Interesting thought. That is remotely possible especially if the scan path points to any plugins outside the "program files" folder. This is because otherwise plugins do not have permission to write there by default due to Windows UAC protection. Can you confirm whether your scan path has some external paths like this?
Its a terrible idea for plugins to write config entries to the program folder but I know some old ones used to do so.
 
I'll look into the code and see if such a scenario could cause a loop like that. However even so that would only be possible if "rescan existing plugins" was enabled. Do you have that on? Otherwise the next time round the plugin would be skipped since its already known.
 

I don't know if this will help any but I got the scanner already running message. I went to the task manager and did an end task and since it runs it's normal way.
 I only have 282 plugins

Hi Noel,
 
Rescan existing plugins was ON when I first started up X3. Yes, I do have non-standard paths for the plugins - primary a folder for 32 bit plugins and a folder for 64 bit plugins.
 
Also, if I understood you correctly then my X3 has done the impossible. You can see below I have only two items in the plugin layout dropdown. The X3 Producer Effects was the only one there after a scan, and the James Effects item is what I started building.
 
I'm going to try and run it again manually.
 
EDIT: I should note this wasn't a problem in X1 or X2, and the only thing that's changed was the install of X3 Producer. I hope this helps.
 

The "Default All Plug-ins" is not a layout that is visible in the Plug-in Manager. As Noel said: "the default all plugins item is a fixed item." Only editable layouts are visible in the Plug-in Manager. The "Default - All Plug-ins" layout should be an option in the Plug-ins Tab drop down in the Browser or at the top of the Audio FX menu.

Gotcha - now I'm on the same page and I see them in the browser. thanks.
 
Manually running the VST scanner works great and doesn't loop. It runs once and everything is visible. I had Rescan Failed and Rescan Existing both on - scanned once and found everything.
 
Sorry I couldn't be more help with the infinite background scanner.

 
I'm glad that you see your plugins now. I think a lot of users are getting confused about the difference between plugin layouts and the "All plugins" list as well as the functionality of Plugin manager vs the plugin browser. This seems to be leading to these sorts of problems.
 
For the record SONAR ships with a default layout selected that shows only the plugins that ship with SONAR in the box. If you want to see all your plugins (uncategorized) you must select the "Default - All plugins" choice. This item on that menu *dynamically* builds a layout from all the plugins on your system. When this is selected you will always see the latest scanned plugins.
 
Regarding plugin manager, it gives you a place to view all your plugins and to build *custom* layouts. You should only go there if you want to make a custom layout, hide/unhide plugins, or look at plugin properties etc. All normal operations, including selecting layouts should be done from the plugin browser itself. There is also no need to go there to scan, since SONAR does that automatically for you. Additionally, users should not turn on "rescan failed" and "rescan existing". Those choices defeat the whole purpose of fast scanning and are only provided for recovery and troubleshooting cases. 
 

smallstonefan
Gotcha - now I'm on the same page and I see them in the browser. thanks.
 
Manually running the VST scanner works great and doesn't loop. It runs once and everything is visible. I had Rescan Failed and Rescan Existing both on - scanned once and found everything.
 
Sorry I couldn't be more help with the infinite background scanner.

Can you now turn OFF Rescan Failed and Rescan Existing as well as turn ON Automatic background scanning? After this you shouldn't get a rescan loop anymore. Please confirm this ...

 Finally managed to get sonar working. Melodyne appears as a region FX now.

OK, I tried that. With those options set, I do NOT get the looping behavior! Please note though that those options WERE set when I first started up X3. Perhaps they were set this way in my previous config for X1 and were migrated over to X3? If so, you might want to change your migration code to turn these off if you are turning on background scanning by default.

Exactly, thats probably what happened. Yes its probably an unwise to have always rescan on along with background scanning. 
We'll change the migration code. Its too late now however since by definition users will have X3 before installing future updates :)
I'll alert tech support to put a KB article about this. Perhaps for the next update we can forcibly disable rescan all / failed if automatic background scan is on. That way it will prevent someone getting into this scenario.
 
What is still a mystery is which plugin on your system is doing updating files inside its folder. If you can find that plugin it would be useful. You can look for a file inside the folders that have a later date than the modified time of the dll itself maybe. Someone on this thread suggested it started with XLN addictive drums so perhaps look in those folders first...
 
Anyway glad the looping issue is resolved.