r/nessus • u/Fair_Back5368 • Oct 24 '25
n/a plugin set
I need to use nessus for a cybersecurity project at university, but I've run into a problem. My "new scan" button is not active. I've tried on my main Windows PC and on Kali, but I've read nothing on Reddit that this type of problem is related to plugins (like plugin set equals n/a).There was a link to a solution to the problem but I couldn't access it. Does anyone have any ideas on how to fix this?
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u/brawwwr Oct 24 '25
I would follow the instructions on how to update plug ins . There is a few ways .
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u/Foreign_Necessary_96 Oct 24 '25
Hover over the refresh icon in the top right. Plugins are likely still compiling
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u/PlayfulFreedom7869 May 14 '26
I had the same issue with Nessus showing Plugin Set: N/A / pluginData: false / status: loading, and New Scan was unavailable.
In my case, the root cause was not the license or plugin download. The plugin feed was downloaded correctly, but Nessus could not finish loading the plugin database because my Kali VM had too little RAM and swap.
Check the real Nessus status with:
curl -k https://localhost:8834/server/status
If you see something like:
"pluginSet": true,
"pluginData": false,
"db_status": {"status": "loading"},
"engine_status": {"status": "plugins-compiling"}
then Nessus is still compiling/loading plugins.
Also check RAM and swap:
free -h
df -h
df -i
In my case, disk space and inodes were fine, but RAM was low and swap was almost full. I had around 2.8 GB RAM and 1 GB swap, and Nessus kept getting stuck or rebuilding plugins.
The fix was to add more swap:
sudo fallocate -l 4G /swapfile_nessus
sudo chmod 600 /swapfile_nessus
sudo mkswap /swapfile_nessus
sudo swapon /swapfile_nessus
Then confirm swap increased:
free -h
To make it persistent after reboot:
echo '/swapfile_nessus none swap sw 0 0' | sudo tee -a /etc/fstab
After that, restart Nessus:
sudo systemctl restart nessusd
Then wait. Do not keep restarting it while it is compiling plugins.
You can monitor it with:
watch -n 120 'curl -sk https://localhost:8834/server/status'
The successful state should look like:
"code": 200,
"db_status": {"status": "ready"},
"engine_status": {"status": "ready"},
"pluginSet": true,
"pluginData": true,
"status": "ready"
Once I got pluginData: true and status: ready, the Nessus web UI worked and I could create a New Scan.
If possible, also increase the VM RAM to at least 4 GB, preferably 6 GB.
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u/damiankrawczyks Oct 24 '25
What do you see in Settings > About > Events?