Inability to delete or rename tracks and clips

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
Stromkraft
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Joined: Wed Jun 25, 2014 11:34 am

Inability to delete or rename tracks and clips

Post by Stromkraft » Sun Sep 11, 2016 10:34 am

Have you ever encountered that suddenly you can't delete or rename any tracks or clips in a Live set? If you reload it you can?

If so, you have any suggestion on how make this happen? I've had it happen on a number of occasions lately, but seemingly occurring out of the blue. Support have suggested it may be related to third party scripts like PXT Live. Which I find odd. I don't see how any third party script should be able to affect what goes into a popup-menu (no visible delete option).

One thing that comes to mind is problems with permissions, but when I look at Live and its contents and the set folder it would seem there are no obvious problems. But I think I didn't have this happen when running with PXT Live inactivated. Still this does not happen in every session anyway so I'm not sure this is indeed the cause.

Have you encountered this problem? What do you make of it?
Make some music!

Stromkraft
Posts: 7033
Joined: Wed Jun 25, 2014 11:34 am

Re: Inability to delete or rename tracks and clips

Post by Stromkraft » Thu Sep 29, 2016 7:28 pm

As no-one has responded with a "me too" it would seem I'm alone having this issue.

Even if you don't experience this, do you have a suggestion how to troubleshoot unavailability of a resource that should always be present in very similar situations?

Do you have insight in what unwanted behaviors a third party control script could cause in the Live GUI? Could that be about locked resources? If so, how would you detect that a resource is locked?
Make some music!

Stromkraft
Posts: 7033
Joined: Wed Jun 25, 2014 11:34 am

Re: Inability to delete or rename tracks and clips

Post by Stromkraft » Wed Oct 19, 2016 8:35 pm

This has now happened a number of times in 9.6.2, the 9.7 betas and the 9.7 release. Saving and reopening the set always helps. I also discovered that when this happens the edit focus is on one of the devices in the track strip, even as the clip or the track is indeed selected. So when you select "rename" and type something it's the device that is renamed. It's really quite puzzling.

I've reported this, but it's hard to get a reliable way to make this happen. When it does happen I can't get out of it.

Any ideas are welcome.
Make some music!

NoSonic822
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Re: Inability to delete or rename tracks and clips

Post by NoSonic822 » Thu Oct 20, 2016 3:26 am

could be max4 live devices. they always end up f ing things up, at least the badly programmed max devices. like instant haus, or most of the step sequencers, they will wreak havoc on informational stuff, like midi information and other numerical data stuff. or program changes, like midi thru, also, this stuff, if you have any max devices that are trying to send more complex data and midi, it will screw your whole set up usually. like if you undo and redo stuff on max devices in a "bad " way, it will delete all of your midi mappings and max mappings, stuff like that, or it will just outright delete midi notes from clips

i bet its something to do with max 4 live.

ive had that happen numerous times, where somethign bugs out in max, and just deletes all your mappings. or it erases midi notes randomly in clips. or when you try to resize a clip, it will erase all the notes in the clip that you resized, like the part of the clip that disappears when you resize it, if you drag it out again, all the notes will be gone

Stromkraft
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Joined: Wed Jun 25, 2014 11:34 am

Re: Inability to delete or rename tracks and clips

Post by Stromkraft » Sat Oct 22, 2016 7:14 pm

Inversoundzzz wrote:could be max4 live devices.
Well, I can't rule it out at the moment, but I think this did happen in a set without any Max devices. Thanks for the suggestion.
Make some music!

Hektagon1
Posts: 7
Joined: Wed Oct 23, 2013 7:41 am

Re: Inability to delete or rename tracks and clips

Post by Hektagon1 » Mon Oct 24, 2016 9:25 am

Stromkraft wrote:Have you ever encountered that suddenly you can't delete or rename any tracks or clips in a Live set? If you reload it you can?

If so, you have any suggestion on how make this happen? I've had it happen on a number of occasions lately, but seemingly occurring out of the blue. Support have suggested it may be related to third party scripts like PXT Live. Which I find odd. I don't see how any third party script should be able to affect what goes into a popup-menu (no visible delete option).

One thing that comes to mind is problems with permissions, but when I look at Live and its contents and the set folder it would seem there are no obvious problems. But I think I didn't have this happen when running with PXT Live inactivated. Still this does not happen in every session anyway so I'm not sure this is indeed the cause.

Have you encountered this problem? What do you make of it?
I am so happy to hear that I am not the only one having this issue :wink: .
I am getting the exact same problem, out of the blue the edit functions stop working and they appear greyed out; I am also getting issues with Collision glitching out on me and producing annoying long sawtooth like noises when playing back melodies on certain projects.

I have been talking with the Ableton support team and they have suggested that it is probably another application running in the background that is causing the issue... I have tried installing Ableton on a different user account on my computer and the problems are gone, but this is hardly a fix.

I hope Ableton support can solve this issue, it is really annoying and puts me off using the software altogether.
Max for live it is bit of a mess... so I would not be surprised that it could also be the culprit.

The thing is that these types of problems should not happen on a professional software like Ableton.

Stromkraft
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Joined: Wed Jun 25, 2014 11:34 am

Re: Inability to delete or rename tracks and clips

Post by Stromkraft » Mon Oct 24, 2016 9:03 pm

Hektagon1 wrote: I have been talking with the Ableton support team and they have suggested that it is probably another application running in the background that is causing the issue... I have tried installing Ableton on a different user account on my computer and the problems are gone, but this is hardly a fix.…
Max for live it is bit of a mess... so I would not be surprised that it could also be the culprit.
(My bold)

Thanks for answering. Have Ableton said which Application this is about? How can you be sure it's gone? For me this happens quite seldom, like once a week. I see no obvious pattern at all.
Make some music!

