If you encounter the following diagnostic message when launching the Liquid Music or Liquid Rhythm Max for Live plugin in Ableton, here are some steps to diagnose and solve the issue.
Diagnostic Message:
LRCAO4: Liquid Rhythm M4L patch requires Ableton Live to be restarted to continue.
(It’s not you, it’s me)
If you launch the Liquid Music or Liquid Rhythm Max for Live plugin after launching the Liquid Music VST / AU or Liquid Rhythm VST / AU, the Max for Live plugin will fail. The technical reason is the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) created by the VST / AU plugins is not simultaneously compatible with the JVM created by the Max for Live plugin. We can only have a single type at a time. The development team is investigating how to resolve this in the future, but it is a current limitation.
If you haven't loaded the VST / AU plugins, don't overlook this step. It is possible that the VST / AU plugins can launch their JVM without your explicit knowledge in two scenarios:
- If Ableton decides to ‘scan’ the plugin folder: If the Liquid Music or Liquid Rhythm VST / AU is in the plugin folder, the JVM for the VST / AU may start up when the folder is scanned. This plugin folder scan occurs after you install new plugins into that folder, or if you force a scan by pressing the “Rescan Plugins” button in Live's Preferences window (under ’Plug-Ins’->Plugin Sources in Live 10+, or under ’File Folders’->Plugin Source in Live 9).
- Loading an Ableton Live Set (ie, project file) that contains the Liquid Music VST / AU: It is possible you have set the default project file to contain the Liquid Music VST / AU.
Once the JVM associated with the VST / AU plugin is activated, the only way to get rid of it is by restarting Ableton. For the time being, you might want to experiment with which type of workflow is best for you, and then try to stick that mode of operation.
If you are running Liquid Music 1.7.0 or earlier, and can ensure that the Liquid Music VSTs have not been launched, though you are still getting this error, you may have a Java configuration problem. Liquid Music 1.8.0 + Liquid Rhythm 1.8.0 use embedded Azul Java JDK 1.8 for all plugin types, isolated from any system Java, and thus no longer suffer from the following issue.
Initial Diagnostic Steps:
- Right click on the title bar of the Liquid Music Max for Live device, and choose Open Max Window:
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- This will show a Max console window where diagnostics messages are written by MaxMSP. You might need to scroll through this window, and you are looking for any lines that are red. They will likely appear near the beginning of the console output. Look for the line ‘Unable to create JVM’:
- Next we need to determine whether the version of Ableton you have installed is either 32-bit or 64-bit. This is needed to determine whether we have the same version of Java on the system to run Liquid Music / Liquid Rhythm. The Ableton Live 9 splash screen will display this information, but you can also access it through the About window in Ableton Live.
- The Liquid Music / Liquid Rhythm Max for Live plugins are available for Ableton Live 9 and above only. Previous versions (Live 8 and earlier) are not Max for Live compatible with Liquid Music / Liquid Rhythm. (You can still run Liquid Music / Liquid Rhythm via VST / AU).
- The bit-architecture of Ableton Live and Max. We recommend that you be running the latest 64-bit version of both Ableton and Max, and then to ensure you have the latest 64-bit version of Java installed on your machine.
How to solve this problem
The most likely scenario is that the problem has to do with the version of Java being used on your machine. It is possible you are missing the correct architecture for Java, or that the version itself (of Java) is incompatible with the latest version of Liquid Music / Liquid Rhythm.
Note as of January 21, 2018: Java 9 is incompatible with Liquid Music 1.7.0 / Liquid Rhythm 1.7.0. If you have Java 9 installed on your computer, Liquid Music 1.7.0 / Liquid Rhythm 1.7.0 will attempt to use it instead of Java 1.8 (Java 8) and you will be unable to launch the Max for Live device. Please remove Java 9 and ensure the latest Java 1.8 JDK is installed on your computer.
The latest Java 1.8 JDK, in its 64-bit configuration, is required for Liquid Music 1.7.0 / Liquid Rhythm 1.7.0 to run as a Max for Live device; it can be found here from Azul:
https://www.azul.com/downloads/?package=jdk
If you are running a 32-bit DAW, you will also require 32-bit Java.
- Windows Users: Also download and install the 32-bit Java 1.8 JDK, from the link provided above.
- Mac Users: Please ensure Apple's legacy Java 1.6 JRE is installed on your machine; it can be found here: https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1572