Sonar LE (running on XP SP2) is crashing

[DaleM]

My Cakewalk Sonar LE is crashing.

My old PC (ca. 2000 HP Pavillion, running XP SP3, 720Mhz, 512 RAM) ran Cakewalk just fine, but the motherboard crashed.

So, I am rebuilding an eMachines box that's much more powerful than my old one (ca. 2004, 2.7 GHz, 1GM RAM), but currently just running XP2.

But, everytime I import a Midi, start to play it -- and then do ANYTHING else (stop it, change tempo, etc.) it crashes. (Crash Dump shown below).

I have reinstalled it twice and get same crash.

The only other obvious difference (other XP SP2 and XP SP3) between my old and new PC is that the new PC is running a Sound Blaster card. However, I've tried using the native Midi Devices and the Roland Midi device (I am hooked to a Roland RD700GX, which is how I got the Sonar LE.)

I am really hoping this is simple to fix. I don't need the full blown Sonar -- in fact something simpler (even a PowerTracks Pro) would probably be fine. I mostly use it to record my takes in midi to track my progress, and just a little putting tracks together to help other musicians practice or for making simple back-up tracks. But, I really enjoyed using Sonar (on my old computer) and would hate to learn a new software.

Any ideas????

Here's the crash dump below:

Event Type: Error
Event Source: Application Hang
Event Category: (101)
Event ID: 1002
Date: 8/23/2010
Time: 8:44:47 AM
User: N/A
Computer: OURS
Description:
Hanging application SONARLE.EXE, version 13.0.1.14, hang module hungapp, version 0.0.0.0, hang address 0x00000000.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
Data:
0000: 41 70 70 6c 69 63 61 74 Applicat
0008: 69 6f 6e 20 48 61 6e 67 ion Hang
0010: 20 20 53 4f 4e 41 52 4c SONARL
0018: 45 2e 45 58 45 20 31 33 E.EXE 13
0020: 2e 30 2e 31 2e 31 34 20 .0.1.14
0028: 69 6e 20 68 75 6e 67 61 in hunga
0030: 70 70 20 30 2e 30 2e 30 pp 0.0.0
0038: 2e 30 20 61 74 20 6f 66 .0 at of
0040: 66 73 65 74 20 30 30 30 fset 000
0048: 30 30 30 30 30 00000

[MeNotU]

Have also had hangs in SonarLE, and I also have a creative soundcard. My next solution is to install the actual creative SB disk of drivers and software, rather than what XP has decided to load genericaly.

I tried going back to the Cubase that originaly came with my SB and it crashed saying files were missing (AWEMAN.DLL etc), so I therefore assume XP does not load the full set of drivers, especialy for midi?

Hope this helps.

[dbijoux]

Buy a mac

No, that's a joke, just joking.

Why haven't you upgraded to SP3?

After that, I agree with MeNotU, make sure your drivers are updated.

I'd definitely(and always do) suggest buying a proper soundcard, even budget interfaces are going to be better than SB(those are for games not music production).

In the meantime, have you heard of ASIO4ALL? Install that and run Sonar in ASIO mode. It's a hack on top of WDM audio, and I don't suggest it to anyone else, but give it a try - lots of people have had success with it.

Oh and Sonar is sort of notorious for crashing, it's rare occassion here, but it happens. As for MIDI, yeah, run that all through your RD - no GM soundblaster pianos plox.

[DaleM]

Looks like I am getting two different pieces of advice:

MeNotU says the SoundBlaster card on XP sometimes doesn't get all the drivers (at least from XP) so I should make sure I have the right SB drivers.

dbijoux says upgrade to SP3 and get rid of the SoundBlaster card and drivers.

-- By the way -- definitely: many thanks for the comments -- I am still collecting info, and your advice very much appreciated.

