I continue to find this utility to be flakey. I have it set to scan for new plugs on start up. I install a plug and it does get scanned, but doesn't show up in the browser unless I exit Sonar and restart.

I've never had an issue with it operating properly. 

Once I scan and it sees the new toy, I turn that scan off completely so I start up faster. 

I have "Scan for VST Plug-ins On Startup" checked in Preferences > File > VST Settings.

The only time I even see it doing anything is when I've added a new plugin.

I think this is intended behaviour - it will only scan if you've actually changed anything in any of the Scan locations.

To the OP: this is unusual and not normal, but I don't think I've ever read about it from anyone else.
Are you using a custom layout or is is set to 'Default All Plugins'?

Yeah John, that is normal for me in X2. If I'm not mistaken, a new plugin manager was given to us in the last update patch. It fixed some things and sort of hindered a few others. Like for example, other than the issue you are reporting, if I use the browser for my plugs where I can drag and drop them, the plugs are either missing from there yet are visible if I right click on my FX bin, or vice versa in that they will be visible in plug browser and not visible if I right click on the FX bin. Uusually a restart of Sonar upon installing new plugs fixes this...but there have been a few times where even that seemed to not work and they "just showed up" eventually.

I've reported this issue and believe either Noel or one of the other bakers mentioned they were aware of it. Now, what HAS worked for me that you may want to try if you haven't....go to your plug scan in Sonar preferences, NOT plug manager. Press "reset all" button, put the check in the box to rescan all plugs and then do a scan. After the scan is done, take the check out of "rescan all plugs" so it doesn't take forever to load. You pretty much need to do this one time if you haven't and you should see an improvement with pluging manager. This should stop the restarting most of the time, but you may have to still restart if a plug doesn't appear.

I use custom plug menu's with my auto scan set to off. The reason being, I like to manually scan the plug so I can add it to my menu. This also stops me from installing several plugs in one shot this way I never miss any and forget what was installed. :) 

-Danny

It's probably not the plugin manager's fault. Much of what happens under the hood is code contained within the individual VSTs themselves. Initialization code written by the plugin developers, not Cakewalk. Sometimes it's not very well-written nor very robust; sometimes it hangs or crashes when everything doesn't go just right. Your flakiness is probably caused by one of your plugins.

ampfixer


I continue to find this utility to be flakey. I have it set to scan for new plugs on start up. I install a plug and it does get scanned, but doesn't show up in the browser unless I exit Sonar and restart.

I've noticed the same thing, but if I just exit the plugin manager and then go back in and load & save my plugin layout file again, then the newly scanned plugins show up.
 
Cheers,
Eddie
 

At least in my set up X2 will scan all the plugs on start-up if set that way in preferences and that does make for quite a long start up sequence. Disabling it knocks the start time down from about  2.5 minutes to about 30 seconds (iirc, I did measure it once just to see). I do notice the issue with plugs not showing up in the browser but being avail by right click in effects bin. That seems to have been a relatively recent "bug" that's developed. Now I am wondering if it is because I haven't been scanning all on start-up??

I have X2 set to scan plugs at start up, and it doesn't seem to delay it at all.  A few seconds at most.
 
I'm sure I remember a post on here from one of the Cake staff saying that the scan should be so fast that it's not worth disabling it.  I t saves having to rescan each time you install a new plugin.
 

+1

I don't even see it scanning when I boot sonar

I just timed start up with scan on startup "on" and "off". With scan "off" X2 starts in about 5 seconds each time. With scan "on" the startup took 102 seconds on the first try and about 80 seconds on the second and third (maybe because plugs had not been scanned in a while?) My system is anemic compared with BJ but similar to jb101 (i7, 6gB, Sonar and OS on same 7200rpm HD) and I don't have a ton of plugs (about 25 - 30) though each has an automap cousin that also has to be scanned.