i think that happens when you recently saved a new version to disk.

Whether I modified the patch or not, until I close the patch, the device is not usable in Ableton.

Closing the patch means losing the zoom, the size of the window, the side bar content and so on. This drasticaly slows down the development cycle.

i am not sure how it could be releated anyway. but i am vaguely guessing that you could solve it by either crossgrading to max4live - or by always working on a copy, so that you dont open the same document with two different programs.

some of the max-releated consequences could also be fixed using [thispatcher]

I'm already using max4live so i don't understand the solution.

I'm finding it difficult to believe i'm the only one facing that issue.

Loosing an IDE window configuration each time you want to test your code is very time consuming

I found a partial solution by opening a non embedded max msp instance that I downloaded on the cycling74 website.

When I hit "ctrl + s" on this instance, the device is instantly reloaded and usable in ableton.

The only issue is that parameters are not linked, meaning that when I move a dial in ableton using my Midi controller, the dial does not move in max msp.

It's a better solution because I'm not loosing all the IDE configuration (zoom level, opened windows, etc..) each time I want to try the device.

But now I must save before I can use the midi controller.

Not sure, but it sounds like you might be running into the issues discussed in the Max for Live documentation about Preview Mode.

Can your hardware actually handle this?

Thanks for pointing this I did not know about preview mode. I will test disabling it. But from what I could quickly read it seems the most stable, convenient and deterministic way to develop a device while being able to test it is by having a separate standalone max msp instance opened.

I don't understand the question :)