Some comments from my end:

Re: SoundBlaster card -- I have no interest in keeping it -- but had no real interest in getting rid of it either (until now). This machine I kind of inherited from my Dad who passed away last April. It was his old spare machine and my mom said I was welcome to it. I don't even think my Dad installed the SB card -- if memory serves, I think the dealer added it on to sweeten the pot when my dad first bought it about 6 years ago. I do think it's sounds a little better than whatever is built into the native sound card, but I don't really care since for real music I'd always use my RD700GX and for simple stuff the native sounds would be fine.

Re: Other (pro) cards -- maybe some day -- if I ever determine a need for them. For recording, I currently have a standalone 4 track recorder (that records to flash) that works perfectly fine.

Re: Missing drivers -- not sure exactly what going on here -- but when I do "my computer | manage" and look at the audio devices, I do see one of them missing something. Not sure what it's about. My guess is that there's a confict with the SoundBlaster driver, but not sure.

Re: Why not XP3 -- basically because I wanted to see if I could make this thing work without it -- and -- more importantly -- Microsoft tends to include so much bloat in their SP upgrades that I really didn't want to be burdened with youknowwhat if I didn't need it.

I am still collecting into, but my sense is that losing the SB card and driver might be the first step.

Thanks again ... and if anyone has other info ... I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Dale

[dbijoux]

Yes, exactly. Sounds like you've covered all the grounds. Except you left out ASIO4all. That would allow you to use ASIO audio drivers from inside Sonar instead of WDM. Not that you're using or recording audio even, but it may help with other driver problems.

The more I think about it or try to explain Windows audio, the more I start liking the idea of Macs. (4 tracks work nice too)

The goal with Windows tho is to try and maintain some stability/compatibility with the drivers, then worry about the latency. Being an older machine that you didn't build, it's hard to be certain of all the drivers, so not a bad idea to update everything you can(soundcard, video, motherboard, bios drivers). Maybe you can get rid of the Missing driver something too.

I agree with you on anything Microsoft, but SP3 is generally a good idea. Better to get that now, before XP is dropped from support.

[MeNotU]

If 'it's missing something' means the yellow exclaimation mark, then it's not running at all because it doesn't have the driver - 90% that's your problem right there.

You can actualy remove that 'device' with a 'right click on it' and reboot, XP should rediscover it, and then prompt you for the driver it doesn't have, giving you a clue to what it is and what it wants. In an ideal world it will go find the driver on the web - but yeah lol

CreativeLabs will have your full driver set on the web as long as you know the model type - just download and install that and see if you still have 'exclaimation marks'..

[DaleM]

Here's the followup:

1. I upgrade to XP SP3 - no help.
2. I unistalled the SoundBlaster drivers -- no help.
3. I removed the SoundBlaster card -- no help.
4. I found anything I could remove -- no help.
5. I tried to figure out why the native sound drivers were missing -- no luck.

Figured I needed to rebuild entire system from scratch -- but I didn't have the eMachines original XP install disk (even if there was one). I only had a generic XP (SP1!) XP install disk that I used for my old machine whose motherboard crashed.

So, I rebuilt the XP, downloaded all the updates (SP2, SP3, tons of hotfixes, updated browser, updated Windows Media Player, etc) from Microsoft

About 6 hours later (it's now about 3am) -- native sound card not working (I kept the SoundBlaster card and drivers away from the rebuild). It's still not working!!!!

Besides -- somewhere along the line of all these XP updates, my video drivers went way south. It was stuch on some 200x300 (or worse) resolution and 4 bit color depth. Really ugly! And, barely visible with all that graininess.

But, windows was technically operational ....

I wasn't going to give up ... so I went searching for OEM drivers.

Fortunately, I got lucky.

On the eMachines web site there were both recently updated video and sound drivers (however, the specific model of eMachines I had wasn't listed, so picked the closest one).

Good news. The video driver worked -- all the sudden video was very good!

Then, installed the sound drivers. The native sound card is pretty basic (16x44,000 the highest sound resolution and midi sounds were mediocre at best), but it worked!!!!

Then, I started installing the app software and mostly everything is working.

Really good news -- Sonar LE is working without crashing!!!!

