Decades after the beginning of its FU Orionis-type outburst , V346 Nor unexpectedly underwent a fading event of \Delta { } K = 4.6 mag around 2010 .
We obtained near-infrared observations and re-analysed data from the VISTA/VVV survey to outline the brightness evolution .
In our VLT/NaCO images , we discovered a halo of scattered light around V346 Nor with a size of about 0 \aas@@fstack { \prime \prime } 04 ( 30 au ) .
The VISTA data outlined a well-defined minimum in the light curve at late 2010/early 2011 , and tentatively revealed a small-amplitude periodic modulation of 58 days .
Our latest data points from 2016 demonstrate that the source is still brightening but has not reached the 2008 level yet .
We used a simple accretion disk model with varying accretion rate and line-of-sight extinction to reproduce the observed near-infrared magnitudes and colors .
We found that before 2008 , the flux changes of V346 Nor were caused by a correlated change of extinction and accretion rate , while the minimum around 2010 was mostly due to decreasing accretion .
The source reached a maximal accretion rate of { \approx } 10 ^ { -4 } M _ { \odot } yr ^ { -1 } in 1992 .
A combination of accretion and extinction changes was already invoked in the literature to interpret the flux variations of certain embedded young eruptive stars .