Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk]
>> everything went black and the machine rebooted.
  / 
I'm sorry that you are having trouble, but the fact that your machine is rebooting means some driver is blowing up. There is no other way that this can happen, other than faulty RAM or some other hardware failure.

And. with all due respect, I disagree.  JMPs to protected memory can cause a hard boot like this.
 

A simple vst scan cannot cause this on its own

It shouldn't but, nonetheless, it did.  The "simple VST scan" caused X3 crash twice.  The third time, when it did the hard re-boot, X3 was open and I ran the VST configuration program as a standalone.  I loaded all the VSTs I wanted into a new preset and, when I tried to save it (with X3 opened) it crashed as described.
 

unless, some of your plugins have copy protection and the driver involved with the copy protection is blowing up.

None of the drivers that I use have copy protection.
 

If you look at the event viewer in Windows you should be able to find an event that shows which driver crashed. Once you know that you can troubleshoot it from there.

I will when I get home from work tonight.  Sonar isn't my only DAW/music software.  I also use Audition 3.0 and CS6, Reaper, Finale, Sibelius and a few others.  All of them are full versions that I purchased, i.e. I don't have pirated software on my computer (and wouldn't ever).  All of them have VST scanning capability, and none of them have any problems doing so, including Sonar X2.
 
Having spent some time in computer tech support (I ran the library's computer network at my law school), I am familiar with, and myself have been guilty of, the assumption that any problem must be user error or SOS (Some Other Software).  That is not the case here.  I learned programming back in 1967, have written assembler level music software (a PC librarian for the MPU-401 -- remember that interface?), and have built at least several dozen computers.  I understand drivers and the hardware they support.  No code is perfect, and no one can write code that runs, problem free, on every single machine in every single hardware and software configuration that's out there.  I find it more than a little frustrating, however, when competent tech people say things like, "the only way a computer can crash and reboot is if there's a driver problem."  We both know better.
 

Dan Gonzalez [Cakewalk]

PTravel
After installation (an upgrade from X2), none of my VST3s showed up, nor did some VST2s.  I tried the "Reset and rescreen" trick recommended by Cakewalk, but that didn't work either.  Worse, Sonar crashed a couple of times in the process, usually when I tried to use the plug-in manager for scanning.  The last time, Sonar not only crashed, but it took down my computer -- everything went black and the machine rebooted.  This is the first time I've seen ANY software mess up so badly that it took Win7 down without a BSD.
 
I'm going to try uninstalling X3, uninstalling X2, doing a manual registry scrub and file delete from User Data and then re-install.
 
I've never had this kind of trouble with a Cakewalk product, and I've been using this DAW since it wasn't yet a DAW and just a sequencer called Cakewalk.

Are you by any chance using any UAD cards?

Nope.  These are all garden variety VSTs, and the only audio interface I use on this machine is the Fast Track Ultra.

Dan Gonzalez [Cakewalk]
Are you by any chance using any UAD cards?

I use UAD on every session.
Just curious, are there known issues?

fooman

Dan Gonzalez [Cakewalk]
Are you by any chance using any UAD cards?

I use UAD on every session.
Just curious, are there known issues?

There aren't any official known issues that I am aware of but I was going to see PTravel was using them and suggest making sure that the latest update for UAD plugins is installed. 

fooman

Dan Gonzalez [Cakewalk]
Are you by any chance using any UAD cards?

I use UAD on every session.
Just curious, are there known issues?

Bapu seems to be having issues either UAD or RME related with 
Motorboating the audio engine...

there's a thread on it...

See the thread with this title also...


UAD-2 problems with X3 Studio

PTravel
 
I'm going to try uninstalling X3, uninstalling X2, doing a manual registry scrub and file delete from User Data and then re-install.
 
I've never had this kind of trouble with a Cakewalk product, and I've been using this DAW since it wasn't yet a DAW and just a sequencer called Cakewalk.

I'm not a code guy, but before doing something as drastic as installs/uninstalls and a registry scrub you might want to see if Noel has any further suggestions. I have a system that's very similar to yours, including having both X2 and X3 installed, and didn't encounter any VST issues at all. So I tend to think it's some simple thing that's gumming up the works, and if you can just find that, you'd be okay.
 
When I've had scan-related problems with other programs, I'd just move half the plug-ins out and see if the problem persisted. If not, I'd move the half that was "working OK" out and move the other half back in. In every case I remember, eventually it came down to removing one plug-in from the plug-in folder. Most of the time re-installing just that plug-in solved the problem.

Another Bapu thread (new)
with UAD and Waves..

http://forum.cakewalk.com...to-crash-m2899263.aspx

Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk]I'm sorry that you are having trouble, but the fact that your machine is rebooting means some driver is blowing up. There is no other way that this can happen, other than faulty RAM or some other hardware failure.

 
The man speaks the truth. If your system reboots, which most likely means it BSOD'd but is set to auto-reboot on blue screen, then it is not user mode software like Sonar. BSODs can only be caused by kernel mode software (drivers for things like sound cards, dongles, and so on) or hardware itself. Regular software that runs in user mode just cannot bring down the system, it doesn't have access to the areas needed to do that.
 
Any time I see a system do that (computer support is my profession), I set it to not reboot on blue screen to find out what the error is. Depending on the stop code, it can give a hint as to what might actually be broken.

Sycraft

Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk]I'm sorry that you are having trouble, but the fact that your machine is rebooting means some driver is blowing up. There is no other way that this can happen, other than faulty RAM or some other hardware failure.

 
The man speaks the truth. If your system reboots, which most likely means it BSOD'd but is set to auto-reboot on blue screen,

It is set to auto-reboot on a BSD, but it will still BSD before it reboots.
 

then it is not user mode software like Sonar. BSODs can only be caused by kernel mode software (drivers for things like sound cards, dongles, and so on) or hardware itself. Regular software that runs in user mode just cannot bring down the system, it doesn't have access to the areas needed to do that.

Unless the software is written to bypass OS calls, which much commercial software, particularly CPU and I/O intensive software, like audio and video applications, is.  I have no idea how Sonar is written, but it wouldn't surprise me.
 

Any time I see a system do that (computer support is my profession), I set it to not reboot on blue screen to find out what the error is. Depending on the stop code, it can give a hint as to what might actually be broken.

And, if it blue-screened, I'd do that.  It didn't.