Live 10, help please

The Studio
1

Hi all,

1st of all, English is not my mother tongue so i’ll try to be as understandable as i can, so, sorry if my writing is doing your head’in :smiley:
But i definitely need help on this one guys, so thanks for taking some time to read me, i appreciate.
Ok, so …

I’ve been using Live for years & i’ve never had some issues like i do have today.
Live crashes all the time no matter what i do.
It sometimes crashes in use, in a middle of a session, but mostly when i save a project or quit a session.
I’ve tried every possible solution.

1 : I’ve reinstalled my O.S (mac high sierra 10.13.6) & Live as well (10.1.1)
2 : i’ve reset live + i’ve deleted every Live preference file.
3 : All my plugin are up to date.
4 : I only use VST (both VST 2 & 3) versions of my plugins.
5 : My WAVE waveshell is up to date as well & i don’t use the few incompatible waves plugins neither.
6 : My audio drivers (RME) are up to date.
7 : My thunderbolt chassis firmware is updated as well. (akitio thunder quad3)
8 : My universal audio UAD2 Satellite is up to date also & i don’t use the LiveTrack function of these plugins.
9 : I set my buffer size to 512 samples, which is pretty decent i guess …
10 : I have saved the lightest session possible as my template to avoid a huge load on start.
11 : My Cache & Temporary folders are set to an external SSD Drive, different from Library folder, which is set to an other external SSD. (both drives in an external thunderbolt chassis with a dedicated Thunderbolt port on my iMac)
12 : my external SSD’s have no RAID settings, just regular external drives. (read & write 550Mo speed)

So, for me, everything is set properly.

001
0011920×1080 650 KB
002
0021920×1080 643 KB

So, the only possible issue might come from :

1 : I have dozen of heavy loaded ALS files in my “User Library”. Either as Drum or & Instruments folder.
2 : My “Places” folders contains folders which share the same path as my Libraries. So maybe it is a redundant path that Live can’t access quickly enough & then freezes or & quit unexpectedly ? Even though i use 2 external Samsung eve 850 1Tb SSD drives ?

Or, an other reason, is maybe because i have not updated my mac os to a more recent one like Mojave for instance.
My plugins are all updated (september 2019) but work on an O.S too old maybe ?
I haven’t updated my mac O.S because protools 2018.12 runs only on High Sierra but not on Mojave, only compatible with Protools 2019 & i have enough with the upgrade price policy of Avid which is just a true rip-off.
So, isn’t Live 10.1 compatible with High Sierra ? Or is it from my lastly updated plugins which are not compatible with my mac o.s ?

So guys, any help is much appreciated. Today i feel so frustrated because Live is the DAW i use the most.
Thanks for your time.
Cheers,
Andre.

2

I don’t use Macs or Live, so I can’t really help you with specifics. But in general, when tackling things like that, you need to somehow eliminate possible causes to zero in on the problem. Or to start with the simplest set up and then start adding things one by one. So I would do that. Remove your VST and Library paths, so that you are only starting with stock Live and see what happens. If it works fine, then the issue is either with one of the plugins or your User Library/Places drives. Then start adding things one by one. And If you are still seeing the same issue when starting from a clean slate, then at least you’ve eliminated a couple possible causes and can focus somewhere else.

3

yeah, you’re right, starting with a fresh blank data base might help. The problem is that i have a freaking amount of vst’s so, imagine the time it will take to find the 1 that fucks my system … it’s true that with the stock plugins, live works like a charm, but i only use paid plugins, all updated … well, i guess you are right, i’ll have to start from scratch. But these days it’s nearly impossible to keep a system clean with those monthly updates.

4

Hi Andre,

I experienced similar issues a couple of weeks ago. I sent the crash log to customer service and they said it was because of some plug-ins I use. I got in touch with the developers of said plug-in and they told me to reboot and turn off my computer more often.

I don’t know if this is what is causing your stress too but definitely get in touch with Ableton support, they are good.