Hektagon1
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Joined: Wed Oct 23, 2013 7:41 am

Re: Inability to delete or rename tracks and clips

Post by Hektagon1 » Wed Oct 26, 2016 9:51 pm

Stromkraft wrote:
Hektagon1 wrote: I have been talking with the Ableton support team and they have suggested that it is probably another application running in the background that is causing the issue... I have tried installing Ableton on a different user account on my computer and the problems are gone, but this is hardly a fix.…
Max for live it is bit of a mess... so I would not be surprised that it could also be the culprit.
(My bold)

Thanks for answering. Have Ableton said which Application this is about? How can you be sure it's gone? For me this happens quite seldom, like once a week. I see no obvious pattern at all.
Not really, I am still waiting to hear back from them. In my case it happens every-time I work on a project for longer than ,let's say, an hour or even sooner than that. I am on a Mac and I am using F.lux, and some memory management tools like DR cleaner while running Ableton (so maybe these could be causing the issues?).

I have also heard that some Waves plugins can cause some problems if they are not up to date (or something like that); all of this is speculations at the moment. Would let you know what happens once I heard back from them. So glad I am not the only one with this issue though.

Stromkraft
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Joined: Wed Jun 25, 2014 11:34 am

Re: Inability to delete or rename tracks and clips

Post by Stromkraft » Wed Oct 26, 2016 10:09 pm

Hektagon1 wrote:
I have also heard that some Waves plugins can cause some problems if they are not up to date (or something like that); all of this is speculations at the moment. Would let you know what happens once I heard back from them. So glad I am not the only one with this issue though.
Very strange things can happen if you put Waves plug-ins in your Template. In sets there is no issues, so I don't why that is. Odd ting.

Also the AU versions are unsupported, though I never experienced anything strange when I used these by mistake.

I use the latest updates and possibly that's why side-chaining Waves plug-ins now work (route audio to the SC inputs yourself). The C1 SC seems unsupported still.
Make some music!

H20nly
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Location: The Wild West

Re: Inability to delete or rename tracks and clips

Post by H20nly » Wed Oct 26, 2016 10:53 pm

are you using a shortcut to rename them or double clicking the title?

next time it happens one way, try the other as well.

where i'm going with this is that it could be a cross mapping... two applications running using the same shortcut.

Stromkraft
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Re: Inability to delete or rename tracks and clips

Post by Stromkraft » Thu Oct 27, 2016 12:19 am

H20nly wrote:are you using a shortcut to rename them or double clicking the title?.
No option is available when this happens. It looks as if it is, but that's because the device is selected for editing so the option is for that, But in the GUI the clip or track is also selected with visual feedback.

I want to make a movie out of it, but it's not happening right now.
Make some music!

H20nly
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Location: The Wild West

Re: Inability to delete or rename tracks and clips

Post by H20nly » Thu Oct 27, 2016 5:08 pm

:x

lame.

i'd still focus on the "hmmmm what else is running?" and "what if i close this, then re-launch Live and try again..." approach.

see if you can narrow it down. it's got to be some kind of simple but meaningful conflict or it would not have taken so long to find someone else with the issue.

Stromkraft
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Joined: Wed Jun 25, 2014 11:34 am

Re: Inability to delete or rename tracks and clips

Post by Stromkraft » Fri Oct 28, 2016 11:00 am

H20nly wrote::x

lame.

i'd still focus on the "hmmmm what else is running?" and "what if i close this, then re-launch Live and try again..." approach.

see if you can narrow it down. it's got to be some kind of simple but meaningful conflict or it would not have taken so long to find someone else with the issue.
Yeah, I'll try, but the only way is to keep working and see when it happens. Could be how a specific set is constructed. I'm expecting something similar to when I discovered having Waves plug-ins in your template could cause havoc, which don't happen when they are in the sets (Something I should revisit so Waves and Ableton could fix this). That was quite baffling.

Actually I'm suspecting Templates so intend to remake my current main one. The other day something odd happened; when Live started my template was gone and a 2 track set was opened instead (Factory is 4). Kept coming up in new sets until I opened the template from the preferences folder and re-saved it again as a template.

But it could be MFL as well as been suggested. I'm at 7.3.1 now, but have used few MFL devices lately. Could be a specific new one (for me). In conversation with Ableton support I've learned that some device uses objects that are viewed as incompatible with Live.
Make some music!

H20nly
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Location: The Wild West

Re: Inability to delete or rename tracks and clips

Post by H20nly » Fri Oct 28, 2016 9:38 pm

you know just reading what you wrote and thinking about the amount of juggling and caressing that we have to put into all this stuff to make it work makes me think about why i started making music in the first place... because i wrote a lot of lyrics with a pencil on paper.

:lol:

oh man.

any way... i hope you get it sorted.

Hektagon1
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Joined: Wed Oct 23, 2013 7:41 am

Re: Inability to delete or rename tracks and clips

Post by Hektagon1 » Mon Oct 31, 2016 5:45 pm

Well I have some updates now.

So it seems that Ableton Support are recommending me to delete my Operating system and reinstalling it or keep using Ableton Live on a separate user on my Mac. Neither of the options are good for me, since I use my computer for work and reinstalling the whole system would be a nightmare and creating another user is pointless since I have to share all my samples and all my libraries.

I really wish that Ableton could get to the bottom of these type of issues; it is the only piece of software in my machine that behaves in such a strange way.

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