Ableton Forum

Hello all,

I'm hoping I can gain some insight into wtf the Ableton index process is doing on my MacBook Pro, OS X 10.11. During a rehearsal last night I discovered that some of my instruments that rely on sample libraries were glitching out because the samples couldn't be delivered quickly enough from my thunderbolt external hdd. This had never been a problem before. When I looked into what was using all of the disk reads, I discovered that it was the Ableton index process.

It appears that it is rescanning the entire Ableton library.

Why?

I've neither added nor removed anything from the library. It is unchanged. Live did auto-update to 9.7, so I'm wondering if this has anything to do with the problem.

Can anyone tell me what triggered this scan and if there's any way to avoid this in the future? I need to keep the reads on this drive to a minimum so that I can use that bandwidth for delivering audio data.

For all the emphasis that Ableton puts on Live being a Live tool, this is a bit of a showstopper.

And it gives us no options.

Some people would probably do just fine using the software with zero indexing. (And it'd mean zero headache on both sides of the table)

Maybe it would be nice if Live had a button that said 'yo, it can wait, I'm performing something right now!'

yur2die4 wrote:For all the emphasis that Ableton puts on Live being a Live tool, this is a bit of a showstopper.

And it gives us no options.

Some people would probably do just fine using the software with zero indexing. (And it'd mean zero headache on both sides of the table)

Maybe it would be nice if Live had a button that said 'yo, it can wait, I'm performing something right now!'

So is this typical behavior? As far as I know, it's never happened to me before now. How long does it generally take to complete the scan?

I've personal not had cases where it is scanning at an inconvenient time. But I am saying that in a live environment, the wrong time even once can potentially ruin a vibe.

From my experience, it might scan after updating the version, or if I edit something in a directory. I do not use external drives, so I do not know the behavior in that department. I have a pretty small assortment of stuff that I access through Live's browser, so when it does scan it is finished somewhat quickly (I'll usually just go eat a snack and let it do its thing).

for starters i would turn auto-update off...

fishmonkey wrote:for starters i would turn auto-update off...

Yep. I flew into a micro-rage a few days ago when the indexer started churning away just as I needed every CPU percentage point.

So I went to save the set ... and it alerted me that this was a new version of Live, and I remembered I'd left autoupdates on. So its to be expected in that case.

However - I do think that Live should have a Live button. A big red button which stops all background processes, no logging,no phoning home, no indexing, nothing but essential function while the program is in Live mode.

fishmonkey wrote: However - I do think that Live should have a Live button. A big red button which stops all background processes, no logging,no phoning home, no indexing, nothing but essential function while the program is in Live mode.

+1!

fishmonkey wrote:for starters i would turn auto-update off...

Good idea

Angstrom wrote: However - I do think that Live should have a Live button. A big red button which stops all background processes, no logging,no phoning home, no indexing, nothing but essential function while the program is in Live mode.

Dedicate computers to music with Live

Hah, it's absolutely unbelievable the indexer is still like that. I've occasionally stumbled into threads like this, asking about the current status of the thing (thinking about updating from Live 8 with no such pains whatsoever), and it's always the same: still included, with no feasible options to turn it off. It's been going on for something like three and a half years now. In DAW software, where unrestricted realtime operation should be the main priority, an indexer implementation like this shows total disregard of the customer and the nature of the application. It's like irresponsibly taking a DAW to the direction of generic office software and the worst kind of operating system bloat , with no intentions to correct/remove the design blunder. As I said some months ago, I think it's the single most off-putting thing Ableton has ever done.

Nokatus wrote:Hah, it's absolutely unbelievable the indexer is still like that. I've occasionally stumbled into threads like this, asking about the current status of the thing (thinking about updating from Live 8 with no such pains whatsoever), and it's always the same: still included, with no feasible options to turn it off. It's been going on for something like three and a half years now. In DAW software, where unrestricted realtime operation should be the main priority, an indexer implementation like this shows total disregard of the customer and the nature of the application. It's like irresponsibly taking a DAW to the direction of generic office software and the worst kind of operating system bloat :D, with no intentions to correct/remove the design blunder. As I said some months ago, I think it's the single most off-putting thing Ableton has ever done.

But I'm pretty sure there are many of us with big, big libraries that never ever have a problem with it. I don't even notice it running when I add something new. You're reading in too much into this I think.

Of course, the process itself should be able to halt, like when preaparing for a performance and it should be easy to revert to a previous version of the database.

Stromkraft wrote:I'm pretty sure there are many of us with big, big libraries that never ever have a problem with it. I don't even notice it running when I add something new. You're reading in too much into this I think.

I don't think I'm reading too much into it. The fact that this DAW contains a pervasive indexing system, which the user hasn't got enough control over, is a disgrace - no matter even if the majority of users hasn't had any issues with it. This is supposed to be professional audio software, not a hog of an SQL database, indexing at will (if you're unlucky). Offering simple, unambiguous controls (indexing on/off, indexing on/off for particular locations) for the power users who want to be sure, that should be an obvious thing.

Nokatus wrote: The fact that this DAW contains a pervasive indexing system

This is not a fact. It's like me saying that whatever odd problem I might have, is something that "Live has", as if it affects everyone. It doesn't.

What do you know about this anyway? You're not even on Live 9.

Stromkraft wrote:

Nokatus wrote: The fact that this DAW contains a pervasive indexing system

This is not a fact.

Of course it is. This isn't a debate, and if it was, you don't seem to be very good at it

Live has a pervasive indexing system over which the user doesn't have an appropriate level of control. Some people have problems with it and would like Ableton to have the decency to include an option for turning it off. It's also suboptimal and off-putting/insulting on the conceptual level, for the aforementioned reasons. The latter is a personal opinion, the actual fact (that Live 9 contains this sort of indexing design) isn't.

Stromkraft wrote:

Nokatus wrote: The fact that this DAW contains a pervasive indexing system

This is not a fact. It's like me saying that whatever odd problem I might have, is something that "Live has", as if it affects everyone. It doesn't.

What do you know about this anyway? You're not even on Live 9.

No need to sound that rude Stromkraft!
Thx