[randall7]

SOLVED (sort of):
This looks to be an issue with my audio driver. I have been using ASIO4ALL for years, no problems, only now is it causing these issues (and yes I checked for an update to asio4all but there is none). I can use Direct Sound instead of asio4all and everything works great, except that the latency is huge (185ms) and if I lower the samples to e.g. 256 then Reaper froze up. But at least I feel like I am discovering the gremlin problem that is causing this-- must be related to some recent Windows 10 updates that affected asio4all, or maybe Reaper updates idk.
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I have a serious issue with Reaper now in my permanent install v5.x (5.984, 5.99), none of my VST3i plugins from spitfireaudio work-- by that I mean they crackle and pop horribly so they are unusable, and everything worked great just days ago. When I try portable installs of Reaper, there are no issues.

What is the permanent install doing to mess this up, cause this issue?