I just started a new project in X3e, and all was going smoothly until yesterday.  I don't know what I did, but I noticed that hitting the space bar to stop play caused the project to display the asterisk (*) showing that I had made a change to the project, even though I had done nothing but hit stop (space bar).  When I started the session, this was not happening, and it even happens when I play the song from beginning to end, and it returns to zero automatically at the end.  This is happening even though I make no changes during playback.  How did I change the behavior of the space bar without my knowing?  And, why would it prompt a save just playing from the beginning to the end?  I thank you all in advance if you have any advice.

is this in any project or a specific one?

It's a specific project, and a new one started in X3.  It was playing fine when I started the session.  It would play from beginning to end without showing a change (*) in the project header.  It would behave normally when I hit the space bar to stop play.  Then, somewhere along the way, I noticed that hitting the space bar would make the asterisk appear.  I don't know what I did to make the behavior change in the project.

sounds like some kind of plugin init causing the "file is changed" - did you add any plugins that you don't generally use maybe?

Do you have auto save activated? I have no idea what could cause that behavior but I personally would revert to manual saves to avoid getting nailed down to changes I didn't want... although I guess you could go back through the save history if need be but that's a pain.
 
Have you checked your Preferences to see if anything weird got bound to your Spacebar somehow? Do you maybe have a sticky mouse button that is changing parameters without you knowing or a MIDI controller doing something weird?
 
Cheers.

lawp
sounds like some kind of plugin init causing the "file is changed" - did you add any plugins that you don't generally use maybe?

This is the answer!  I bypassed the f/x, and the problems went away.  I don't know which f/x it is, yet, but I'll soon find it because there aren't that many at this point.  I don't know why I didn't think of this, but I'll remember it for the future.  Thank you for all your replies.

This happens a lot with certain plugins. I get this when I don't even have any automation going. Plus, certain plugs zero things for somewhat arcane reasons. NI's Battery is pretty prone to this, even Rapture on occasion. If you can live with it, just ignore it. But if you can't remember if you've made any changes it's always a good tic to have to hit CTRL-S for no reason at all. :-)
 

...wicked
This happens a lot with certain plugins. I get this when I don't even have any automation going. Plus, certain plugs zero things for somewhat arcane reasons. NI's Battery is pretty prone to this, even Rapture on occasion. If you can live with it, just ignore it. But if you can't remember if you've made any changes it's always a good tic to have to hit CTRL-S for no reason at all. :-)
 

Thanks for helping me narrow the search.  I do have Rapture in the project, but it was an instance of Dimension Pro that was the problem.  Once I deleted it, the problems went away.