Known Issues
This page documents known bugs and rough edges in Producer Pal.
Looking for what Producer Pal can't do?
Automation and clip envelopes, VST/AU plug-in internals, audio analysis and synthesis, drum pitch maps, and lengthening looped arrangement clips are Limitations — design boundaries rather than bugs, so they aren't listed here.
Undo/Redo Behavior
Live groups all Live API changes into a single undo step until you interact with Live's UI (clicking, typing, etc.). So if you make multiple requests to Producer Pal without clicking in Live between them, Cmd+Z / Ctrl+Z may undo everything at once. On the other hand, heavier operations can get split across multiple undo steps, so you might need to press undo several times.
This comes from Live's own undo model as exposed through the Live API, not a Max for Live limitation specific to Producer Pal.
Workaround: Save your Live Set before big changes. Click somewhere in Live's UI between requests if you want separate undo steps.
Recent Project Context Can Be Lost on a Device Upgrade (Pre-2.1.0 Devices)
Your project context lives inside the Producer Pal device, so it travels with your Live Set. A newer .amxd starts as a fresh, empty device, so an upgrade used to lose it. Version 2.1.0 fixes that with a backup: Producer Pal Project Context.md, saved in your Live Project folder — one file, shared by every Set in it. It restores automatically the first time the AI uses a tool after upgrading.
Upgrading from a device older than 2.1.0 has nothing to restore from — those devices never wrote the backup. Copy the context out of the old device before you replace it.
The backup is (re)written whenever the context changes through a Producer Pal tool call, a chat, or an edit in the device or Chat UI. From 2.1.0 on, one narrow sequence can still leave the newest context un-backed-up:
- Change the project context,
- save the Set for the first time, or Save As to a new project folder, then
- later replace the device with a newer version — with no Producer Pal activity in between.
The backup lives in the project's folder, and it's that first save which establishes the folder. A Max for Live device has no reliable way to know when the Live Set is saved, so Producer Pal can only write the backup while it's already doing something — a tool call, chat, or context edit. If nothing touches the context after that first save, no backup has been written there yet.
To be safe: after saving and before upgrading, use Producer Pal once — any chat, tool call, or context edit writes the backup.
Right after an upgrade, the context box looks empty. The restore runs the first time the AI uses a tool, so until you start a chat there's nothing in it yet. Start the chat and your notes come back. Typing into the empty box before then keeps what you type, but leaves the backup alone until the next time you load the device.
If context does go missing after an upgrade: copy it out of the old device before removing it, or open one of Live's automatic project backups (Live keeps several).
Claude Desktop Caches Tool Definitions
If you change a setting that rewrites the tool definitions — small model mode or the notation — in the Max for Live device while Claude Desktop is running, Claude Desktop will continue using the previously cached definitions. For example, if you launch Claude Desktop with small model mode enabled and then disable it, Claude Desktop will remain stuck in small model mode; switch the notation to Stark and it will keep writing bar|beat.
Workaround: Either fully quit Claude Desktop (not just close the window) and relaunch it, or go to Settings → Extensions → Producer Pal → Configure and toggle the "Enabled" switch off and on.
npx Fails Inside the Source Repository
This one only affects people working from a clone of the source repository. A normal install is unaffected.
If your AI tool runs npx -y producer-pal with its working directory set to the repository, npx finds the local package.json — also named producer-pal, but with no command for npx to run — and stops there instead of fetching the published package. It exits right away with could not determine executable to run, so the AI reports that the MCP server closed the connection during startup.
Workaround: run your AI tool from a folder outside the repository, or point the MCP server's working directory somewhere else. Every tool configures that differently, so consult your AI tool's MCP documentation.
If you encounter additional issues, check the list of open issues to see if it's already been reported. If not, file a new issue.