When I render a file it doesn’t apply the limiter section. Just to make absolutely sure that was the problem, I cranked the limiter until it was super distorted and then rendered the file. The output file was fine because the limiter was not applied.
What limiter are you using? Is it the Steinberg limiter or a 3rd party plugin? Some 3rd party plugins are known not to render properly (especially the VST3 version).
Is the limiter inserted in the montage master effects or the global master section? Also, just to rule this out, you don’t have the limiter inserted in the post-processing section right? This section by design only applies VST plugins to the playback output stream but is not including in file rendering. It’s for things like meters, encoder checker, room EQ compensation etc.
***There are also some settings in the render options that could bypass the global master section when rendering, so that could be something to double check.
I have the same problem when doing noise reduction using WL 8.5.3. The plug in I am using, RX4, is from Izotope. Not sure what is going on. I went back to WL6 and it seems to work fine.
Best of luck in finding a solution.