5

i do it every day, i live in the mountain, lots of storms, no choice than turning it off every day almost.
i’ve contacted Live many times, they are very helpful indeed but this time … no answer.
i’ll keep searching … thanks anyway.
cheers.

6

In my experience Live usually detects VST errors on boot, which is why Live (for me) takes like 5 years to boot up. My guess is that it’s something else, but again it’s not always easy to find what it is.

7

Hi Fred, actually, on my side, Live boot up in like, 3 scds, my template has nothing in, 1 audio, 1 midi track, no 3rd party plugin in on boot, all my plugins are up to date, no cracked ones, no 32 bit, i don’t know, that just does my headin these days, i have tried everything. Do you think it might come from my mac o.s high sierra, old dated now for live 10.1 ? Anyway, thanks for sharing your experience to help me out, i appreciate.

8

Since Live has been updated to 10.1.3 are you still having this issue?

Maybe try uninstalling/reinstalling live, If that doesn’t help I would suggest going into the help menu and submit a bug report.

9

No Mac here, but I had some issues with Live crashing before on PC. I think it was mostly due to plugins. Latest issue was with a new beta version of a plugin that somehow didn’t like Live to save projects and always gave me error messages (mostly kept working though). So my guess is plugin issues (maybe think about plugins you think of as stable and use all the time that MIGHT cause problems) or Mac issues. (Maybe think about switching to a different OS, some of my fav developers have been starting to openly criticize Apple for their treatment of small developers: https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=533445)

10

So first and foremost, i know you said you’ve done this but it helps to start from the floor up…yay computers.

Mac(instead of deleting you can move them out of folder)
Close Live.
Open this hidden folder (where x.x.x is the installed version of Live, eg. 10.1.1):
Users/[username]/Library/Preferences/Ableton/Live x.x.x/
Note: Here’s how to access hidden folders on Mac.
Delete Preferences.cfg, Undo folder (in Live 9 this is Undo.cfg) and Template.als (if present).
Launch Live.

There’s a few ways you can try to troubleshoot if it is anything on your end. Go to a known project that fails to save. Bounce all of your stuff to wave files. Try to save it. If it fails still, delete return channels. If it still fails, delete anything on master chain. See if it fails.

If everything is bounced to audio and nothing is left and it still fails, it may very well be your OS is junking or maybe a HDD issue? No idea.

If any of those steps resolve it, you’ve at least narrowed it down. Go back to before you did that step(save versions) and pin point “x”.

Additionally you may just do these steps with a new project and save in stages. Like drop in some audio, save. Drop in some VSTs, save, add some returns, work with only Ableton stuff, etc.

I seem to recall live 8 doing this to me once. No matter what, it crashed. It took some sifting but I was able to find the problem. Taking live back to stock/default resolved it. I’m not sure if the project was ever cured, itself as it was an Ableton issue and not a VST. But moving forward, all good.

Hopefully something helps you. Never a fun thing to deal with. And hopefully it isn’t something costly.

Also, live reports crashes:

  • Mac - /Users/[username]/Library/Application Support/Ableton/Live Reports/

Note: These folders are normally hidden.

And Logs:

  • Mac - /Users/[username]/Library/Preferences/Ableton/Live x.x.x/Log.txt

  • Mac System Crash Logs - /Users/[Username]/Library/Logs/Diagnostic Reports/live.xxxx.crash (xxxx = crash date and time)

You may or may not find anything useful in the logs but you could send them to Ableton either way. Not sure what they specifically look like.

2 Likes
11

Hi triple b,
Thanks for your time to reply. Much appreciated.
What i ended up doing, I’ve erased all my Waves plugins. Even though i only used VST & no AU.
Bye bye Waveshell.
Then i’ve finally decided myself to upgrade my Mac to Mojave.
Since then, all works like a charm.
So, it was from OSX & Live 10.1.3 not compatible, i don’t know.

12

No worries bud. A very frustrating feeling not being able to get creative. And maybe since you upgraded the OS, waves will probably be fine.

13

Do you ever fuck with the beta versions?

14

I’ve been on their beta tester list for a while.
But i stick with the official releases.

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