Helm hangs in REAPER, works in Carla standalone

[Abnaxos]

I have a strange problem: Helm hangs when trying to open the GUI in REAPER. I also tried wrapping Helm in a Carla rack: first, everything seems fine, until I try to open the GUI. Then, again, REAPER hangs. No excessive CPU usage, just doing nothing and no interaction possible → killall reaper. This happens with both the VST and LV2 versions (LV2 only in Carla, of course).

Helm works just fine when I start Carla standalone. That's how I'm currently using it (assign MIDI output in REAPER track, wire that to Helm/Carla, wire the audio output back to another REAPER track) – but that's more a workaround.

There seems to be some dissonance between REAPER and Helm. Any ideas how to fix this?

[JamesPeters]

Standalone and Linux VST (in Reaper) both work fine on my system (info in signature). Installed just now from Kxstudio repo for the sake of testing.

[Tobbe]

Did the same as JamesPeters. No problem at all loading it standalone or in Reaper and just testing some of hundreds presets.

You can test start Reaper via terminal and then load up Helm to see if you get some error messages.

[Peevy]

I've been using it in a few projects & it's running fine.

Originally Posted by Tobbe

You can test start Reaper via terminal and then load up Helm to see if you get some error messages.

Good call this should help to see what might be causing it.

[Abnaxos]

So, it seems to be something with my setup. One thing that may be important: I'm using i3 window manager, no desktop environment (well, some components of XFCE4).

No suspicious messages in the output of REAPER.

Via Carla/LV2 (note that I can hear the sound from Helm until I try to open the GUI):

Error opening file /home/rherzog/.lv2/x42-midifilter/manifest.ttl (No such file or directory)
lilv_world_add_plugin(): warning: Duplicate plugin <urn:juced:DrumSynth>
lilv_world_add_plugin(): warning: ... found in file:///home/rherzog/.lv2/drumsynth.lv2/
lilv_world_add_plugin(): warning: ... and      file:///home/rherzog/DAW/plugins/lv2/drumsynth.lv2/ (ignored)
Error opening file /home/rherzog/DAW/plugins/lv2/x42-midifilter/manifest.ttl (No such file or directory)
lilv_world_add_plugin(): warning: Duplicate plugin <urn:juced:EQinox>
lilv_world_add_plugin(): warning: ... found in file:///home/rherzog/.lv2/eqinox.lv2/
lilv_world_add_plugin(): warning: ... and      file:///home/rherzog/DAW/plugins/lv2/eqinox.lv2/ (ignored)
lilv_world_add_plugin(): warning: Duplicate plugin <http://tytel.org/helm>
lilv_world_add_plugin(): warning: ... found in file:///home/rherzog/.lv2/helm.lv2/
lilv_world_add_plugin(): warning: ... and      file:///home/rherzog/DAW/plugins/lv2/helm.lv2/ (ignored)
Error opening file /home/rherzog/DAW/plugins/lv2/x42-midifilter/manifest.ttl (No such file or directory)
LRDF Support disabled for static build (LADSPA-RDF will be disabled)
Carla 1.9.13 (2.0-RC3) started, status:
  Python version: 3.2.3
  Qt version:     4.8.7
  PyQt version:   4.9.1
  Binary dir:     /home/rherzog/DAW/plugins/vst/carla.vst
  Resources dir:  /home/rherzog/DAW/plugins/vst/carla.vst/resources
Error opening file /home/rherzog/DAW/plugins/lv2/x42-midifilter/manifest.ttl (Datei oder Verzeichnis nicht gefunden)

The same with the VST directly, just without Carla's messages.

[Peevy]

Originally Posted by Abnaxos

So, it seems to be something with my setup. One thing that may be important: I'm using i3 window manager, no desktop environment (well, some components of XFCE4).

No suspicious messages in the output of REAPER.

Via Carla/LV2 (note that I can hear the sound from Helm until I try to open the GUI):

I'm using i3-gaps myself without a problem, also works well in XFCE4 (different story with Qtile, Reaper didn't run well in it at all)


Are you using a compositor? I'm using compton & all's good

[Abnaxos]

Sorry for the late reply …

Yes, I'm also using compton as compositor. Tried turning it off, too, to no avail.

[Peevy]

My only other suggestion might be to try another distro, a lot of people seem to have everything running smoothly on Ubuntu & Mint. I'm running Ubuntu 18.04 on my laptop & Manjaro on the desktop without a problem.


Your system should definitely be more than capable. Are you using intel graphics or a GPU? I had problems running Zyn Fusion & Dragonfly reverb plugins on my old desktop that had an ancient Q6600 CPU & a very old no longer supported nvidia 7600LE. So my PC was stuck at openGL2 but OPenGL3 is needed for these plugins to run properly (at least graphically)