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Old 02-01-2016, 01:48 PM   #1
Nystagmus
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Default Reaper creating a .LNK file to my project template (FIXED)

Hello,
So this is a minor bug I think. But what happens is that whenever I run Reaper it creates a .LNK (Windows shortcut file) of my project template. I manually delete the .LNK file, but it appears again when I run Reaper. It seems to show up in whatever directory I was last browsing to in the Windows Explorer dialog box.

For example, if I use Image-Line Toxic Biohazard and save a preset to a new directory, when I quit Reaper there's a .LNK file to my project template in there.

If I browse to a different directory from within Reaper under other circumstances, it creates a .LNK file in whatever that location is instead.

The .LNK file has the same name as my actual project template, which is stored in the normal project templates folder of the Reaper application folder. And in my Reaper preferences, I have that template set to be used for default projects every time. If I create a different template to use, then it's name is used instead for the .LNK shortcuts.

This seems to be a new behavior from v5.x of Reaper. No other program does this.

I took a peek in Reaper.ini and it looks like it's storing a relative path to the project template instead of an absolute path... maybe that is related to the problem.

I just don't want my directories accumulating shortcuts. I don't even normally use shortcuts.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Last edited by Nystagmus; 06-20-2016 at 10:53 AM. Reason: bug got fixed by June 20th 2016
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Old 02-03-2016, 03:10 PM   #2
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Default Reaper erroneously making shortcuts all over the place

I did some more checking, and inside of the reaper.ini file, there's a term:

lastcwd=

That's the path where the .LNK shortcut always gets created no matter what it says or if I edit it. It get's changed automatically during the course of using Reaper anytime I have to save a file of any time.

The .LNK shortcuts just start piling up in that path.

The .LNK shortcuts are always to the project template file, but sometimes they are shortcuts to other projects that I use.

No other program is creating them.
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Old 02-12-2016, 01:26 PM   #3
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I downloaded v5.15. I tested it. So far it hasn't been fixed. Any kind of reply would be appreciated.

Also, I don't think this is a filesystem or OS problem because it doesn't happen with any other programs which do a lot more open and save dialog boxes.

Just to be sure, I deleted the full install (including all registry entries) and replaced it with a portable install and it's still making .LNK files every time it opens a project or template. I don't want them litering my project directories, so I found a temporary workaround by pointing lastcwd= to a temporary file directory which gets erased every boot. Also, I stopped opening Toxic Biohazard's SAVE menu at all in Reaper since that guarantees that a .LNK gets created wherever that SAVE menu points.

Last edited by Nystagmus; 02-15-2016 at 03:04 PM.
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Old 02-22-2016, 03:21 PM   #4
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Default BUG STILL HERE

OK, so I'm still studying this problem, and it seems as if possibly the creation of the project file .LNK's is happening right during Reaper quitting. It happens to both project templates, and regular projects, and the .LNK files always end up in the directory pointed to by "lastcwd" within the reaper.ini ...I hope this is enough information for somebody to troubleshoot this. I get tired of having to manually delete tons of shortcuts.
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Old 02-22-2016, 04:27 PM   #5
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Never saw such thing here. Maybe it's a plugin that is doing this?
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Old 02-23-2016, 04:48 AM   #6
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Are you running Reaper in Wine/Ubuntu?
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Old 02-23-2016, 03:38 PM   #7
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Nope, I'm pretty sure it's not a plugin. But I will double-check again tonight when I get home. I'm pretty sure it happened when I was just using audio files. However if it turns out I'm wrong, my guess would be Toxic Biohazard might be the culprit since I had some wierd file activity with that in the past. (Toxic Biohazard presets started getting automatically deleted every time I browsed the presets folder). But I don't want to get sidetracked on that--That behavior doesn't happen any more, and that was on Windows 7.

Yes, I'm in Ubuntu Studio v14.04.3 LTS with all the updates through to January 2, 2016. Also, I'm using Wine v1.9.3 if I remember correctly. I don't use Wine prefixes.

This problem didn't happen until recent weeks/month. It doesn't happen with any other Windows nor Linux programs--just with recent versions of REAPER. The last time I can remember not having the problem was back at REAPER version 4.78.

I'm not having any other types of filesystem errors at all. Not that it really matters probably, but I am using ext3.

