Audio disabled in Live 8.1.3 on mac laptop

[craigmcewan]

I've just installed Live suite 8.1.3 on my mac laptop.
On opening Live I get a message reading:

"The device "Built-in input (2 in, 0 out)" has only input channels.
Live only supports audio devices that have at least one stereo output"

Followed by another reading:

"Audio is disabled. Please choose an audio output device in the audio preferences"

When I go to audio preferences, the drop-down boxes for selecting audio devices don't work; when I click them, the usual list of devices appears momentarily then vanishes. It is not possible to select any audio input or output devices.

In Live 8.0.1, I can still select either my external soundcard (a Line 6 Toneport UX2), or the built in options in the laptop, either of which have always worked fine in the past.

Any ideas how to resolve this?
Thanks

Craig

[[dfi]]

Hi Craig,

the preferences file might have gone corrupt.
Please delete the "preferences.cfg" file here:
Macintosh HD/Users/"Your Username"/Library/Preferences/Ableton/Live 8.1.3/Preference.cfg

Afterwards, start Live and try whether it works fine.
Let me know if it does not!

best,
dfi

[craigmcewan]

Hi dfi

Thanks for the advice. It sort of works... if I delete the file as you suggested, then start Ableton with the Toneport connected, then the Toneport is automatically selected for audio. This works fine, but the drop-down boxes for selecting audio don't work, as before.

If I then want to go mobile, and use the Internal soundcard, I have to close Ableton, disconnect the Toneport, delete the preferences file, and restart Ableton. Now the internal audio is automatically selected. All is fine, except for the drop-down boxes.

This workaround is ok, but a bit clunky. I can certainly use Ableton in either environment, but I'd really like the convenience of changing the preferences through... well, the preferences tab.

Anyway, thanks again for the tip; but if you can suggest a way get everything completely back to normal I'd be most grateful.

Cheers

Craig

[[dfi]]

Hey,

maybe an operating system update could help.
Which OSX version do you have installed?
Run the software update to find out whether there is a new update available!

Let me know the outcome!
best,
dfi

[aidanpoulter]

I'd be interested to know if by 'toneport' you mean a line 6 product because since buying podfarm 2 plug-in for line6 guitar sounds I have had audio glitches and nasty noises whenever using the pod as an input or with podfarm as the plug-in effects. I am on snow leopard. I'm using ableton lite 8.1.3. I assumed they always update every version of ableton with every mac system update/redo of the operating system. Mac talked to me and blamed line6 and ableton for NOT updating there stuff to snow leopard but ableton blamed line6 as far as I remember. The strange thing is that line6 podfarm works fine on this computer - a new macbook pro with snow leopard so how can it be line6. I thought it might also be native instruments stuff as I see someone else had drop-outs with Kontakt but they work fine when podfarm is not there.

It's so hard to know 'how to know' whose problem it is. Ableton tell me all the crash reports that I had on my other imac before I got this macbook pro and the ones from this macbook pro are just collected and they're not working on/or can't work directly on my problem. As I said: Garageband works through it all.

So my question in short (and sorry if I seemed to be hijacking your question, I hope I am helping ask the right questions for both of us) my question is:
1) Are line6 or ableton still having problems with snow leopard or even with leopard: When did they redo there live 8 product. Was it before these products?
2)How does a guy isolate who is to be contacted and how does a guy get them to change anything ( and how do you know if it's your computer if it's having no other problems with any other programs?)

Depresssing and not encouraging to buy a full version of live really.

Hope someone knows the answer for you and for me

[craigmcewan]

Hi dfi

I tried updating Mac osx from 10.6.3 to 10.6.4, and also updating the Line 6 drivers, but no change. Deleting the preferences file each time means I have to re-enter the custom plug-ins location every time too, which is a pain.

For now I'm going to stick with Live version 8.0.1 which has no problems for me. Hopefully I'll resolve this properly at some point; any other suggestion would be gratefully received.

Thanks for your help so far

Craig

[craigmcewan]

Hi Aiden

Yes, the Toneport is a Line 6 toneport UX2. Back around version 5, Ableton was pretty unstable using this soundcard, while it was fine with a Creative Labs one. (Ableton would crash and need a restart regularly, particularly If I tried to rearrange a track as it played.

However, in later versions I found this problem had gone, and I have been using Live with the Toneport, first on PC and now on a mac, with no problems.

As you'll see from my reply to dfi, I'm using Snow Leopard Osx, and the latest drivers for everything.

Hopefully someone out there can answer you're other questions for both of us

Cheers

Craig

As for audio glitches and nasty noises, I can only suggest checking that the latency is not set too low... but expect you've tried that already.