Plugins disappearing in Live when application loses focus

Audio Plugins
1

I’m having a rather strange problem, and searching the forums makes it looks like it’s somewhat unique to me (uh oh). Using juce 1.52.11, and compiling the demo plugin, if I open it (as a component) in Ableton Live 7.0.18 on my mac running 10.6.6, everything works OK - but if I switch to another application and back to Live, the plugin’s window disappears. To get it back, I can hit Live’s “show plugin window” button twice (once to “hide”, because it remains on “show”, then again to “show” it again). This is accompanied by the message in console:

Mon Feb 21 21:54:25 X.local Live[74659] : kCGErrorIllegalArgument: _CGSFindSharedWindow: WID 163644
Mon Feb 21 21:54:25 X.local Live[74659] : kCGErrorIllegalArgument: CGSSetWindowProperty: Invalid window 0x27f3c
Mon Feb 21 21:54:25 X.local Live[74659] : kCGErrorIllegalArgument: CGSRemoveWindowFromWindowOrderingGroup: error setting window property
Mon Feb 21 21:54:26 X.local Live[74659] : kCGErrorIllegalArgument: _CGSFindSharedWindow: WID 163644
Mon Feb 21 21:54:26 X.local Live[74659] : kCGErrorIllegalArgument: CGSRemoveWindowFromWindowMovementGroup: Invalid window

This also happens with plugins I’ve written. It does NOT happen with the VSTs - only the audio units. It doesn’t happen in AU Lab. Any tips? It’s not a show stopper but it is rather annoying to have the windows disappearing all the time.

-Colin

2

The difference between AU lab and Live is probably that AU lab is using the plugin’s cocoa UI and Live is using the old carbon wrapper, (which is all a bit of a bodge involving carbon windows floating in front of host windows, etc, and prone to problems like this).

3

Interesting. Is there any way you know of to avoid the behavior? Other than bugging Ableton to update?

-Colin