[Bug]: Ableton Live installer does not see support .cab files

[plusran]

Describe the bug

After launching the ableton live installer, you choose your executable from a folder with that .exe and 3 .cab files. After a moment, the ableton live installer launches and runs until it needs those .cab files. An explorer window opens requesting you to locate them, but while this explorer window shows the .exe file, it does not see the .cab files, regardless of their permissions or location.

To Reproduce

1. launch ableton live installer for Ableton Live 12 Standard (12.0.2_64)
2. choose your executable; note the .cab files are there.
3. wait for the installer to prompt for the .cab files
4. note that the explorer window cannot see or locate the .cab files

Package

Flatpak from Flathub

Distribution

KDE Neon

Debugging Information

Official Package: true
Version: '51.11'
DE/WM: plasma
Display:
    X.org: true
    X.org (port): :99.0
    Wayland: true
Graphics:
    vendors:
        amd:
            vendor: amd
            envs:
                DRI_PRIME: '1'
            icd: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/GL/vulkan/icd.d/radeon_icd.x86_64.json:/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/GL/vulkan/icd.d/radeon_icd.i686.json
    prime:
        integrated: null
        discrete: null
Kernel:
    Type: Linux
    Version: 6.5.0-26-generic
Disk:
    Total: 16771674112
    Free: 16771510272
RAM:
    MemTotal: 31.2GiB
    MemAvailable: 27.4GiB
Bottles_envs: null

Troubleshooting Logs

ableton_live_standard_12.0.2_64$ flatpak run com.usebottles.bottles
12:02:47 (INFO) Bottles Started! 
12:02:49 (INFO) Performing Bottles checks… 
12:02:49 (INFO) Dxvks found:
         - dxvk-2.3.1
 
12:02:49 (INFO) Vkd3ds found:
         - vkd3d-proton-2.12
 
12:02:49 (INFO) Nvapis found:
         - dxvk-nvapi-v0.7.0
 
12:02:49 (INFO) Latencyflexs found:
         - latencyflex-v0.1.1
 
12:02:49 (INFO) Runners found:
         - soda-9.0-1
         - sys-wine-9.0
 
12:02:49 (INFO) Bottles found:
         - Ableton
 
12:02:50 (INFO) Catalog installers loaded 
12:02:50 (INFO) Catalog dependencies loaded 
12:02:50 (INFO) Catalog components loaded 
12:03:05 (INFO) Installing dependencies 
12:03:05 (INFO) Executing installer steps 
12:03:05 (INFO) Launching an executable… 
12:03:05 (INFO) Using EasyAntiCheat runtime 
12:03:05 (INFO) Using BattlEye runtime 
wineserver: using server-side synchronization.
002c:err:wineboot:process_run_key Error running cmd L"C:\\windows\\system32\\winemenubuilder.exe -a -r" (126).

Additional context

I tried moving the .cab to the temp folder showing in the explorer window. I reran the installer after the move, but it still doesn't see the files. I also tried chmod 777 and re-ran the installer, still nothing.

[schobernoise]

I face the same problem!

[mrkaspa]

I tried the same today and had the same issue, idk how to add the cab files

[nienize]

I also suffer from this issue. Haven't been able to find a workaround yet.

[Akton001]

I have gotten Bottles to at least see the .cab files by putting them inside a directory that is inside the bottle's C: Drive. They then appear in the file browser that pops up during the installation wizard. That has gotten me farther in the installation process than before, but not all the way to the end - other issues come up. Still promising.

[daniilpospelov]

@Akton001 could you please specify how you did this? I keep on failing the installation file browser see the .cab files...

[daniilpospelov]

Or doesn't matter anymore, seems to work via Lutris

[Akton001]

I probably won't give a good explanation because I am just a random amateur who doesn't totally understand all this stuff but here goes:

Bottles has some default place in the file system that it uses to create a faux C drive for the little windows subsystem it creates for a Bottle. There is an option in Bottles to specify somewhere yourself where you want that C drive to be created, instead of the default place. I tried to look online to find the default place and just got confused, but if you know here it is, then this step is probably unnecessary. what I did was specify the desktop as the location, so I could easily go inside and browse the C drive just as a folder on my desktop. I then just copied the .cab files from where they were in my Linux Home folder and pasted them into an easy to find directory inside that the C drive folder (i.e. inside what the Bottle will use as the C drive), such as the desktop of the C drive.

Then, when the Ableton installer asks you to specify a directory for the .cab files, navigate to the folder inside the C drive of the windows subsystem instead of the location on your Linux system that they were previously on. For me at least, this allows the Ableton installer to see them and lets it proceed a bit further, but I still encountered fatal errors later on that kept me from finally making it work.

(I was doing all this like a month ago too so my memory is not the best - I will probably try again sometime soon to see if it magically starts working for some reason)

[Akton001]

Oh nice, I will try that with Lutris then. Please report back here if you had to do any workarounds or encounter any other issues. I really want to get this working

[daniilpospelov]

Well, at least it gets installed and launches (Live 12 trial version), but I can't check its full functionality since I have zero experience with Ableton and I'll take a course that starts only in September :)

[ghost]

I managed to successfully install Ableton and resolve the critical installation errors. The main issue was that the bundled C++ redistributable wouldn't install due to Flatpak blocking the installer path, causing a 0x8007065b error. I fixed this by moving the installer to the c_drive directory within the default Bottles location at ~/.var/app/com.usebottles.bottles/data/bottles/bottles/<bottle name>/drive_c. Then I ran the installer through the bottle terminal by navigating to its location within the C: drive

[Skiamakhos]

Then I ran the installer through the bottle terminal by navigating to its location within the C: drive

I managed to do that but now I'm stuck trying to get it to run. When the installer finished it launched OK but there were no menus at the top of the screen. I quit out of it, thinking that running the bottle might launch the app, but no such luck. I've tried navigating to the .exe for the app itself inside the bottle's C:\ drive, but that hangs when starting Max for Live.

[ghost]

I've tried navigating to the .exe for the app itself inside the bottle's C:\ drive, but that hangs when starting Max for Live

I’ve encountered the same issue before, and I found two solutions that worked for me:

• deleting the entire Cycling '74 folder that is located at drive_c/Users/<username>/AppData/Roaming/Cycling '74. This is outlined in this Ableton support article

• the second solution was to disable Max at startup: create an Options.txt file in the directory drive_c/Users/<username>/AppData/Roaming/Ableton/<Live version>/Preferences/ and add the -DontLoadMaxForLiveAtStartup flag, as described in another Ableton support article

A similar issue was discussed on the WineHQ forums: Bug #57109

---

When the installer finished it launched OK but there were no menus at the top of the screen

I’ve been able to reproduce this issue on the recent Live version 12.1.5, but I haven’t found a solution yet. I can confirm that this appears to be a new problem that surfaced in the latest Live updates, because I didn’t experience it the last time I used Live on Linux