Resetting Live's Database

Resetting the Live Database may help resolve the following issues and errors.

  • Live’s Browser is missing content (Audio effects, Instruments, etc.)
  • Live's Collections is not working as intended (ranking, favorites, etc.)
  • "Can't access file database: Database Error: Disk I/O error"
  • "Database disk image is malformed"
  • “Database Error: no such rowid”
  • “Database Error: Live has detected an internal error which will cause the browser to not work properly. Please restart Live in order to repair it.”
  • "Database Error. SQL logic error or missing database"

Note: Please follow all recommended troubleshooting steps related to the specific issue, before proceeding to reset the Database.

To reset the Live Database:

  1. Close Live.
  2. Navigate to the Database folder, located on your computer at the path listed below. To reveal this folder, follow the steps on to access hidden folders on your operating system.

    Live 12, 11 and 10

    Windows: \Users\[username]\AppData\Local\Ableton\Live Database\
    macOS: /Users/[username]/Library/Application Support/Ableton/Live Database/

    Live 9

    Windows: \Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming\Ableton\Live 9.x.x\Database\
    macOS: /Users/[username]/Library/Application Support/Ableton/Live 9.x.x/Database/

  3. Delete the content in the folder, leaving the folder itself in place.
  4. Restart Live.

At this point, Live will need to re-index all the content in the Browser. As this operation progresses, the contents of Live's Browser will begin to appear in their respective categories. This includes the content you have saved to Collections.

Ableton offers these in-depth help and learning resources: