Hi,what does it mean if a folder is orange in mediabay left panel? thanks

 

The scanning status for the individual folders in the Browser section is indicated by the color of the icons:

• A red icon means that this folder is currently being scanned.
• A light grey icon means this folder has been scanned.
• Orange folder icons are displayed when a scanning process was interrupted.
• Yellow icons are displayed for folders that have not been scanned.
• If “Stop scanning folders when closing MediaBay” is activated in the Preferences dialog (MediaBay page), Cubase Essential will scan for media files only when the MediaBay window is open. When this is deactivated, the folders will be scanned in background, even when the MediaBay window is closed. Even if scanning in background is activated, Cubase Essential will not scan folders while playing back or recording

Source: https://images.thomann.de/pics/prod/235163_manual.pdf

 

thanks. i have "scan folders only when mediabay is open" ticked
i am having to right click on folders and selecting rescan disk to get media bay to scan
why does it not just scan everything?

i have mediabay open b.t.w.

 

why does it not keep scanning when i have the mediabay open?

 

I suspect you have subfolders; you should check if that's the case and then change them.

 

there are subfolders inside specific sample packs,but what it scans those subfolders it stops.
i.e doesnt move on to the next folder

 

Typical Causes & Solutions (usually, option 1 or 2 helps)

Manually uncheck subfolders

Go to the affected sample pack folder in the MediaBay
Expand all subfolders (arrow on the left)
Check if any subfolders have a missing or grayed-out checkmark
Explicitly check all relevant subfolders (even deeply nested ones)
→ The scan should then continue, and the folder should eventually turn white (if everything is truly included)
Right-click → Enable "Include Subfolders"
Often, this isn't enabled by default for all levels in larger sample packs.
Right-click on the main folder → Select "Include Subfolders" (or similar, depending on your Cubase version) and repeat if necessary.

Locate the Problem Folder
If the scan always stops after a specific subfolder:
Right-click on that subfolder → uncheck the box
Exclude the folder completely from the scan
→ If the rest then turns white, that's where the problem lies (e.g., corrupted file, special characters in the name, too many files, hidden .DS_Store files, symbolic links, permission issues)

Drastic steps if nothing else works (very often successful with persistent hangs):

Delete the MediaBay database:
Go to ~/Library/Preferences/ (or in the program folder) and delete mediabay3.db, MediaDefaults.xml, and mediaOffline3.db (Cubase must be closed)
Restart Cubase → re-check all sample folders
Alternatively: Start Cubase in Safe Mode (Help → Safe Mode) and test
In short: Orange = "Scan complete, but not everything is included."
You almost always have to manually delve deeper into the subfolder structure and check all the boxes – which is unfortunately a typical annoyance with large sample packs in Cubase.

 

Common Causes (very typical with sample packs)

1. Problematic Subfolder
Often found in sample packs:
.DS_Store (macOS)
Very long folder or file names
Special characters (ä ö ü ß & % #)
Empty folders
Corrupted WAV/AIFF files
➡️ Test
Open the sample pack in Finder/Explorer
Try renaming the subfolders or temporarily moving them out of the folder.
Then rescan MediaBay.

 

thanks i shall look into it

 

That's really worth read steps for me too!

 

Being a PC user and also not using Ableton, I have a little batch file on each drive with the following commands.

del /s /q /f /a .DS_Store
del /s /q /f /a DS_Store
del /s /q /f /a ._.*
del /s /q /f /a Icon_
del /s /q /f /a *.asd

This gets rid of any Apple or Ableton temp files on my file system, its saved me loads of room over the years. Simply copy the text above into wordpad and save the file as a bat file.... Then run it. If Ableton user just remove the .asd line.