If you experience a crash in SONAR 2016.08 or 2016.09 opening projects and have a Dell PC/Laptop with Dell Backup and Recovery installed or AlienRespawn, there is a known incompatibility caused by an icon overlay shell extension (DBROverlayIcon).

To work around this do one of the following:

Either:

1. Uninstall the Dell Backup and Recovery or AlienRespawn 
    if you already have another backup and recovery solution.

• Open Programs and Features, 

• Scroll through the list to find Dell Backup and Recovery (or Alien Respawn) and select it

• Choose Uninstall and follow the prompts to remove the software and restart Windows

or:

Keep using DBR or AlienRespawn as your backup solution
Note that this work around will remove some functionality from Explorer. You will no longer see the backup status custom icons or backup context menu items.  Other icons and context menu items will not be affected.  

• Download Nirsoft's Shell Extension Viewer
  www.nirsoft.net/futils/shexview.html

• Unzip it to a folder of your choice, then launch it.
  
  
• Go to Options Menu, then click 'Hide All Microsoft Extensions'.
  
  
• Now you will be able to see a list of 3rd party shell extensions.
  
  
• Scroll through the list until you find 3 entires for DBROverlayIcon (two are for icon overlays, 1 is context menu)
  
  
• Select all 3, then click the red button to disable them.  If you disable the wrong extensions, simply click the green button to re-enable them, then try again.
  
  
• Once the 3 extensions are disabled, then press Ctrl + E on the keyboard to reload Windows Explorer without these extensions loading.
• 
  
  You can now close the Shell Extension Viewer.

After this SONAR should be able to again load projects without crashing.