Manchester upgrade issues (and an old issue)

1. It's saying 'Thanks for extending your membership'. I didn't do so. My membership expires in 2 months.
2. The number of recent projects listed on the start screen has dropped to 8. That's annoying. USER ERROR, SORRY!
3. Upon first launching, it says it found 5 new plugins, but I don't recall there being any new ones mentioned in the eZine. What am I supposed to do to find what happened here? I moved some files but they shouldn't register as 'new'.
(3b. Have the plugin scans got a lot slower? Not specifically to Manchester, but to the previous version, perhaps. Seems like they take about a minute now, when they used to take a few seconds.)
4. There are still some long-standing bugs with the solo implementation, even after this update. eg. I can solo my guitar track, which outputs to Guitar Submix and sends to Reverb, both of which go to Master, and that works well. But why can I also hear (and see) my VST drums outputs leaking out via their send into the Parallel Drums bus and from there into Master?

Aha, turns out some of my projects did move, although I was accessing them through a shortcut which confused matters. Apologies to any Cakewalk employees distressed by my implicit accusation. :)
 
As for plugins, yeah, I appreciate some get updated, but there's a separate count for updates, isn't there? It's just a bit frustrating to have this message pop up and for it to be essentially worthless apart from making me have to scour the plugins menu editor to see if I spot anything unfamiliar.

bladetragic
I have also noticed the slow plugin scan that began with the last update.  Not sure why that is.

That I did notice when I updated Melodyne Essential.  I have the automatic scan turned off, but that re-scan lasted several minutes.

I'm concerned about this Cleverbridge arrangement. I've been a sonar user since X1 and my purchases have always come with serial number together with a registration code
With my upgrade from X3 I only got confirmation of payment from cleverbridge, and I bought Platinum with no intention to extend the 12 month membership subscription.
What concerns me about this new commercial model, is that I'll (consumer) be left out in the dark to try and stop unwarranted monthly premiums (if Maarkr problem is anything to go by) when my paid subscription comes to an end. Until recently, I have always received a response from Cakewalk support...but now its into a black hole..
Also struggling with slow VST scan with Manchester upgrade.
 
I dont want to be in a situation whereby i'm continuously having to scan the forum to navigate through upgrade version bugs and incompatibility issues with my 3rd party VST plugins (Waves, PA, Softube,etc)
 
IMO - it used to be so simple, you bought the product, downloaded the files, and off you go. Now with this CCC and all these monthly upgrades which feel like BETA versions with the increased number of audio engine crashes that occur on my PC (note: I'm only posting for my PC) ....its like I've become reluctantly part of a development team and all i want to do is produce music.
 
Would appreciate anyone's advice on post links to help me get my Sonar Platinum upgrade to its most commercially stable condition (no hiss, dropouts, or reported problems, etc)