just ideas...
 
Yeah, sometimes it just doesn't work, and though you can replicate the conditions that cause the problem, the problem is unfixable and a suitable "workaround" is the only solution.

In this instance, what you need to do it print your halion tracks prior to exiting Sonar, and then kill the plug as the last thing you do before you leave.

Once you're back in after reopening, then reload Halion. It seems to work that way...so go with it.

Just remember to document what you're doing in the info section of the file, so that you'll remember where things are when you come back.

That's all I can think of.

I've have some peculiar experiences w/ Sonar at odd times. One glitch cost me 100 man hours when it killed a project and re-reminded me that frequent backing up to bun files on a different hard drive is absolutely essential.

Best-

K-
 
Hey all...thanks for the suggestions. I've found a little different workaround than actually mixing down the orchestra track prior to shutting down. I've got it to work now as long as I open the HALion plug and empty all of the loaded samples before I close the project. Then when I re-open the project, all I have to do is re-load my custom bank.

Kinda sucks...but it works. Man I hate workarounds :D Thanks again for your help.
 
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