Sonar is crashing all the time

E

Emanuel Vella

New member
Hello,

Sonar is crashing all the time, it has never happened before that crashes every minute except once in a week or two. While Sonar is playing audio (15 audio tracks and I need more) each time crashes and stops with a harsh noise and each time I have to restart my computer and restore desktop. The cpu meter looks normal showing 29% and disk28% max. I have 384MB.RAM do you think I need more RAM but as I said that it has never happened before. Any help please?

Thank you.
 
Give us more info.
Do you have a separate HD for audio?
What is the HD speed in RPM?
Speed and brand of CPU?
Operating system?
What sound card are you using?
The only thing I noticed is that your disk usage seems high. I don't think I've ever gone over 10%. My projects are around 20 tracks at 16-bit 44.1khz. And I only have 256mb of ram.
 
Hello,

Yes I have a separate HD for audio.

My system is as follows:
Windows ME,
Pentium III,
1050MHz processor,
384MB.RAM,
SB Live! Soundcard

I'm not sure what you mean by HD speed in RPM so I can't give you an answer. What I know about my hard disks is that I have two, one for programs that is 6.65GB and the other for audio and it is 21.8GB.
 
My Sonar has been doing the exact same thing as yours. It makes the LOUDEST noise ever and then my computer just restarts out of nowhere. I use Cakewalk 9 now, it doesn't give me any problems. I wish Sonar could do the same.
 
How many plugins are you using? And are they the ones that came with Sonar, or are they others you have installed? I would look at a bad plugin doing it first, because in my experience they can cause problems.

BTW, I am running a P3 1ghz with 512MB RAM and 2 7200 RPM HD's...I am currently using 24 tracks at 24 bit 48 khz with lots of plugins running and am at about 60% CPU and 10-30%HD usage. Just for comparison purposes.

H2H
 
All of the plugins that I have bought have a uninstaller program, so you just find the folder and run the un-install and they're gone. I never used Cakewalk9, so I have no idea how it worked. But seeing as it's very different from Sonar, I'd say things work differently in it. The plugins thing is just my first guess, because I have had that problem in the past myself. Especially Timeworks plugins, I hate them.

H2H
 
Hello,

I am using 7 plugins and 15 tracks as I suggested above and the plugins that came with Sonar and I have installed Endorphin and Dominion along with VST-DX Wrapper lite. A stupid question, can you tell me please how can I find what is the HD speed?


I have noticed that I am having this problem not only when I am using Sonar, even when I am on th internet or when I am using other programs such as Microsoft Word ecc...I am having crashes too, so I am more confused.

More help please!!! Thanks
 
Most of the new hard drives have a speed of about 7200 RPM. You can get higher but on the average. Your 20 gig is probably either 5400 or 7200. Even 5400 should allow you to do what you want. I had one for a while with no problem. Your 6 gig could be a problem, especially with other apps crashing. Are you connected to the internet when you use Sonar? You shouldn't be. Have you defragged your drives lately?
Why not make your 20 gig your C drive and see if things run?
 
There are about a zillion things that can cause 98 to crash. My best advice is upgrade to 2000 or XP Pro. Barring that, make sure your not running alot of stuff in your background. Go to Start>Run and type msconfig and then hit enter. Go to the startup tab and uncheck all un-needed crap. Reboot and see how well your system runs. If you start crashing again, defrag, reboot, and run for awhile. If it still is screwed up, if you have Norton Utilities, run the windows check and then repair all. If you don't have NU and can't buy it, or if you run it and still no improvement, do a "refresh install" of 98. Insert your 98 CD and then run the setup. This will re-install your OS without removing any programs. This may or may not work. You amy want to backup your important audio stuff before doing this. If you still see no improvement, back up your audio and reformat and reinstall. At this point, please reconsider using 2000 or XP Pro.

Good Luck
Sonny
 
do you have and audio I/O with a PCI card, or are you going straight into the SB? If you have outboard gear what is it? and in that case is the SB for midi only?
 
hey.Emanuel sorry to here about your troubles. This is a long shot , Are you using any waves plug-ins or any other pace protected plugs when this happens? I had a nasty conflict, when sonar 1.0xl first came out, between the included alien revalver plug and my waves plugs. Pace updated their tpkd to fix.
 
Well, this does not sound like an audio related issue at all.

If the system is crashing doin anything with it then you have a core issue to resolve before anything will work properly.

The way your talking it sounds as if you've gotten a virus. A system that crashes repeatedly doing any common function is likely to be compromised. You need to get yourself a good virus scanner and check and clean your system up before you go any farther. Otherwise it will only get worse.

No manner of upgrade or tweaking will seem to help in a case like this. Is that what it seems to you? No matter what you do it seems to just be getting worse? If so, get it checked out pronto!

Good luck.
 
but if it only crashes in Sonar, then it's either Sonar conflicting with something on the machine, or sonar has caused a confilct to be exposed.

first, check to see if you are doing any IR/Q sharing. If your sound card and your network/modem card are sharing an interrupt (IR/Q) disable the modem while you are doing audio.

If there are no IR or Memory issues, then the software itself is causing you issues. Strip off all of your plug-ins and see if the audio works. If so, it's not Sonar itself that is the issue. Put your plugins back one at a time until you find the offending plugin. Autotune v1 was killing my PC when i upgraded it to Win2k. I just had to roll back to win98 until the new version of autotune was released.

Also, you may need to un-install and then re-install DirectX v8.1 and then re-install Sonar, then your plug-ins so that they all register with windows properly.

2 years ago, I had an old yamaha xv-4050 keyboard that i was using as a midi controller. It would do some kind of digital fart that would drive Cakewalk absolutely bonkers, but it would only do it when i was recording on one midi track, but had another track selected. I tried setting the midi control from auto to manual in cakewalk, and i tried being careful, but ultimately, it became my little brothers keyboard and i purchased a really nice Fatar.
 
I have noticed that I am having this problem not only when I am using Sonar, even when I am on th internet or when I am using other programs such as Microsoft Word ecc...I am having crashes too, so I am more confused.
Click to expand...


Uh, I think he said it was in other programs too!
 
Sonar Crashing

Emanuel.
They are right. This crashing is probably not a SONAR issue. As you have used a seperate hard drive for your music, this can probably be saved. Viruses often take up considerable system resources as they run, which might explain why your disc usage meter is so high. Either check both hard discs for viruses (download a free checker from http://www.free-av.com) or do a clean re-install on your bootable drive, leaving the music drive alone (ie fdisk, reformat then reinstall win98). After this reinstall check music drive for viruses (but it is less likely to have a virus than boot disc). If you upgrade to Windows XP, that would be best. Windows XP is far more stable than any previous MS operating system and works SONAR best. If reinstall doesn't solve it.
a) Swap out video card (they commonly cause conflicts)
b) swap out memory (for higher grade stuff Kingston etc.)
c) try using other hard drive for recording.
Lastly you can't remove direct x from computer. If "dxdiag" is run from "run" you can see if it needs reinstalling.
 
Good advise.

But you CAN remove directX from your PC, though you will need to re-install it. You can use a little utility called DX Buster, it does work but again you will want to reinstall DX as soon as it is removed. The only reason I would remove it is if it were one of the known buggy versions. (v7, 8.0) then install 8.1

Again, as I have and now johnhoe has mentioned, this sounds like a virus. Download the free checker and see what you have. It can only take time and possibly save you more time in the future.

Hope you get this resolved.
 
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