Live 3 screen randomly stops working for 3 minutes

Anyone else experienced their touch screen randomly not working for around 3 minutes?

I copped a Live 3 the day it came out. I love it, it’s been incredibly useful for the last week.

However, the last 3 days, the touch screen will just randomly decide to stop working periodically. Everything else works fine– buttons, knobs, monitoring any instrument I have plugged in, transport plays and stops the sequence, audio’s fine, etc.– but the screen just stops working. It’s about 3 minutes of not registering any touch, and then it goes back to working fine. I didn’t time it every time it happened, but it seems to be right around 3 minutes every time it happens.

Weirdly, I took out the SD card that I switched to the Live 3 from my Live 1, and I haven’t experienced it in the few hours since then. Although it did happen once or twice before, it got way worse after I put it in.

Come to think of it, the issue actually started after manually putting some older expansions on the Live 3’s internal SSD via USB-C. Maybe something in those is messing with it? There’s a few duplicates of those expansions on the card too, so I wonder if that’s why the issue got worse with the card inserted.

Never had the issue on my Live 1 with those expansions, not sure exactly what about an expansion would mess with the screen. Gonna remove those expansions and see if that fixes the issue.

An expansion is ultimately a folder of wav files and XPM files (and other MPC files), plus an image and a little text file. The only issue I've heard regarding expansions is when some vendors decided to be smart arses and used huge animated PNG files for their expansion images; the MPC pre-loads all the expansion images into memory and this was wiping out memory on the older units.

I'd keep that SD out and any other peripheral for the time being, see if the problem stops. Then re-introduce one peripheral at a time.

Reset preferences as well. Then open a ticket with Akai for support if the freezing returns.

MPC-Tutor wrote:An expansion is ultimately a folder of wav files and XPM files (and other MPC files), plus an image and a little text file. The only issue I've heard regarding expansions is when some vendors decided to be smart arses and used huge animated PNG files for their expansion images; the MPC pre-loads all the expansion images into memory and this was wiping out memory on the older units.

I'd keep that SD out and any other peripheral for the time being, see if the problem stops. Then re-introduce one peripheral at a time.

Reset preferences as well. Then open a ticket with Akai for support if the freezing returns.

Thank you for the response and the info!

Already opened a ticket, that was before I made the connection to the SD card and expansions (and thus this post). No problems since taking the SD card out this morning. I’ll back up my files and do a reset.

One thing I just realized: I didn’t just put the older expansions ‘standalone’ folders on the drive, I included all the folders/files for the desktop software. Aside from taking up extra space, is there any differences that could cause problems by having them in a standalone box?

There are known issues when you have SD cards installed AND using any of the usb ports. Sounds like they didn’t fix that with the Live3

Kamera2K wrote:I made the connection to the SD card and expansions (and thus this post). No problems since taking the SD card out this morning. I’ll back up my files and do a reset.

If the issue is not occuring when you have the SD Card out, then the issue is with either your SD Card or data that is stored on it. Are you software ejecting your SD cards before pulling them out? It's possible you corrupted the SD card...

Kamera2K wrote:One thing I just realized: I didn’t just put the older expansions ‘standalone’ folders on the drive, I included all the folders/files for the desktop software.

Why would you do this???! There is literally no useful purpose for this. Delete all of that.

EnochLight wrote:

Kamera2K wrote:I made the connection to the SD card and expansions (and thus this post). No problems since taking the SD card out this morning. I’ll back up my files and do a reset.

If the issue is not occuring when you have the SD Card out, then the issue is with either your SD Card or data that is stored on it. Are you software ejecting your SD cards before pulling them out? It's possible you corrupted the SD card...

Kamera2K wrote:One thing I just realized: I didn’t just put the older expansions ‘standalone’ folders on the drive, I included all the folders/files for the desktop software.

Why would you do this???! There is literally no useful purpose for this. Delete all of that.

Yeah, I always eject my SD cards. Like I said the card has no problems whatsoever on my Live 1.

And I just did that by mistake– the expansions come with the standalone versions as well as the software versions, when I dragged the folders to the card, I accidentally dragged the main download folder that includes both the standalone folders and the software folders. Definitely gonna be fixing that though!

Interesting... so, having an SD card may cause unresponsive screen??
(but everything else works - pads, buttons, knobs, sounds, monitoring, etc.)

I just got an X SE... and its' screen becomes unresponsive almost every time I start it and use it (always have to force reboot).

But, in Controller mode (still SD card in it for root saving/loading; but cache is using desktop), it happens less... if it does happen in Controller mode, it becomes responsive again after a little wait (unlike Standalone mode; it doesn't become responsive again even after +5-10 minutes and needs a force reboot).

fooddude wrote:Interesting... so, having an SD card may cause unresponsive screen??
(but everything else works - pads, buttons, knobs, sounds, monitoring, etc.)

