Ableton Forum

Hi all! I've been trying to use the APC40 for live gigs, but after about 15 or 20 minutes it seems to lose its connection with Ableton Live. The red selection box disappears from the screen, the clip lights on the APC40 go out, and there seems to be no way to restore the communication with the device short of closing Live and restarting it, which is out of the question in the midst of the performance. So I am left glumly using the laptop trackpad to mix and apply effects one at a time for the remainder of the set. Does anyone have an explanation, solution or workaround for this issue?

I'm using Windows XP 32-bit and Ableton Live 8.1.5. I don't have any other USB devices running. And I have tried this both on my laptop and on my desktop which has a lot more horsepower, and the issue has happened with both systems. The only thing that I noticed that might be a bit unusual, but perhaps is somewhat common, is that in the MIDI settings, Control Surface of course allows me to select APC40, but Input and Output only give me the option of generic "USB Audio Device." I really want to get this sorted out because it is so fun playing with the APC40 when it's working.

Edit: One other note, I have been using a custom template recently, with my own MIDI map settings, but the same thing happened previously just with the default settings.

could be your USB cable.

PCs have this weakness over Macs with Live, once a cable is disconnected from a device you have to restart Live for the device to be recognized again.

you could also be using a USB cable that's too long.

Hello again, I just wanted to respond to this in case anyone else has a similar issue -- it was indeed a faulty USB cable. Thanks, Tone Deft!