Ableton Forum

Summary for those in a hurry:

Make your own metronome preset if you get startup problems with samples missing.

Details:

When I started up Live 7.0.7 today I got a strange message:

Samples are missing. Please click here to learn more.

But I had no missing samples according to the library search.
My template startup file seemed OK and no samples were in my default project.

Investigating further there was no metronome sound.

The Cue devices were OK and other instruments played OK, so there was no
problem in ASIO or hardware.

Furthermore, when I closed Live the system hung until I turned off
my USB keyboard (Axiom 61). But the keyboard was working fine.

Investigating further showed me that the Metronome is actually an instrument
in the path:

C:\Program Files\Ableton\Live 7.0.7\Resources\Misc\Metronome\Metronome.adg
and it has it's own samples in that folder.

When I load that device it is a simpler rack, but it says the samples
are in an 'Offline' project at

Offline Project: Samples/Metronome.wav and
Offline Project: Samples/MetronomeUp.wav

Those two samples are in the path:
C:\Program Files\Ableton\Live 7.0.7\Resources\Misc\Metronome\Samples

The fix:

So I made a new Metronome.adg using these files and copied it to
C:\Program Files\Ableton\Live 7.0.7\Resources\Misc\Metronome\
after renaming the original to "Metronome-orig.adg".


The original ADG file had samples references in these folders:

C:\Dokumente und Einstellungen\vos\EigeneDateien\Ableton\Presets\Instruments\InstrumentRack\Metronome.adg
C:\Dev\vos\Signature Changes\Projects\AppLive\Resources\Misc\Metronome\Samples\MetronomeUp.wav
C:\Dev\vos\Signature Changes\Projects\AppLive\Resources\Misc\MetronomeUp.wav

Now everything is OK, but this is pretty weird.

I couldn't help but look into this weirdness some more and I
discovered the real problem, or at least a different solution.

There was a missing project folder.

Looking over my previous backup, I see that there was
a folder structure like this in the Live program folder:

Live 7.0.7
- Resources
- - Misc
- - - Metronome
- - - - Ableton Project Info
- - - - Samples

In other words, Metronome is a Project folder inside Misc.

In my current Live 7.0.7 folder the folder 'Ableton Project Info'
somehow it got deleted.

Just by adding the (empty) folder back in fixed the problem.

Hi arachnaut,

thanks for your input. Other users were reporting similar issues, but we couldn't reproduce it so far. It seems like in some cases the 'Ableton Project Info' folder can get deleted from the metronome project folder in some magical way during installing or uninstalling, but we don't know yet when exactly and why that happens.

Most users who had the same problem were reporting that it occured when they installed Live 7 and then deinstalled Live 6 before opening L7 the first time. Reinstalling L7 again or creating the 'Ableton Project Info' folder manually fixes the problem.

Did the problem appear suddenly on your computer after you already used L7 for a while, or did you also deinstall some older Live versions just before the samples were missing?

Best Wishes,
Volker

Hi Volker!

(Are you the 'vos' in the C:\Dokumente und Einstellungen\vos? )

I checked against my daily backups and the project folder
disappeared two days ago. I use Live 7.0.7 daily. The
7.0.7 installation has been unchanged since it was released
quite some time ago.

I still have version 6.0.9 installed.

I did not uninstall any versions, but I did remove a few
old crash logs from the Applications Data folder paths.

I did not do anything in the Program Files area.

I did a Windows Search on

C:\Documents and Settings\Jim\Application Data\Ableton\*

and removed some large ALS crash files.

I also deleted the log files (ASIOLog.txt and Log.txt) - they were pretty big.

It's possible I cleaned up a few older files in there, too, but I didn't
change any preferences, or configuration files or anything that
looked important.

Some more information.

I was just looking at an Excel file and I got the Windows installer
message that something was missing and I had to insert my
Office CD.

The error message was:

The resource 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\XLStart\' does not exist.

After I repaired Excel, I looked at that folder and it was empty!

Apparently somehow I got a another empty folder deleted.

I don't know what did this. It is not the sort of thing I would
ever do intentionally.

I did an uninstall of an old program a few days ago.