Strange thing -- that I still need help on is:

Why do some music software products recognize the "Microsoft Midi Mapper" and the "Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth" and other software products do not?

For example, even though Sonar LE wasn't crashing -- no sounds were coming out it by using either one of these drivers. It didn't matter if I put those drivers in as the default in the "Control Panel | Sounds and Audio Devices | Audio | MIDI Music Playback". In fact, Sonar LE wasn't even "seeing the Microsoft GS Wavetable" and it wouldn't accept the "Midi-Mapper".

How can I make this work?

Good news is that the Roland Midi Drivers worked just fine and when I piped the midi to the RD700GX, it sounded fabulous (as expected).

Anyone with ideas????

Dale

PS Summary -- I still don't know what the original problem was. Whether it was the SoundBlaster, the lack of the OEM sound driver or something else. My hunch is the lack of the OEM sound driver, and I'd really like Sonar to be able to play music directly to the sound card (rather than always needing to be hooked up to an external midi device), but for now, I can be happy with the current configuration.

[MeNotU]

I think I would have tried my advice about installing the SB software suite and drivers (at step 2), before going through all that effort and ending up with no sound.

If it had a problem (yellow exclaimation marks) in Device Mananger, surely try to fix that first?

I think I remember that GS wavetable synths are not recognised unless they have capable soundcards. From Creative, I had to have an SB AWE64 Gold (10 years ago) before extra features appeared; so maybe on-board cards can't provide this?

[Artemiy]

Ever since I switched from Windows to Mac 4 years ago, I haven't had any software, hardware or driver compatibility problems. Think about it. You're wasting hours and days of time - and your life goes buy...

I have no idea why people do not want to take away their headache when it's so simple to do!

[MeNotU]

I fully agree, there's nowt more frustrating than being in the mood to work, and then spending 4 hours f-in about with program settings or PC's that stuff you about.

I did away with PC's when Juno turned up, no more sync problems because there is no damn sync, my PC is simply for mastering/recording the final sound, and for storage.

Never had to go the Mac road, but would certainly do so if I had to, ask any professional designer/muso - they have macs.

[PauloF]

This is a bit off topic I know...
My own professional experience is with PC's all my life, but on the music recording/production side, I took the good decision (influenced by a few, - Artemiy is one of them, I must say...), and until now, it's like there is no computer at all, as it is always available, no crashes, no driver issues/reinstallation, and besides that, the user interface is a lot easier (Windows7 grabbed some ideas from it...I'm almost sure )

Just my humble opinion...

[Artemiy]

Yes, Mac users make love to their machines - PC users f*** with them! Difference my friends, difference.

[DaleM]

MeNotU said:

> I think I would have tried my advice about installing the SB software suite > and drivers (at step 2), before going through all that effort and ending > up with no sound.
>
> If it had a problem (yellow exclaimation marks) in Device Mananger,
> surely try to fix that first?

Actually -- I did try that. I reinstalled the entire driver disk that came with the SB card before even tackling the rest of this -- but didn't do anything. Regarding the yellow exclamation marks -- there was nothing that I did that would fix it (until much later when I went to the hardware OEM manufacturer for those drivers).

[DaleM]

Re: Mac vs. PC -- For me, there's two (or possibly three) costs to a Mac -- First, I need to learn a new OS and interface, this seems like a drag when all my professional life I spend working on Windows. Second, Macs still cost more than double what PCs cost, and three (possibly) there seem to be fewer programs for Macs. The cost of the PC is mostly just the set up time -- which is a serious drag -- but once it's set up, then all should be fine.

Re: Juno -- what is this? (I've toyed with starting up a Lynix system, but think that could be a drag.)

[MeNotU]

Juno = Juno-G keyboard workstation, not quite an operating system lol, but I'm quite happy sequencing inside it.

Re your drivers, I'd be brave and now try installing the SoundBlaster. It depends which OEM driver was missing, but it could have been enough to stop any soundcard from doing midi correctly. Make a system restore point before you do?