I just got an X SE... and its' screen becomes unresponsive almost every time I start it and use it (always have to force reboot).

But, in Controller mode (still SD card in it for root saving/loading; but cache is using desktop), it happens less... if it does happen in Controller mode, it becomes responsive again after a little wait (unlike Standalone mode; it doesn't become responsive again even after +5-10 minutes and needs a force reboot).

Uh, if i were you I'd be giving that thing back to whoever or wherever I got it from. Did you buy it like that?

Might be a good idea to factory reset it too

SD card is toast. not uncommon. the MPC seems to trash them pretty hard. I had one melt in the SD slot lol. micro sd doesnt dispurse the heat well, i recommend full size SD cards.

either the sd is dying, or the file system on it has corrupted. wipe the sd, reformat it to fat32 or vfat.

Input / output is failing.

when i put in the ssd, noticed the spac there was reeaalllllyyy tight compared to the retro live 2, xse, key 61. i read on reddit that some experienced issues with their instrument after installing the ssd. its possible you may have pulled something or something is being physically stressed with the pressure of the ssd card.

marctronixx wrote:when i put in the ssd, noticed the spac there was reeaalllllyyy tight compared to the retro live 2, xse, key 61. i read on reddit that some experienced issues with their instrument after installing the ssd. its possible you may have pulled something or something is being physically stressed with the pressure of the ssd card.

My issue is with the SD card that goes in the slot in the back, but I saw and responded in that Reddit thread too. I wonder if the Live 3 has an issue with external storage that comes straight from an older unit without any formatting.

Kamera2K wrote:Uh, if i were you I'd be giving that thing back to whoever or wherever I got it from. Did you buy it like that?

Might be a good idea to factory reset it too

Ultros wrote:SD card is toast. not uncommon. the MPC seems to trash them pretty hard. I had one melt in the SD slot lol. micro sd doesnt dispurse the heat well, i recommend full size SD cards.

either the sd is dying, or the file system on it has corrupted. wipe the sd, reformat it to fat32 or vfat.

Input / output is failing.

It's a like-new refurb direct from InMusic w/ mfg warranty.
They state it's been professionally inspected & tested during refurb.

I can easily return/exchange it (4 month return window iirc); but, I really love its' new condition and it's kinda a hassle to re-pack it and ship it out again.
More so, kinda worried any new exchanged unit I get might not be in as like-new condition as this one I have right now.

It's super mint and looks new (I OCD inspected it, wiped down every square inch for 2 hours when I got it lol... not a single blemish/scratch/scuff. Zero wear/burnishing on pads, buttons, etc.


Now I have a feeling it might be the current SD card in it - a cheapy/budget Transcend SDXC 512gb, supposedly C10 U3 V30, etc. (no mention of mb/s on actual card). Got it (for the S2400) cuz it was super cheap for a 512gb card.

I was thinking about it yesterday... I've been having trouble w/ this Transcend card before too, when it was in my ex-S2400 (sometimes, file-text was garbled, hieroglyphics whenever browsing files & samples).
This card also sometimes had problems (super slower than normal) when transferring lots of samples/folders onto it in the past.

I have a couple better quality (but smaller capacity) SD cards (that I've never had problems with) that I'll format and test out in my X SE soon - SanDisk Extreme Plus SDXC 128gb & 256gb, C10 U3 V30, 150mb/s.

Crossing my fingers that fixes the problem!

If not... I'll try with no SD card at all, or maybe try getting an internal SSD instead of using an SDXC card.

Putting a cheap/low quality card in a any MPC/Force, esp a new L3 should get you arrested!
The card store the actual data of everything you got the machine for.
It's like putting a cheap brain in your head.

Tried the better SanDisk... same problem.

Seems to be getting worse now and becomes unresponsive right at Demo/NewProject screen (instead of randomly or in the middle of using it).

So, force reboot... ejected SD card to see if no SD card at all will help it... still unresponsive right at boot up.

I can't even get past the "New Project" screen (since I can't use touchscreen); and, now (since I've been force rebooting it), I can't hit "OK" on the screen "MPC Restart - Your MPC was not properly shut down the last time you used it. Please power down correctly to avoid data loss."

Touchscreen is totally unresponsive now and I can't use machine.

I've tried force-reboot 5x with same problem and can't exit/OK on the screen "MPC Restart - Your MPC was not properly shut down..."

I'll just send it back.

Is this problem common for modern MPCs? (this is my very first modern MPC).

Started working again (after +8 force reboots). Now imma see if this SanDisk works better.

N/m... it's unresponsive again, lol.