My wordpress install persistently notifies me about a needed plugin update but the plugin is not specified. My suspicion is that the cause is a plugin that was bundled with Salient because all the plugins I have installed are up to date. Do any of the bundled plugins need updating? How about Visual Composer, does it need to be updated?

I'm having the exact same issue. I'm running version 5.0, install is just about fresh. Everything is up to date, yet gives me the same persistent update notification without anything actually available to update.

The latest theme update did get rid of the persistent needed plugin notification. now WooCommerce is prompting me to run an updater, "WooCommerce Data Update Required – We just need to update your install to the latest version"

Ah man, it's back. check out the screen grab. see how there's a needed update notification.