Upgrade from 2.x to 3.x failing

Support
1

Describe your issue here:

I just upgraded from 2.8.0-beta.1 to version 3.1.4. When loading my Ableton project, I repeatedly get an error notification (script restarted), and the Ableset client never resolves (loading spinner). I tried emailing directly, but my email was rejected by your servers because I attached the debug log zip file that Ableset created.

Steps taken:

  1. Downloaded update from changelog page and installed manually (trying to use the in-app update button failed)

  2. Restarted computer

  3. Loaded app - no errors

  4. Started Ableton - no errors

  5. Loaded my regular project that uses Ableset - immediate errors

  6. Reboot computer and tried again - same result

  7. Clicked the “Add Ableset Plugin to Ableton” button and installed into my user folder.

  8. Rebooted computer and tried again - same result

  9. In Ableton settings, changed from “Ableset” to “None” in settings, and then re-selected - same result

  10. Rebooted computer and tried again - same result

I’m not sure if this is because the remote midi script is still using the old version, or clicking “Add Ableset Plugin” didn’t actually replace the old version cleanly?

Any help on this so that I can get up and running before my next show would be greatly appreciated.

P.S. - as a side note, your app system tray error notifications show up on top of the Ableset taskbar window and the system tray hidden taskbar icons menu, making it almost impossible to open the Ableset task, and/or click on things towards the bottom of the menu, like ‘Create Log Package’. Making the Ableset task window moveable or making the menu stay open instead of auto-closing, or making the system notification auto-close would help (clicking dismiss on the system notification also closes the Ableset menu because it loses focus).

Please fill out these values to make it easier to troubleshoot:

  • OS and Version: Windows 11 (latest: 10.0.26200 Build 26200)
  • Version of AbleSet: 3.1.4
  • Version of Ableton Live: 12.2.7
2

Hey @Bhammer,

Sorry about the email bounce. Our mail server rejects zip attachments, so the log package needs to go through AbleSet’s support inbox instead. Feel free to upload the one you already created.

Let’s try a proper clean pass rather than installing on top of the previous version:

  1. Quit Ableton Live and quit AbleSet from the icon tray.
  2. Check Task Manager for any leftover AbleSet process. If you still have AbleSet 2 installed, uninstall it.
  3. Go to Documents\Ableton\User Library\Remote Scripts\ and delete any AbleSet folder in there (there may be a leftover one from 2.x). This will get recreated by the installer later.
  4. Reinstall AbleSet 3.1.4, open it, and use the icon tray → gear icon → “Add AbleSet Plugin to Ableton” as shown in the official tutorial.
  5. Restart Live and re-select AbleSet as the Control Surface as you previously did, in Preferences → Link/Tempo/MIDI.

Let me know if the issue persists after this and we’ll take it from there.

And thanks for the note about the notifications covering the tray menu, I’ll pass it along!

I’m looking forward to your reply!

3

Hi, thanks for the quick reply. I deleted the existing remote script, and re-installed 3.1.4. (The windows app manager only showed 3.1.4, not the old 2.x version, so I didn’t uninstall anything). After re-installing, I loaded up my ableton project again and got the same script error. Should I try uninstalling 3.1.4 from the app manager, and then repeat the process? I just uploaded a log package to your support inbox as you suggested. Thank you for your help!

4

Hey @Bhammer,

Could you create a brand new, empty Live project (File → New, add a single locator so AbleSet has something to read, save it anywhere), and load that with AbleSet running?

If the empty project loads fine, the problem may be in your project’s AbleSet data. If it also fails, there’s something else going on and we’ll dig further from the logs.

Let me know how the empty project test goes in the meantime.

I’m looking forward to your reply!

5

Hi, adding markers to a new empty project works fine both before saving, and after saving and reloading. I can also upload the project file itself to the support inbox if the log files aren’t sufficient. Thanks!

6

Hey @Bhammer,

That confirms it’s not the install, it’s something in your project’s AbleSet data. Let’s try clearing it out step by step:

  1. Close Ableton Live (and quit AbleSet from the icon tray, just to be safe).
  2. Open your project folder and go into the AbleSet subfolder.
  3. Delete the Project File Cache folder inside it. This is safe — it’s just parsed project data (locators, clips, tempo, etc.) and AbleSet rebuilds it automatically on the next load.
  4. Reopen your project in Live and see if it loads correctly now.

If the error still shows up after that:

  1. Close Live and AbleSet again.
  2. This time, rename the entire AbleSet folder (not just Project File Cache) to something like AbleSet_old.
  3. Reopen your project. AbleSet will create a brand new AbleSet folder from scratch.

Nothing gets lost with this, as your setlists, canvases, and settings are all still sitting safely in AbleSet_old, so once you confirm the project loads cleanly, you can go back and copy specific files over (like your setlist or canvases) without bringing over whatever’s causing the error.

Let me know how it goes after step 1 first before jumping to the full folder rename.

I’m looking forward to your reply!

7

Hi, I performed the first suggestion, with no changes. Just a side-note: I looked at the other folders and files in the AbleSet sub-folder, and it looks like it is all defaults and templates… I don’t think I have made any custom settings, scripts, css, etc. Here is the error message along with the first few lines of the debug stream: “User Script Was Restarted
One of the user scripts took too long to respond and was restarted.”

