This refers to services such as Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive and iCloud.
In general, cloud based storage & syncing services - can cause problems with FL Studio if not configured properly. If the cloud storage system accesses the files to back them up at the same time as FL Studio is using them, you may experience crashes and other issues (see the list below).
Please always disable cloud services for any folders FL Studio is installed in, or needs access to.
For information on how to use cloud services alongside FL Studio, skip to the end of this article.
Crashes such as “Exception: Unable to open file” or “File not found”. Can be anything though. Read more about crashes here
Getting a “Critical error” message while opening a plugin
Multiple copies of the same plugin in plugin database
Missing FLEX packs that constantly require re-installing
Missing audio recordings in projects
Note that the issues mentioned can occur because of something completely unrelated. When in doubt, contact Technical Support (Win) / Technical Support (macOS).
Make sure the following locations are not backed up by any cloud service and that your projects and samples are located on a hard disk:
NOTE: If you are not aware of any cloud service on your system, OneDrive may sometimes be installed during a Windows update. See instructions for disabling OneDrive here.
If you are noticing files are greyed out and you can't load them in FL Studio, it could be related to file permissions - See here. If this is OK proceed below...
Make sure the following locations are not backed up by any cloud service and that your projects and samples are located on a hard disk:
Examples: Your consolidated and recorded tracks could go missing after a while, since they are stored in:
/Users/(Your Username)/Documents/Image-Line/FL Studio/Audio/Recorded
/Users/(Your Username)/Documents/Image-Line/FL Studio/Audio/Rendered
/Users/(Your Username)/Documents/Image-Line/FL Studio/Audio/Sliced audio
To pause and resume syncing, see here.
If you lose files from your hard drive after disabling iCloud, please log in at icloud.com to find and move them back in place.
See instructions for excluding the FL Studio User Data Folder from OneDrive here.
FL Studio will create local backups of projects automatically, if you haven’t disabled the feature. This is a good strategy for short term backups, but many prefer to store important files somewhere outside of their physical computer. This section covers the case of not wanting to disable a cloud service altogether.
By default projects, plugin presets and audio recordings are stored in the user data folder ([User]\Documents\Image-Line). Sample locations can be set manually in Options > File Settings (see here). These are usually the most important locations for valuable data.
Here are some tips for backing up your data successfully:
Make sure none of the folders FL Studio needs access to are directly backed by the cloud service (Documents, Desktop, Applications, Plugin search paths, Browser search paths)
Rather than backing up a folder directly, copy the data from it into a separate cloud backed folder. This can be automated and scheduled by using a third party syncing application such as FreeFileSync. Some cloud services may offer this as a standard feature. Follow this procedure for any folders FL Studio needs access to during runtime.
The backed up folder should be used for automated saving of copies only, while continuing to use the initial file locations for opening, saving and adding new files. For example, you would still continue saving your projects to the same default location as before. The changes you have made to the original folders are then reflected into the backed up folder later.
Select what kind of method you want to use for creating the copies. For example, you can choose changed files to be overwritten, or create new copies each time. The latter will require more storage space.
You can set the files to be moved into the backed up folder at regular time intervals, such as daily. To ensure files are copied successfully, you can select times when you are unlikely to be using FL Studio. This is because while the suggested method should not affect FL Studio, certain files may fail to be copied during runtime, leading to an incomplete backup.
If you wish to recover something, you can either copy it from the backed up folder, or download the file from the cloud service on the internet. Next, add it back to the local folder (the real project or sample location) before attempting to access it with FL Studio.
Image-Line Support team