I’ve dealt with this before in a live recording situation nonetheless. Minutes before airtime !
In my case it was caused by the system being idle for a period of time.
Now I avoid it by hitting “save”, wait for it to “come alive”. Then it’s all good to go.
And yes, only 4 tracks in record ( blank, new session ) on an otherwise rock solid, stable PC. No power saving is ever enabled.
Just wanted to share this…
Good luck