I use the 'Revo Uninstaller' which does some extra cleanup -
it may be the culprit. I will keep my eye out for problems like
this next time I use it.

I think I can add to this. I was having the same issue and just now fixed it. I believe the problem presented itself when I installed 7.0.7 without uninstalling 7.0.1 first. However, I was not missing any folders at all (or even files). Here is my fix:


- Open Live with an empty project.

- Browse to C:\Program Files\Ableton\Live 7.0.7\Resources\Misc\Metronome (sorry, I don't have access to a Mac right now - *sigh* - but the directory structure should be similar aside from C:\Program Files if I remember correctly.)

- Drag the file Metronome.adg into Live so it makes a new MIDI track.

- You will see that the Simpler instrument is reporting that samples MetronomeUp and Metronome are are offline.

- Back in the browser, open folder C:\Program Files\Ableton\Live 7.0.7\Resources\Misc\Metronome\Samples.

- Drop the corresponding samples into the Simpler instrument of the same name.

- Save the new "instrument" with the little save button at the top of the Instrument Rack (as if you were saving a preset). Be sure to name the new "preset" as Metronome.adg.

- Right-click the preset and select "Show In Browser" from the context menu. This should open C:\Documents and Settings\User\My Documents\Ableton\Presets\Instruments\Instrument Rack.

- Copy your Metronome.adg preset from C:\Documents and Settings\Michael\My Documents\Ableton\Presets\Instruments\Instrument Rack to C:\Program Files\Ableton\Live 7.0.7\Resources\Misc\Metronome.

- Overwrite the old file when prompted.

- Close out Live and re-open it. Your metronome should now be working again!

That's exactly what I did. That's what I meant by this:

arachnaut wrote: The fix:

So I made a new Metronome.adg using these files and copied it to
C:\Program Files\Ableton\Live 7.0.7\Resources\Misc\Metronome\
after renaming the original to "Metronome-orig.adg".

Thank you sir. This same issue happened to me only moments ago when I uninstalled Live 7.0.1 in favour of 7.0.9. I ONLY had 7.0.1 and 7.0.9 installed when I decided to remove 7.0.1. I uninstalled the prev version through the WindowsXPPro Programs control panel. 7.0.9 was already installed at this time and metronome functioned fine. AFTER I removed 7.0.1 I received the error pertaining to 'missing samples' when opening 7.0.9 again. I also noticed that the metronome was silent when I pressed play and turned it on from the Transport Bar. As stated in posts above, it seems the metronome lost its association with the necessary sound files.

I tried your fix Michael and it worked like a charm. I would like to adjust one step on your fix however. When right-clicking 'metronome.adg' after saving the new metronome preset in the Live Browser, one would need to choose "Show in Explorer" in the context menu, not 'show in browser'. That is picky but maybe makes it less confusing for someone else attempting this fix, if one is attempting the fix in Windows OS, that is.

Thanks again, all of you, for posting all the help info. I'll be contacting support with this as well I suppose. I'd hate for this to arise again in the future!!

Attention, may also be the other way round:
The adg file and the samples are in the user profile but are missing in the library. I'd just make shure that the working metronome.adg + the samples folder resides in both, the \Instrument Rack\ and the \Resuorces\Misc\ folder.
helped for me !

It's possible that there is an Ableton installation script that uses some API that will not copy empty folders, or won't
do it in some situation related to date and time.

It might be a good idea if Ableton put some dummy file in that empty folder (like a .cfg file or whatever).

Thanks everybody for the information on metronome,i should be able to get it going Benmurphy

I am having this exact problem. I'm glad I found this. Will try these tips.

Thanks!

Hi Tone73,

A simple de- and re-installation should solve the problem as well.

best,
Christian

Yes, a simple de-installation and re-installation worked great!! Thanks for the help. I was having a hard time figuring out what was up.

Easy Breezy!!

This just happened to me too.
Solved it using Michael's tip in this thread, thank you very much!

Abes: this happened after I uninstalled several previous versions of Live 7.0x (at the same time), leaving only 7.09.

I'm on Win XP SP3.

/Jonas