LF crashes when opening and closes pdf files.

[harishnkr]

Using Arch linux
LF Version: 40
Using Hyprland, foot terminal with tmux.
file previewer is ctpv
Using zathura for pdf

After opening a pdf through and closing it, LF crashes as shown in the image below.

[CatsDeservePets]

Hello @harishnkr!
Could you please share your previewer script and perhaps also -log output?

[harishnkr]

I use CTPV for the previewer and the config has only one line: "set chafasixel".

The output of -log is as follows:

2026/01/27 23:05:46 *************** starting client, PID: 160027 ***************
2026/01/27 23:05:46 reading file: /home/harishnkr/.config/lf/icons
2026/01/27 23:05:46 loading clipboard: []
2026/01/27 23:05:46 reading file: /home/harishnkr/.config/lf/lfrc
2026/01/27 23:05:46 pushing keys m-
2026/01/27 23:05:46 shell-async: &{{ ctpv -s $id }} -- []
2026/01/27 23:05:46 shell-async: &{{ ctpvquit $id }} -- []
2026/01/27 23:05:46 loading clipboard: []
2026/01/27 23:05:46 recv: sync
2026/01/27 23:05:46 loading clipboard: []
2026/01/27 23:05:51 shell: ${{ test -L $f && f=$(readlink -f $f) ... }} -- []
2026/01/27 23:05:53 shell: ${{ test -L $f && f=$(readlink -f $f) ... }} -- []

I have to close that process after returning from closing the pdf as shown in the above screenshot.

[joelim-work]

Possibly related to #2304? ctpv hasn't been updated in years (appears to be abandoned) and I'm not sure if anyone has got it working with the latest version of lf or not.

Also I"m not sure if lf is actually crashing, or if it is just becoming unresponsive and you have to kill it manually. If it is the former, then providing a stack trace would be helpful too.

[harishnkr]

Thanks @joelim-work. Would you mind suggesting some previewers at work well? It would be good if it works in both X and hyprland.

[joelim-work]

There is a wiki page for image previews, where various users from the community have documented their setups. If you need something that works in both X and Wayland then I recommend Sixel (use chafa to convert images to Sixel). For PDFs you can use pdftoppm to convert the file to an image first.

[CatsDeservePets]

I added a note to the wiki that the usage of ctpv and stpv is no longer recommended due to them being unmaintained and using lf's api in an unendorsed way which reportedly causes problems.

@harishnkr You did not reply to @joelim-work's question whether lf hangs or crashes. As he already said, if it crashes, providing us with with the stack trace would be rather useful.

Otherwise, there isn't much we can do at this point besides closing this issue.

[harishnkr]

I'm so sorry @CatsDeservePets for not responding, lf basically hangs, and not crashes. I have manually kill the process. If I use tmux, I kill the pane. Apparently if I use ctpv (since I didn't find any other previewer) for pdf previews, open with zathura by pressing the right arrow key, it doesn't hang if I close the zathura window using hyprland. But it hangs if I quit zathura. I'm trying to find the issue but I'm limited in terms of time I can spend testing. I can't figure out how to log the stack trace, and I'm so sorry for not finding out how. But this is as much as I can tell as of now based on my observation.

Honestly I don't particularly know if it's a crash or if its hanging, but when I close zathura, it shows the pdf preview as shown in the image I uploaded. Doesn't go back to the terminal. Just the preview on the right without all the panes showing the directories.

[CatsDeservePets]

Hey @harishnkr!
No problem at all! :)

It is hard to tell what actually happens because of the amount of tools calling other tools. As long as you don't see error messages inside your terminal and outside your tools, there is no stack trace to redirect.