Blank video window issues - tips to try!

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
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dgussin
Posts: 8
Joined: Sat Dec 09, 2006 5:20 pm

Blank video window issues - tips to try!

Post by dgussin » Tue Aug 30, 2011 1:43 am

For those having issues with Live on Windows where video files appear "blank" when you drag them into the arrangement video, I have discovered something that may help you.

I was having consistent blank video window issues for a long time - sometimes video would work, sometimes it didn't. After going back and forth with Ableton support, I thought I'd try running my laptop with the bare minimum of background Windows processes and applications. So, I killed/stopped all of the non-essential Windows programs and then opened a Live set with video. To my surprise, the video worked right away! I tried it a few times just to be sure and it worked every time. Solid.

One at a time, I started the non-essential Windows programs that I killed/stopped before, and I discovered the conflict: StrokeIt. StrokeIt is a mouse-gestures program that listens for right-mouse button activity and executes custom commands. As soon as I started StrokeIt while Live was running with a working video window, the video immediately went blank. I ran some more tests and it appears that anytime StrokeIt received a mouse-gesture command the Live video window stopped responding; as soon as I closed StrokeIt the video window started working again!

Lesson learned: try using Live in a completely "clean" environment to see if it works at all. That means as few background processes as possible, no Ableton plug-ins, no fancy hardware optimization. If it starts working then you know you've got some kind of conflict program causing issues. Start the programs/plug-ins you normally run one at a time until you identify the culprit.

A (now) happy camper,
Dave

3dot...
Posts: 9996
Joined: Tue Feb 20, 2007 11:10 pm

Re: Blank video window issues - tips to try!

Post by 3dot... » Tue Aug 30, 2011 1:56 am

heheh... "strokeIt".. :lol:
what's that 'process' for you say ?
Image

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