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All of my files are gone?

Posted: Thu Jan 01, 2015 3:49 pm
by Rhypht
This is the third time this has happened to me:

Randomly upon loading Live, EVERY folder in the "Categories" explorer window will be empty except for my plugins folder and the Packs folder under Places.

The last two times it has happened, I have had to reinstall the entire thing just to get them back, sometimes twice before everything was back to normal, and then it happens again seemingly at random.

I'm Running Live 9 Suite 64bit on Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit, using the Push and a Novation Launchpad Mini S.

Re: All of my files are gone?

Posted: Thu Jan 01, 2015 9:50 pm
by outsidesys
Do you have anything in the search field at the top of the browser? If so, remove it.

Re: All of my files are gone?

Posted: Fri Jan 02, 2015 1:08 am
by Tagor
outsidesys wrote:Do you have anything in the search field at the top of the browser? If so, remove it.
hahaha - not bad

Re: All of my files are gone?

Posted: Fri Jan 02, 2015 1:27 am
by H20nly
if the search field in the browser is clear... you could try to reset Live

https://www.ableton.com/en/articles/reset-live/

just me mindful that this will delete your default set, so you may want to save that first... then after Live is reset you can open it up and set it as default again in preferences.

Re: All of my files are gone?

Posted: Tue Feb 03, 2015 12:57 am
by Rhypht
H20nly wrote:if the search field in the browser is clear... you could try to reset Live

https://www.ableton.com/en/articles/reset-live/

just me mindful that this will delete your default set, so you may want to save that first... then after Live is reset you can open it up and set it as default again in preferences.
Still nothing. The only list that is populated is "Packs"...

What I don't get is that, I can have Live open and everything is there, but simply closing it and re-opening it 10 minutes later can make everything go away. Nothing changed between those two points.

It seems to do it at random, or at least, I can't figure out what's causing it.

Re: All of my files are gone?

Posted: Tue Feb 03, 2015 5:38 am
by H20nly
I'd hit up support@ableton.com

Seems like it's a browser issue, unless you have the library on an external or something

Re: All of my files are gone?

Posted: Tue Feb 03, 2015 7:44 am
by re:dream
It would be good to share more information about exactly what your setup is. The behaviour you are describing is quite strange.

Re: All of my files are gone?

Posted: Tue Feb 03, 2015 8:28 am
by Rhypht
re:dream wrote:It would be good to share more information about exactly what your setup is. The behaviour you are describing is quite strange.
Sure thing.

I'm running Ableton Live 9 Suite on Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit. I have an Ableton Push and a Novation Launchpad Mini that are always connected, as well as a touch-sensitive volume slider that Ableton, for some reason, sees as a MIDI device, but that has never been the cause of any issues before as I've had it even before I owned Live.

Looking at the situation completely objectively, the problem never really occurred until I got the Launchpad Mini. However, I can't say if it is the problem for sure, because even launching Live without it connected will cause the same thing to happen. Likewise, many times Live will launch WITH it connected and not have any issues, so maybe the fact that it started occurring after I got the Mini is just a coincidence.

That's basically my setup, aside from the obvious peripherals for my computer.

Re: All of my files are gone?

Posted: Tue Feb 03, 2015 8:35 am
by re:dream
Where is your core library?

Where is your user library?

Do you have a Live 8 library? If so, where is it?

Does the problem go away if you simply restart Live?

Re: All of my files are gone?

Posted: Tue Feb 03, 2015 8:42 am
by Rhypht
re:dream wrote:Where is your core library?

Where is your user library?

Do you have a Live 8 library? If so, where is it?

Does the problem go away if you simply restart Live?
My core library is in the root directory for Live, located in my ProgramData folder (C:\ProgramData\Ableton\Resources\Core Library)

My user library is in My Documents. The files and folders are 100% there, and I am 100% sure that Live is set to look in the right place for them.

I do not have a Live 8 library.

The problem will not go away if I restart live, or even restart my computer. I have only fixed this issue once before by re-installing Live 9 completely, however that's obviously not a solution, as it keeps happening regardless. The problem has fixed itself a few times, with seemingly no interaction on my part. I will just launch Live sometimes and it will all be there. At the moment though, all of the files are gone, and have been since yesterday. I opened Live and worked on some stuff, everything was there. I briefly closed Live, and came back about a half hour later. Didn't even touch my computer during that time. When I relaunched Live, everything was gone except for my Packs and Plug-ins.

Re: All of my files are gone?

Posted: Tue Feb 03, 2015 8:51 am
by re:dream
Yes, I can't see why the Launchpad should cause problems.

As I mentioned in the other thread, you can force Live to rebuild the library by deleting the files.db folder.

I don't know where that is kept in the Windows architecture

Re: All of my files are gone?

Posted: Tue Feb 03, 2015 9:11 am
by Rhypht
re:dream wrote:Yes, I can't see why the Launchpad should cause problems.

As I mentioned in the other thread, you can force Live to rebuild the library by deleting the files.db folder.

I don't know where that is kept in the Windows architecture
Well, a possible fix:

I went to do just that (for anyone needing to know, the Windows 7 location of Files.db is in %appdata%\roaming\ableton\Live 9.1.7\database.
Upon trying to rename it, it said that it could not be renamed because the file was in use by Live. I looked, Live was not running.
So I opened up the task manager, checked the processes, and sure enough there was a ghost process of Ableton Live and Live Index running. Right click>End process tree on the instance of Ableton Live to kill it and anything associated with it. Restarted Live WITHOUT deleting or renaming the files.db file, and everything was back.

SO, my guess is that the Live process can fail to terminate sometimes when you close Live, causing an issue where, upon opening Live the next time, there will be two instances, and the one that you can't see is the one with priority. This locks out the one you can see I guess.

Thanks for the info, it led me right to the problem. If this happens again and the process issue isn't the answer, I will try this method and post here on whether or not it works.

Re: All of my files are gone?

Posted: Tue Feb 03, 2015 10:26 am
by re:dream
Awesome

Looking back over the thread, I realise I did not check whether you had restarted the computer.

(TMI: I actually had the same problem ages ago (under a different mult) - and that was in the days when I had a Win 7 machine --> viewtopic.php?f=1&t=191793&start=0 )

I assumed you had tried restarting the computer, but it turns out you only restarted Live 8)