"Your file has been corrupted... Check your arrangement

[timothyallan]

Anybody been getting this error with 5.0.3?

I had a normal shutdown of Ableton, reloaded my project a few hours later and got this error. It tells me to "Check my arrangement".

I resave the project and reload, and it 'seems' fine. I honestly haven't had a whole lot of time to go back and recheck the entire 32 track song. Ugggggg!

[madlab]

It happened to me yesterday as I loaded a set that has always worked fine. But I could open the file and it seems that all was there.

[Cache]

happened to me too. after a reload, all was well.
still, scary though isn't it? i made a copy set right after...

Cache

[hambone1]

I back up my entire data disk to another hard drive every day. I also backup to another hard disk that I keep off-site.

This sh*t's scary if your job relies on it...

[jasefos]

I back up my entire data disk to another hard drive every day. I also backup to another hard disk that I keep off-site.

This sh*t's scary if your job relies on it...

Ahh yes ... the joys of Project Corruption.

Being a long term Cubase SX user (and many early pre-release betas of it) I've developed a good working habit which I also use in Ableton.

For every new "Song" I work on I create a separate folder to store the ALS file and all the dependencies for the project.

Whenever I re-open an Ableton project to do more editing OR perform significant structural changes to a session in progress, I peform a Save As, add an incremented number ot it's filename. I then perform a Save Set Self Contained straight afterard.

I end up with:

My Hit Single - Build000.als
My Hit Single - Build000 Sounds (folder)

My Hit Single - Build001
My Hit Single - Build001 Sounds (folder)

My Hit Single - Build002
My Hit Single - Build002 Sounds (folder)

My Hit Single - Build003
My Hit Single - Build003 Sounds (folder)

, etc, etc

Usually by the time my tunes hit Build040 or so I'm getting close to being finished (unless some fussy A+R happens afterward).

Every so often I pack the old song builds into independent Solid Media WinRAR archives and burn the RAR files off onto optical media (OR my dedicated backup hard drive - depending on how pressed for time I am). For instance if I was to create a RAR archive of Build000 of my song I include: My Hit Single - Build000.als and My Hit Single - Build000 Sounds (folder).

For each Song I write I also manually create a folder called "Scrapbook" in which I place any elements used to create audio files which I later delete from the arrangement. These may be MIDI files which created VST instrument parts, Ableton CLips saved indpedently, FXP's/FXB'S for any special patches I make, RAW vocal recoridngs, etc). Sometimes I include these in my backup RAR's too.


You may of course have your own strategy and my way just works nicely for me. I'm thinking of getting in using incremental backups using Norton Ghost 10 to automate backs in a more space efficient manner.

Project Corruption is something which can happen when using ANY application be it graphics, publishing or music related since most applications do not have the ability to repair their corrupted files. There's nothing more frustrating .... the best insurance is good backup.

The scheme I've outlined above provides another benefit:
Unlimited Undo for EVERYTHING (VST instrument plugin alterations for example) which extends beyond the last Save.

Cheers !

[justin]

hmmm... not sure bout norton for backup.

its lost me a considerable number of HDs when trying to recover / repair / defrag (mainly on macs).

and only recently, norton goback has just crashed and wont reinstall on laptop with win XP... also crashes the windows scandisk app when i try and use that to repair the damaged norton files (?)

so i really wouldnt recommend this app to anyone...