Ableton Forum

Hi,

Not sure if anyone has encountered this before. I've just downloaded a few tracks. I've managed to warp most of them, but when I go to drop a couple of the tracks into an empty clip view, the following error message comes up, and I am unable to drag the tracks into the clip view:

"The file "C:Filename.mp3" could not be decoded using DirectShow (Error code-2147220968)"

Has anyone encountered this problem before, what causes it, and how can it be fixed?

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Many Thanks.

This is a DirectX error. Fixes to try in order:

1] Have you got all the latest Windows updates? [Here]
2] The non-critical DirectX update from December? [Here]
3] Latest drivers for your sound card.
4] Latest version [7.1.3] of Quicktime? [Here]
5] Is the mp3 DRM protected? [R]-click, properties to check.

Thanks for the reply Herne. I checked all the items on the list, and everything on my lap top is up to date, and from what I can see the files are not DRM protected.

It's strange that out of the 7 tracks that I downloaded, I was able to drop two of them into the clip slots to warp them, but the other 5 come up with the error message above. When I try cue the tracks in the browser preview, the status bar says "The sample "File name" could not be read (it may be corrupt)."

I've played the tracks in Windows media player just to make sure that there is nothing wrong with the tracks, and they all play perfectly, it only seems to be Ableton (Live 6) that has a problem reading them.

Any ideas?

i do get the same error message. However the files are not drm-protected and directx is up to date.

Any Ideas?

Are they Constant Bit Rate [CBR] encoded or Variable Bit Rate [VBR]?

If they play OK in everything else, the common cause was Quicktime being out of date.

Try converting them to CBR if they are VBR, and vice versa.

I'm now out of ideas, anyone else?

DJdownload to the rescue ... Talk about brilliant customer support ...

I know there was some issue with the tagging of their download files and Ableton. Not sure what the issue was. DJdownload corrected it from their end and they work fine now. I'll ask to get a few more technical details to try and help in future ...

hey !

same problem here with different mp3´s and different codecs/bitrates

anybody an idea how to fix ?

using vista - on xp all files work

ableton live 6.05

anybody has this problem ?

Not sure what the technical problem is, but I re-saved my tracks using Wave-Lab, and the re-saved versions worked, so it is worth trying ...

anybody an idea how to fix this problem ?

to many files r having this problem, if not fixed i would have to resave and rewarp all of them ((

Hi guys,

I've just spent the last hour battling with this problem and I worked out what was causing the pain.

I cannot garentee this will help you, but my problem was resolved by uninstalling some software I'd loaded on my laptop.

I always keep my music laptop free of crap software, but had to download some pics off my phone for my girlfriend and had installed some SAMSUNG mobile phone software. Once uninstalled ableton worked fine!

Hope this helps, but try thinking back to what you've put on your pc lately?

Cheers
Jack

sorry, this did not fix for me

installed a fresh copy of vista

installed newest quicktime 7.1.5

direct show error still there on some files

installed vista codec package 4.3

-direct show error still there on some files

anybody an idea ? is it possible to tell vista to not use directshow for opening mp3 or wave files but another codec ?

I am having the same error with some of my mp3s on vista and 6.05

Simply solution for all of you : just off all ID tags inside the mp3 file. Should help.

Best.
Petersky

I've the same problem. WAVs works fine, but MP3s... The MP3s didn't contains ID-tag and CBR/VBR coded.

Last chance, installing QuickTime 7.6.5 and... WORKS! (without restart).
(for me...)

I'm also using Win7 Ultimate Tiny version (32bit).