I tried to see if reinstalling Reaper freshly would help but that didn't do anything. I tried both the portable and non-portable modes.

Anyways thanks for the replies. I might try and create a portable version of REAPER v4.78 to test and see for sure if that version does not create the shortcuts. I hope that's not the case because I'd rather not lose all those REAPER bugfixes since then.
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Old 02-23-2016, 03:56 PM   #8
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Quote:
I don't use Wine prefixes
I thought of this as a part of your problems. You should present your case in the wine forums.
Greetings from Hamburg
Vinod
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Old 02-23-2016, 06:15 PM   #9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by VinodXAgent View Post
I thought of this as a part of your problems. You should present your case in the wine forums.
Greetings from Hamburg
Vinod
Wineprefixes are not necessary at all for running Reaper or any other program on my system. I have dozens of Windows programs running OK, and I never used the prefix system. I just have one .wine folder and that's just fine. I don't need wineprefix putting every single windows program install into it's own wine folder.

I mostly use portable non-installer type of programs so wine getting corrupted by an install isn't likely. Also, I regulary check my folders and the registry for oddities and there's no problems there.

Honestly, this isn't a wine problem or I'd have this problem with my other Windows programs. It's a REAPER bug unless somebody can prove otherwise.

But I will probably submit it to winehq just to be safe.
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Old 02-26-2016, 03:53 PM   #10
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UPDATE:

OK, so I upgraded Wine (and Mono) to the most recent version.
I also upgraded Reaper to the most recent version.
I also tried portable v4.78 of REAPER.

The issue happens in v4.78 as well as the current v5.x.x
So I was probably wrong about thinking that it didn't happen in v4.78.

I also figured out with a blank project that the .LNK shortcuts are created without any dependence upon any VST instruments or effects.

It's something about how Reaper opens and/or closes the .RPP files for writing. In the process, it always creates these .LNK shortcuts with similar names as the .RPP files.

And every time, the .LNK files can be found wherever "lastcwd=" points to within the reaper.ini ...

That's all I can figure out for now. Nothing else I have tried works to fix it. For now, I manually edited "lastcwd=" to point to "Z:\tmp" so that I don't have to manually delete the .LNK shortcuts over and over again. This approach only seems to work some of the time, as the path gets updated to wherever Reaper has been browsing lately.

I check for the .LNK shortcuts by running a system-wide search for ".LNK".
It shows all the .LNK shortcuts on my entire system. Normally, I only have 16 of them which were installed by one other program and I don't ever use them; Wine/Linux doesn't really use those anyway even though Windows installers create them if allowed too. The can still trigger stuff so I pretty much leave them alone.
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Old 02-28-2016, 04:07 AM   #11
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Yeah, happens here too on my Linux box, but they get placed in some of the 'user' directories. I don't know which, because I made them all symbolic links to some other place, so they just end up there. I'm honestly not sure if it's a wine bug or just a peculiar API that wine works around with the shortcuts or whatever.
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Old 02-29-2016, 05:53 PM   #12
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kenz View Post
Yeah, happens here too on my Linux box, but they get placed in some of the 'user' directories. I don't know which, because I made them all symbolic links to some other place, so they just end up there. I'm honestly not sure if it's a wine bug or just a peculiar API that wine works around with the shortcuts or whatever.
Hey, thanks for the response. That's interesting.
Just out of curiousity, which versions of Wine and Reaper and Linux are you using?

If you check your reaper.ini for "lastcwd=" you'll probably find out where they are currently going. I think it stands for "last current working directory".

Eventually I suppose I will report this to WineHQ, but I have the strong intuition that it's a Reaper problem and not a Wine problem. I just wish I could figure out when it started happening so I could pinpoint the source of the problem.

I also wish a REAPER developer would give me some kind of response, any kind of response.
But they will be busy for years now with their new notation junk.
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Old 06-20-2016, 10:56 AM   #13
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Default thanks it got solved/fixed/ no more bug

OK, I continued to upgrade Reaper, and I also upgraded my Linux DAW to Ubuntu Studio v16.04 LTS. Also, I upgrade WINE (used to run Microsoft Windows programs) to a more recent version.

The problem of the auto-created .LNK (shortcut) files seems to be fixed; I can't find them anywhere recently.

I have the feeling that this was fixed on the Reaper end of things. Thanks Reaper developers.

{/thread}
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