Project size keeps on growing [ANSWERED: It was a 3rd party plug-in]

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)
 

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

azslow3, you get PM very in 5 minutes.

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.

Cactus Music
http://www.adamczyk.com/miscellaneous-files
 
Project Scope, found it.

Mark's project has inspired me, but I do not think he has sufficiently deep parser to show such information...

I deleted Youlean Loudness Meter and project size went down to 2498 kB!  It's a pretty memory hungry yet very nice LUFS meter.
 
Earlier this week I made a decision to publish all songs I produce at -14 LUFS. It's the target level Spotify uses for the music, ie. if you mix the song hotter, track volume will be adjusted down accordingly so that the average loudness is -14 LUFS. I start to use the same level for Youtube videos as well unless The Client requires a loud master.
 
Thanks again azslow3 & others. You're very helpful people and I appreciate that.
 

I subscribed to this thread but I can no longer find it.
There was nothing off-topic and every post was informative.
 
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mettelus at February 25, 18 2:59 AM
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Re: Project size keeps on growing
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FWIW - Unbounced Melodyne edits are also saved inside a cwp, which will jump cwp size rapidly on you.
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Did some moderator kill thread or move it somewhere? If so, why?
Or did I do it myself accidentaly when adding [ANSWERED] tag to subject line? I don't have rights to delete posts, though...
 

Yes it has been a common occurrence for some people if they edit posts it will disappear. The Hosts will bring it back for you when one comes around.  
 
Edit,, well when I finished typing I found myself back here.. 
 
Anyhow glad you sorted it out, I use Wave lab to Master and analyze my songs it will tell you the average RMS level. I aim for a - 14db  average RMS as that seems a respectable target for rock and roll. I might go as far as -12db. 
I would not be doing this at the mix stage anyhow. That's a job for mastering. Since I stared doing this 12 years ago all my albums and backing tracks too, are in the same place as most commercial releases level wise.  have yet to find another way to do this. Wave LAb elements is only $100 and well worth it if your doing your own mastering.