The most likely causes for this sudden, unusual behavior are the following:

• The addition of new software or hardware to your system.
• A problem with the file system on your hard drive.
• A corrupt session file.
• A physical problem with a hard drive.
• A problem with RAM.

You can usually solve these types of problems by:

* Be sure you are not overloading the system. Sometimes, large plugins can cause spikes in processor performance that can cause this erratic behavior. Removing a few plugins (especially FFT, reverb, and maximizing plugins) can usually help.
• Defragmenting your hard drives.
• Removing or uninstalling any newly installed hardware, and/or running msconfig on your system (detailed instructions are contained in Knowledgebase article #30058, under the "Startup Service/Applications" section).
• Run a hard drive diagnostic tool. Creation Station users can use Seatools (available at www.seagate.com ) for diagnostics. Owners of other PC's will have to check with the manufacturer of the hard drive(s) in thier PC.
• Run a RAM diagnostic tool. All PC users can use memtest86+ to test their system RAM. This test is available here: www.memtest.org • If all else fails, you can try to import your session data into a new session. If the original session was corrupted, you can usually retrieve the data from it by moving it into a newly created session. Check your DAW's manual for steps on doing this.

If all diagnostic tests pass, and importing session data does not help, please call Tech Support.