I've been on Sonar since it was released and this has never happened before, some plugs are scanned but not registered by the scanner. The scanner seems to take a brief look and move on. All Spectrasonics plugs are failing, Trilian, Omnisphere and Atmosphere and a few other synths.
The odd part is I can open an older file, before the problem existed and those plugs are available. 
Anyone got any suggestions?
 
Thanks - rev

revnice1
The odd part is I can open an older file, before the problem existed and those plugs are available. 

This means the plug-ins are in the VST Inventory (IOW scanned OK) or registered DX plug-ins otherwise projects would complain about missing plug-ins. Often this points to a layout problem.

>Often this points to a layout problem.
Thanks. What kind of layout problem?
 
More: The plugs all appear under their respective headings (Vsti, Vst3, etc) and I build a set of custom folders grouped by instrument but several plugs are still missing from the .pgl file - even though I've successfully added them. I can't find other versions of the .pgl file anywhere so I'm not accidentally calling the wrong one.
 
This seems to suggest that the system is unable to save changes the .pgl file?
 
 

Plug-in layouts use the .pgl extension. I suspect this is the problem. IIRC, SONAR 8.5 (this is the version this thread is about, right?) had a "Default - All Plug-ins" layout which is built on-the-fly from all available plug-ins. Try using it.
 
A problem appeared sometime during Platinum development that broke backward compatibility. If the plug-in manager was updated with one from that time or newer, custom layouts built with it may not be usable in 8.5. I imagine the CbB plug-in manager has the same issue but I do not have 8.5 installed to test. If this is an issue with a newer plug-in manager, either re-install the old plug-in manager, use the default layout or upgrade the rest of the software.
 

One more thing, I recall some having problems with custom plug-in layouts in older versions of SONAR (I guess they are all old now). This may be one of those issues. It is one reason I avoided custom layouts until Cakewalk moved away from the "Default - All Plug-ins" layout to the current scheme. IOW, it may be the .pgl is bad. If this is case, try recreating the file from scratch.

>Plug-in layouts use the .pgl extension. I suspect this is the problem.
What exactly is the problem? The fact that I'm using a custom .pgl?
 
BTW: The 'All Plugs.pgl' also has missing entries but I just noticed something else - I'm getting two of everything in the list. So for example, in the VSTi Instruments section, I get:
 
Rapture
Rapture
EZdrummer
EZdrummer, etc
 
If I click on the first dupe, it has exactly the same path to the plug and exactly the same VST ID. Why am I getting two of everything? That should be telling us something..?
I did try making a brand new .pgl but it suffered from the same problem, not everything I included in my custom folders showed up in the resulting .pgl. 
 
You mentioned reinstalling the Plugin Manager, where would I find the file for that? On the first source disk?

I have no idea what SONAR version this thread is about or what software has been installed. If this is an issue with SONAR 8.5, my guess is the Shared Utilities are too new. Possibly from a trial version of Artist/Professional/ Platinum or CbB. The utitilies used to be backward compatible but that changed in early 2017. If this is the issue and the "Default - All Plug-ins" is not usable, options are limited. IIRC, the "Default - All Plug-ins" layout does not build a regular pgl instead it builds a tmp file called default.pgl.tmp (at least that is what it is called in X2, the oldest version I have installed). My guess is "All Plugs.pgl" is a user created file not the default. The default is not a custom layout and was listed above the custom layouts. However, if the default is not usable and utilities got updated in the last year, the only way to use SONAR 8.5 plug-in management is restore the old shared utilities. IOW, rename the folder and reinstall. Don't have to reinstall everything but the basic program. That or upgrade the rest from whatever version is running.

>I have no idea what SONAR version this thread is about
Apologies if I forgot to mention that, it's 8.5.3 essentially 8.5. the .3 didn't add anything significant.
 
So reinstall just Disk 1, the program SONARPDR.exe? Then all the updates?

It may not need the updates, I am not sure what all will be overwritten. Worst case the re-install will need updating after re-install. Before re-install make sure to rename the "Shared Utilities" folder to insure it is recreated.

Thanks, you seem very knowledgeable!
 
What if I uninstalled everything Sonar related and reinstalled - would the .cwp files retain all the plug settings?