Total nightmare. All my projects seem to have vanished!

[gemini]

So i opened up ableton live 7 today for the first time in around 5 days. I already had cubase open by mistake (or vice versa) and wasn't intending to rewire so i closed both programs and then reopened ableton.

I quickly navigated up to the Open Recent Set button only to find that all the names of my files are in gray font (instead of black) and unselectable. This is around 8 months of work and yes i know, i should have had backups, but i didn't.

Where in the name of hell could these files be? I had around 2 months of material in my recycling bin (which i restored) and its been less than a week since i listened to my stuff but there was nothing there.

After endless searches i can't locate any of my old projects but i can create new ones. They should be in the library folder right?

I really really hope that this is just some stupid oversight. Any and all help is appreciated!

[Cailyn]

By default, Ableton saves to folders inside a My Documents folder called Ableton. That the names are greyed out shouldn't mean that your work is gone, only that the path has changed and Ableton no longer knows where to find the files. There is no way what you did should have deleted anything.

First, do a search for your files by name in Windows. I am 99% certain you'll find the files. You need to be careful that files retrieved from the recycle bin don't overwrite newer files.

If not, Live saves project information in the Applications file in the root of the Documents and Settings folder. These files should contain the last state of each project. Live uses these files when it crashes.

Please let me know what you find out.

[richiebee]

Have you tried re-starting your computer?

[whomper]

if they are greyed out they should be there somewhere
make sure your windoze options show all files and extensions
then search for *.ext for whatever extension you had on the ableton project files

[Cailyn]

All Ableton sets are saved as *.als

[gemini]

Thank you all for your replies. Lets see, i tried shutting down and restarting several times over at the start. No luck there. Unfortunately i cannot locate the files in the ableton folder in My Documents either which is kind of worrying.

When i do a file search for .als (including non-indexed) i get a load of crash files, about 30 or something. Could these be my projects? Any searches for the file names themselves, with or without the extention, show nothing!

[Cailyn]

I am guessing your projects in some form are in those crash files. You will have to open each file and see what they contain and if they are your projects, save them with the correct file names. They won't be the most recent saved versions but they should be close.

I strongly advise that you save to a USB memory stick daily (at least the .als files). I also save to an external drive daily (including all sample files). This takes a few minutes but will help you avoid nightmares like this.

Good luck!

[gemini]

hmm..

Yes the crash files are my project files. The problem is that only the midi seems to survive in them. The audio tracks all have 'sample offline' written in them. Does anyone know if this is permanent? Is there some way for me to recover the audio as in all honesty, that’s the stuff that was most valuable to me.

I only wish i knew what caused this.

Thanks.

[Cailyn]

You now need to find your samples. They should be in the Ableton directory that resides in the My Documents folder. It depends how you saved your projects. If they were simply saved to Ableton, they should be in the Library folder called Samples, subdirectory Recorded.

Live has a utility to recover missing samples. Rename your projects and put them in the Ableton directory. BACK THEM UP. Open the browser window on the left #2 which should show your projects in a file tree. Right click on any project and click Manage Project. This will open a window on the right which will help you manage and locate the missing samples. This may be very time consuming, especially if you have generic sample names like audio1-1.wav. You will need to repeat the process for each song or project.

Good luck! Msg me if you need more specific help.

[gemini]

Yippee!!

Thanks Cailyn you've been really helpful

I was able to find the missing samples from within Live's file browser. It's gonna take a long time to get everything renamed and put back together but I'm really happy that everything's still there.

It's all pretty bizarre though; the only thing I've done in Live recently was install a couple new Vsts... I'm gonna take this as an early warning of what can happen if you don't back up files. I'm gonna get a dedicated USB drive or SD card tomorrow.

Thanks again!!