Calf Limiter LADSPA gives silence

[Snarf]

I have the Calf Limiter LADSPA effect with default settings in the master effects channel. It works fine for a while, then for some reason it makes the whole song silent. This problem has happened to me in several projects now, and its quite annoying because I basically can't use the limiter anymore.

EDIT: Ok, I "fixed" it. I just increased the lookahead, then it randomly started working. Even when I reset it to default it worked, so now I'm just wondering why it caused a problem in the first place.

[musikbear]

its cause is that it is not silent :p
If you take a look at the visualization, just as it occur, my guess is that you briefly will see a almost horizontal red line going down and disappearing, and then: No sound
In fact theres loads of sounds, but not audiable for humans (sub-sonic). It is however quite volatile, and can damage your hearing ao rip your speakers membrane if you have high loudness ao serious resonance, too. After a while the subsonic-wave will terminate, and the red line will then crawl up, and you will again hear a sound-wave. But Be careful.

[Snarf]

Whoa, that's creepy.

Also another annoying thing is that I have to fix it every time I load the project.

[musikbear]

i take

Whoa, that's creepy.

- as a confirmation that you have seen that horizontal red sinking line (?)
If so, you will 'fix' the issue with a fast-look-ahead-limiter, but that is kind of like throwing a blanket over a hole in the ground :)
The real culpit should be found, and a good guess, it that you have a rather high resonance and perhaps also some clipping frequencies?
Use an EQ, and try to get rid of the clippings, if that stil does not do it, then a limiter is perhaps last resort ..

[Snarf]

No red line has been seen. I don't know about resonance, but I do know that I would be getting some clipping without the limiter. Should I just turn down the master volume and get rid of the limiter?

[musikbear]

if you havent that horizontal sinking line, then its not what i thought
Then im pretty stumpd in respect to the reason.. :|

Should I just turn down the master volume and get rid of the limiter?

What value do you have on Master now?
Normally a value of 75-85% is a good start, because it gives space ('headroom') for the instruments, and perhaps advanced post-mixing (which is in a complete different league, than us happy noise amateurs dabbles in :)

Generally speaking, you should not 'fix' clipping with global gain (master-vol)
Instead you should pinpoint where are the problem frequencies ?
Gps is struggling with the same at least kind of..
That thread
http://lmms.io/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=3235
So you should also inspect the frequencies with an analyzer, and find the actual reason, then you should use EQ, and fix it.
Sometimes it is hard, and nothing really seem to do it, then compression, which kind of 'normalizes' the various input to a balanced result, could be worth an attempt. That is a very often used method, to get all percussion to an overall balance