Ableton Forum

Hello,

There are 2 people in my setup, I'm on live 5.2.2 on Windows, and my bandmate is on 6.0.1 on Windows.

We recently synced up our tracks, and my PC running ableton 5.2.2 gets the following error message with every track.

"An error message occured while reading <trackname>. Apparently, the document was created by a more recent, and incompatible, version of live than this.

[Document is from a newer version; too many translators.]"

I can appreciate that 6 files might not open in 5, but surely there is some way of opening them?

I tried opening them via the library feature (when you click on an ALS and all the tracks appear as a list), but got the same error message.

I can't really upgrade to 6, or 7 now as from what I have seen they are much more unstable than my 5 install (I would say 2 crashes this last year).

I have emailed ableton but had no reply.

Thanks for any help you can offer.

Pat

Hello Pat_L,

There´s absolutely no way to open sets made with newer versions with an older
version.

Best,
Christian Kleine
[email protected]

Hi Christian,

Thanks for the prompt reply.

Does ableton 7 have any backwards compatibility options (say Save As live 5 set)?

We've found 6 and 7 crashes too often, but 5 is quite reliable.

I think it would make sense to let people know that you couldn't open ALS in older versions as it will prove expensive for me to upgrade.

Pat

hey Pat

I asked the same question recently as I make music with various people on different versions while I'm on 6 ,and it cant be done.

I listed the "save for older version" idea on the upgrades page but as far as i know they havent done it . It must be possible .I think they dont want to do it as they want more paying beta testers for new versions .

Wanting more money - It so is that isn't it? I can't name a single other program that limits this (apart from word, but there are get rounds), particularly in the creative industries (I can open CS3 files on my photoshop 6).

Imagine a band and everyone had to have the same guitar - sorry your 69 Stratocaster is incompatible with this 70 stratocaster.

I was, personally, happy with live 5, and after upgrading to 7 (or being forced to now) I don't see myself upgrading ableton again - I'd now actively look for an alternative piece of software first.

The error message to me suggests it could be fixed - I'd like some in ableton support to tell me why live 6 or live 7 generates more "translators" than live 5? I hacked the file in notepad and it seems to generate the same initial error, but the translator message is replaced by another one.

This makes me believe that there is a deliberate flag set in the file to prevent older versions opening the file - I don't see why 1) anyone would code this in, and 2) What the benefit is?

I think cross version compatibility would also encourage ableton users to share files and help each other out, but if everyone has to keep spending 100 quid each time it won't happen.

I've previously sang ableton's praises, but this last week has really put me off them.

1. a software is not a guitar. guitars haven't been upgraded that much for the last couple of centuries. they are pretty stable feature-wise now.
2. you're happy with version 5 cause you're using 5.2.2, be a little patient with 7, its stability will improve with bugfixes introduced
3. there has been several changes since version 5 that make backward compatibility impossible. the only way around this is to render all your material as audio files and open these files with the older version.

The guitar aspect was a joke, but it makes a valid point.

Even if new features are incompatible, you should be able to save as older version and loose these new settings.

Pat_L wrote:The guitar aspect was a joke, but it makes a valid point.

Even if new features are incompatible, you should be able to save as older version and loose these new settings.

With music software, that's the exception instead of the rule. Why? There's just too much that changes internally with each version upgrade (or even point upgrade with some software).

ew