Ableton Forum

Hey,

Since ive updated to 12.1 on my windows 11 machine it get's stuck with scanning/indexing my samples.
I keep getting this error:


Once i click "OK" nothing really happens (Live will still work) but the Analysis will start over scanning files and pending them for the Index just to crash again and return in this loophole.

Ive tried deleting database files, and move certain sample folders last seen in the indexer.txt file, but it keeps on happening

You can pause the analysis.
Since you already tried the right things, you should pause it and report to Support including the crash files.

yeah i figured, the only things is Live itself doesn't crash so i'm not getting any crash logs or reports whenever i restart live.
And also i can't do a technical support ticket cause i'm getting a weird authenticated loop as whenever i select "technical support" it feeds me back into the knowledge base url lol (https://help.ableton.com/access/unauthe ... quests/new), really out of luck here.

Same exact issue here. Everything has been fine for years, including with Live 12 which I've been using for several months with no issues. Immediately after applying the 12.1 update, I now get alerts about "Ableton Index" crashing every 20-30 sec while I work in the set. It actually pops up as I'm in the middle of doing things, rather than in the background, unfortunately interrupting my work.

I can see "Analysis: Pending (58,999 queued)" in the bottom status bar, and I can pause it, but the analysis doesn't progress at all no matter how long I leave it sitting there.

I tried removing the 'read-only' attribute and giving full read/write permissions recursively on the Samples folder in the User Library, but it hasn't helped.

Same error here. Ableton support was not very helpful to this point. Just some very general advice. Thank you, AI.

Indexer.txt shows me now the following error:

2024-10-11T20:02:52.521600: error: ASSERT 'false': expression failed in file 'F:\Jenkins\live\shared\sound-similarity\SoundAnalyzerLib\src\SoundFile.cpp:186'

Strangely, I do not have a "F" drive at all on my system.

kalinkaka wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 11, 2024 6:20 pm

Indexer.txt shows me now the following error:

2024-10-11T20:02:52.521600: error: ASSERT 'false': expression failed in file 'F:\Jenkins\live\shared\sound-similarity\SoundAnalyzerLib\src\SoundFile.cpp:186'

Strangely, I do not have a "F" drive at all on my system.

Same here. I see a short series of "error: Failed to get filesize/last write time for [file XYZ]..." and then:

2024-10-08T21:30:06.137083: error: ASSERT 'false': expression failed in file 'F:\Jenkins\live\shared\sound-similarity\SoundAnalyzerLib\src\SoundFile.cpp:186'

And that seems to be where the Indexer crashes, because the next lines in the log are it re-starting:

2024-10-08T21:30:15.290248: info: #######################################
2024-10-08T21:30:15.290528: info: Started: Index 12.1 Build: 2024-09-25_bba251b1d9
2024-10-08T21:30:15.290535: info: #######################################

And then it all just happens again, every minute or so.

@midkay I turned off the search for similar files using Options/Settings/File & Folder as long as this is unresolved...

kalinkaka wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 11, 2024 6:20 pm

Indexer.txt shows me now the following error:

2024-10-11T20:02:52.521600: error: ASSERT 'false': expression failed in file 'F:\Jenkins\live\shared\sound-similarity\SoundAnalyzerLib\src\SoundFile.cpp:186'

Strangely, I do not have a "F" drive at all on my system.

That path actually looks like part of Ableton Live's development build environment (Jenkins is an automation server for building, testing, and deploying applications before going to production). Paths like that shouldn't be exposed in a production build of the application. Hmm...

I'm getting this too, sprinkled with numerous actual crashes. I'm trying to reinstall 12.1 first, but if it doesn't sort things out (x-ing my fingers that a fresh install is less prone to trouble than a self-update), I'm going back to 12.02something. Very frustrating to have all the new wonderful features only to have Live crash all the time.

This is how I solved the issue on my system:

• I had my "songs" folder included in the Ableton file browser places.

• Once I removed this folder from the "places", the indexing went smoothly without crashing.

• I then moved the directories inbatches to the to be indexed places and found out where exactly the crashes occured.

• On further investigation, I discovered that some files had illegal file names including characters forbidden for file names in windows like "&".

• I renamed the respective files and have no more indexer crashes now.

This is of course only a workaround. To my impression, the indexer is not robust enough and should skip "illegal" files instead of crashing.

Just chiming in to say this is happening with me too.

Same here, tried disabling scan and Live 12.1 is still crashing on startup. I Cant even get into live to disable vst folder or rescan.

kalinkaka wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 18, 2024 10:48 am

This is how I solved the issue on my system:

• I had my "songs" folder included in the Ableton file browser places.

• Once I removed this folder from the "places", the indexing went smoothly without crashing.

• I then moved the directories inbatches to the to be indexed places and found out where exactly the crashes occured.

• On further investigation, I discovered that some files had illegal file names including characters forbidden for file names in windows like "&".

• I renamed the respective files and have no more indexer crashes now.

This is of course only a workaround. To my impression, the indexer is not robust enough and should skip "illegal" files instead of crashing.

The ampersand ("&") should not be considered illegal. I have several files that use it, and there are no crashes here. However, somehow, renaming solved the issue for you. Did you find other illegal characters, or was it only the ampersand? Did you rename multiple files that had different illegal characters at the same time? If so, it is hard to say which one was illegal. And did you only find files with illegal characters or also folder names?

Even when certain characters are not allowed, Live should not crash. Instead, those characters should be handled properly, for example, by escaping them correctly or ignoring them altogether. Hopefully, Ableton can determine what was going wrong based on the crash report.

kalinkaka wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 18, 2024 10:48 am

• I had my "songs" folder included in the Ableton file browser places.

Was this folder in Places, or in your User Library?
Asking because it is recommended to NOT store Projects in the User Library. No idea if this could have an impact on the situation here, but it's still worth checking.