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IDProjectCategoryView StatusLast Update
0010289ardourbugspublic2026-04-18 18:29
Reporterboyfriend Assigned To 
PriorityhighSeveritymajorReproducibilityalways
Status newResolutionopen 
PlatformMicrosoftOSWindowsOS Version10
Product Version9.2 
Summary0010289: Ardour 9.2 hangs for 5+ minutes when inserting some VST3 plugins if Windows Regional format is Chinese (Simplified, China)
DescriptionI can reproduce a long UI hang in the official Ardour 9.2 release on Windows when inserting some VST3 plugins.

After selecting a plugin in the Plugin Selector and clicking **Insert Plugin(s)**, Ardour becomes blocked/unresponsive for more than 5 minutes, and then the plugin is eventually inserted. This is not a crash and not a plugin-scan issue.

In my testing, Ardour 8.12 on the same machine does not show the same behavior.

The key trigger I found is the **Windows Regional format** setting. In Ardour 9.2, insertion works normally when Windows Regional format is set to **English (United States)**, but hangs for 5+ minutes when Windows Regional format is set to **Chinese (Simplified, China)**. The setting I mean is:

**Windows Settings -> Time & Language -> Region -> Regional format**

This is the **regional format** setting, not the Windows display language.

Additional test result from my side: if I launch Ardour 9.2 in the Chinese regional-format environment but manually set the following environment variables before startup, the long insertion delay disappears:

- `LC_ALL=C`
- `LANG=C`
- `LC_MESSAGES=C`

So this looks locale/region related.

A possible regression candidate may be `gtk2_ardour/main.cc`. In Ardour 8.12, the startup code in this area set `LC_ALL`, `LC_MESSAGES`, and `LANG` to `"C"`, while in Ardour 9.2 it only sets `LC_MESSAGES` to `"C"` and explicitly keeps the system locale in place. I am not claiming this is the confirmed root cause, but it seems like a useful place to investigate given the workaround above.
Steps To Reproduce1. Install or run the official Ardour 9.2 demo release on Windows.
2. Set Windows Regional format to **Chinese (Simplified, China)**.
3. Launch Ardour 9.2.
4. Open any session.
5. Open a plugin insert menu.
6. In Plugin Selector, choose an affected VST3 plugin.
7. Click **Insert Plugin(s)**.
8. Observe that Ardour becomes blocked/unresponsive for more than 5 minutes, then the plugin is eventually inserted.
9. Change Windows Regional format to **English (United States)** and repeat the same test.
10. Observe that insertion works normally in Ardour 9.2.
11. Repeat the comparison in Ardour 8.12 on the same machine.
12. Observe that Ardour 8.12 works normally with both Regional format settings.
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x42

2026-04-18 18:29

administrator   ~0030275

Wow, nice find and good detective work!

Forcing locale to "C" when disabling translations caused various other bugs notably crashes when loading files in a non ASCII path (due to g_convert_error exceptions).
I am curious what happens during those 5 minutes that can be caused by locale..

Issue History

Date Modified Username Field Change
2026-04-18 17:44 boyfriend New Issue
2026-04-18 18:29 x42 Note Added: 0030275