This morning I created a new project from my custom favorite template for bands and started to record a band. It's a typical, small live band session; app. 16 channels audio only.  During the day I edited two small clips with Melodyne ARA. I also split and moved clips as groups maybe 15 times. Otherwise it was just recording and tweaking effect settings.  Now there are 7 songs, no automation, no Audio Snap enabled etc, no tempo maps - project is dead simple. How come the project size keeps on growing and growing:
 
- 12:37: 2698 kB
- 12:57: 7499 kB
- 13:01: 8928 kB
- 13:19: 15144 kB
- 14:00: 29005 kB
- 14:41: 43153 kB
 
At this time SONAR crashed while I was adding Cakewalk Channel Tools to a track during playback. I continued from the last saved version and saved project to a new folder. But size keeps on growing:
 
- 15:21: 51492 kB
- 16:43: 79889 kB
- 17:22: 93157 kB. The last saved version by me.
 
Now I exported mixes out. No changes were done in the projet anymore. However, autosaved files are still growing:
 
- 17:39: 99183 kB
- 17:43: 100530 kB  "~ file"
- 17:44: 101011 kB   "~ file"
 
So the project size increased 1828 kB in 5 minutes while I was drinking coffee. At the end of the day SONAR memory usage was over one gigabyte. It's much more than usually but I've got 32 GB RAM so my PC can handle it. But is this dangerous and a sign of some severe memory leak or something? How can I stop project size exploding? Can a VST plug-in gone haywire make this happen?  I have 12 hours time to solve the problem and sleep the night before band returns to studio. Any hints are more than welcome!!!
 
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SONAR Platinum x64
Win7 Ultimate
RME UFX (ASIO)
 

Is autosave placing the audio in seperate folders? i.e. is making new audio folders for each save.

I suspect it's copying audio over during those saves to their own folder or loading them up with each save.

Check that, if you have and it's not stay tuned, hopefully you get the help you need from someone who knows better.

HI CTStump,
 
Thanks for the hint.
I checked that autosave saves project file only, not folders.

panup
So the project size increased 1828 kB in 5 minutes while I was drinking coffee. At the end of the day SONAR memory usage was over one gigabyte. It's much more than usually but I've got 32 GB RAM so my PC can handle it. But is this dangerous and a sign of some severe memory leak or something? How can I stop project size exploding? Can a VST plug-in gone haywire make this happen?  I have 12 hours time to solve the problem and sleep the night before band returns to studio. Any hints are more than welcome!!!

If you wonder what in some particular CWP file takes a lot of space and do not want to wait till new owner setup a support team...
Upload the CWP file in question (NO audio please) somewhere and PM me the link. I will tell you who is the "evil"
 
Note that I will go to the bed in an hour or so. If you want the result today, please let me know quick.

azslow3, you get PM very in 5 minutes.

What was that app that was posted not long ago that let you look inside CWP files?? 
 
And just so you don't think otherwise, the last thing the new owners will be doing is troubleshooting Cakewalks problems. They bought the IP not the headaches. They would be crazy to do that. 

PM sent. :)
 
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My hint: The _only_ new plug-in I added in this project is Youlean Loudness Meter 2 v1.9.0. If it's a plug-in, this may be the first one to suspect.
Other plug-ins have been around in my hundreds projects.

http://www.adamczyk.com/miscellaneous-files
 
Project Scope, found it. But it won't tell you much I guess. 
 
I'm thinking you should try shutting off auto save and see what happens. 

panup
PM sent. :)
 
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My hint: The _only_ new plug-in I added in this project is Youlean Loudness Meter 2 v1.9.0. If it's a plug-in, this may be the first one to suspect.
Other plug-ins have been around in my hundreds projects.

You have guessed right!
This plug-in has preset size of ~108MB (so almost the whole size of the project)

Thanks a million, azslow3!
You're magician.