try,
Shut down rack, if it’s running.
make a copy of “C:\Users\Vašek\Documents\Rack2” to "C:"
add a user environment variable to point to the new user dir.
Win+X → Settings → Advanced System Settings → Environment Variables
under “User variables for user …” → “New”
Start rack
If it works, you can delete C:\Users\Vašek\Documents\Rack2
Yes it could. There have been many many examples of usernames with unicode causing troubles for Rack or plugins and I’m not sure it’s been entirely weeded out yet.
This helped me a lot. I have had a same problem and it was caused by OneDrive issue in my case. Robert led me to your article. Thank you very much.
yes. everything on windows fails to deal with paths that have non-ascii characters in them. I used to test all my module for this, with a folder name I made just for this purpose. Also, that bug is so common I’m surprised you haven’t had problems with other software. Even though this “should work” it’s still asking for trouble to name your main windows account with a non-ascii character in it.
It is, nevertheless, still a bug in the plugin that should be reported to the plugin author. Please open an issue on their github.
Rack itself, I think doesn’t have the issue. If a plugin author finds that it’s a bug in Rack (or rack dependency), then the plugin author can port the bug over to Rack.
It’s unconscionable for developers to tell users they have to spell their names with ASCII in 2023. If a plugin author needs help figuring to how to properly use Unicode, they can ping me and I’m happy to help.
of course it’s a bug in the plugin! I did literally say “it’s a bug”, but yes, not clear where the bug is. What I meant to say is “in my plugins that do path manipulations, I too have had these bugs until I fixed them. I have never, ever, seen that Rack itself has any bugs like this.”
We’re in violent agreement, as they say ;-).
The point I’m making is that these issues should be reported, even if there is a workaround. Most open source plugins are on github, just click the Source Code link from the module right click menu, and open an issue.
Bugs that are not reported generally don’t get fixed, to the detriment of everyone using the product. Reporting bugs is one of the easiest and best ways to improve the software we use.
[Now I have to do this myself – I have a nasty issue with MIDI in Rack, probably in Rack or rtmidi, but still running down whether it’s my code or not).
I agree! But the world is full of crappy software. Rack has a lot of external dependencies and if any of them are not unicode solid then there it goes. Not unfixable of course but it takes a lot of time to debug and weed out in codebases Andrew are not in control of. Can be done in forks etc. sure, but not simple. If enterprising developers in this community would take upon them to thoroughly unicode test Rack and all it’s dependencies and produce patches they would be doing us all a solid.
And yes, then there are the potential unicode bugs in the plugins themselves, which might be the bigger issue.
Outch! Well, I have never released software in the last 30 years that did this, but I have for sure advised people they are playing with fire spelling their names correctly. So I will now consider this advice “unconscionable”.
I wonder if it violates the community rules to give unconscionable advice? I know I have been banished before for violating the rules - maybe “they” will finally catch me?
ha! that’s funny. I don’t mind you recommending to people how to survive this. You fixed the issues in your stuff.
I’ve just seen far too many developers (including inside in a giant software mega corp) that just don’t care, or just throw up their hands when it’s in a dependency. It always bothered me working in a certain corporate environment where anything with a workaround would get deprioritized in the heat of schedule pressure, only to come back and bite big once it got into user’s hands. So much focus on the shiny new thing as the way to advance in the organization.
Amen brother, I hear you. I think a lot of us in the IT biz have a similar experience and it’s always been my least favorite aspect of the job. I’ve tried to resist throughout my career and sometimes it makes you quite unpopular. “We’re not here to make quality, we’re here to ship products”. Sigh…