[debug-logs]
Enabled log streaming
[index]
Main thread is being blocked
{“delta”:950}
[ableton-js]
Command took longer than expected
{“command”:{“ns”:“clip”,“nsid”:“live_3276761168”,“name”:“add_listener”,“args”:{“prop”:“color_index”,“nsid”:“live_3276761168”,“eventId”:“b747afe0-1ed0-4f88-bcf3-ad0316c328ca”}},“duration”:2179}
[ableton-js]
Command took longer than expected
{“command”:{“ns”:“clip”,“nsid”:“live_3276761368”,“name”:“add_listener”,“args”:{“prop”:“color_index”,“nsid”:“live_3276761368”,“eventId”:“7d44a0b9-cdff-4759-96bd-7119cd674933”}},“duration”:2224}
[ableton-js]
Command took longer than expected
{“command”:{“ns”:“clip”,“nsid”:“live_3276761568”,“name”:“add_listener”,“args”:{“prop”:“color_index”,“nsid”:“live_3276761568”,“eventId”:“35d070c6-505a-4fea-b920-35e5fa68277b”}},“duration”:2307}

Those are at the top of the stream. After the first script runner restart, the rest of the hundreds of logs show the prop as “end_time”:

[ableton-js]
Command took longer than expected
{“command”:{“ns”:“clip”,“nsid”:“live_3488284952”,“name”:“add_listener”,“args”:{“prop”:“end_time”,“nsid”:“live_3488284952”,“eventId”:“509351f1-3891-4896-b6a0-f7f6e1bbefcb”}},“duration”:2610}
[ableton-js]
Command took longer than expected
{“command”:{“ns”:“clip”,“nsid”:“live_3488285152”,“name”:“add_listener”,“args”:{“prop”:“end_time”,“nsid”:“live_3488285152”,“eventId”:“5bc0bafe-1059-4994-9ae3-89fe1af2fafa”}},“duration”:2610}
[ableton-js]
Command took longer than expected
{“command”:{“ns”:“clip”,“nsid”:“live_3488285352”,“name”:“add_listener”,“args”:{“prop”:“end_time”,“nsid”:“live_3488285352”,“eventId”:“22725d63-7627-4843-9978-d41a12080535”}},“duration”:2610}

8

Update: I tried renaming the entire AbleSet folder… no change in behavior.

Further tests:

  1. Removed all track flags: no script errors. Song list loads. Started adding track flags back in based on least amount of clip events.

  2. Added ONLY Sections track back in: script errors. Eventually settle and sections show in client. (still some ‘Main thread’ errors in debug.

  3. Added ONLY Measures track back in: script errors. Eventually settle and measures show in client (still some ‘Main thread’ errors in debug.

  4. Added ONLY Drums +Lyrics back in: same behavior as above.

  5. Added all of the above back in. Many scripting errors… occasionally a ‘zoom-level’ warning during playback (even after adjusting the zoom level)… eventually settles after a long time. Still lots of debug errors and jitter.

  6. Save and close with above flags enabled. Upon restarting, the whole sequence of errors starts again.

9

Hey @Bhammer, thank you for your elaborate report!

I was able to reproduce the issue on my end and found that it has to do with the number of clips on your Sections/Lyrics tracks. Currently, you have about 62000 clips in these tracks, and each of these has a bunch of properties that need to be watched, e.g. their names, positions, colors, muted states, etc.

This resulted in more than 300000 requests to Live in addition to the other requests for locators and other values which took a long time to process and was the reason for the lag. On AbleSet 2.8, some of these requests were silently dropped which might be why everything seemed to load as expected, but some updates to clips wouldn’t have been noticed by AbleSet because of that.

I’m currently working on optimizing this and will let you know once a new version is available for you to test :slight_smile:

10

Thank you Leo! I will double check my als project to see if there is some better way of optimizing the number of clips I use (There are about 175 songs in this project). I have a couple of questions in the meantime:

  1. To revert back to the 2.8.0-beta, which is the last stable version for my project, do I simply uninstall 3.1.4 and re-install the old beta so that I can continue to use Ableset in my upcoming shows? Do I need to delete the Ableset folder inside the Ableton project before reinstalling 2.8.0-beta?

  2. Does Ableset process all clips in the project regardless of whether their track is flagged for use in Ableset? I’m wondering because when I removed all of the flags except for one track at a time, I believe the debug stream mentioned about 625 clips being processed, but it still resulted in the scripting errors (less of them, but still there). If so, I should look at all of my tracks in the project to see if there are other areas in which I can combine clips or remove redundant “safety” triggers (program changes, etc.)

11

That’s correct, you can just uninstall 3.x and re-install the 2.x beta that worked. The AbleSet folder can stay in your project, 2.8.0 doesn’t access it.

AbleSet only processes clips that are relevant for the set, which includes +LYRICS, +OSC, Measures, and Sections tracks. Other clips aren’t processed to keep performance high.

I hope this helps! :slight_smile:

12

Thanks! I’ll revert back to the old version for my upcoming performances, and look forward to trying 3.x again soon :blush: