What does NTKDaemon service do?

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  • Hayo_NI
    Hayo_NI Product Team Posts: 316 mod

    NTKDaemon staying running was a conscious decision. Our 3.2.0 update, which massively improved startup times, would only continue to be this fast if the NTKDaemon is in the background running, otherwise you get frustrating experiences where you startup NA2, need to reinstall the NTK Daemon, and reenter your permissions. Our team has prepared another DevTalks entry that should go live sometime this week/next week about our startup experience, so more details there.

    For users who have active subscriptions or are buying products, their accounts will be updated in real-time, which requires the NTK Daemon to run. Also, by enforcing this, we get to work on features that allow users to close NA2 while the NTK Daemon continues to do its job, or deliver account-based information to the user that we feel is important to them.

    Granted, this experience should be seamless and would work nicely if the NTK Daemon was more stable. We're aware of this and will be fixing issues as we run into them.

  • iNate
    iNate Member Posts: 219 Advisor
    edited April 2023

    I am also getting BSODs due to NTKDaemon crashing in the background. It's just too much. I am getting 2-3 BSODs per hour. I was late getting payroll submitted because my desktop borderline UNUSABLE with this happening this frequently. It's a complete and utter BSOD fest, and this wasn't happening until relatively recently... so I think this came with the latest Native Access update.

    Description

    Faulting Application Path: C:\Program Files\Common Files\Native Instruments\NTK\NTKDaemon.exe

    Problem signature

    Problem Event Name: BEX64

    Application Name: NTKDaemon.exe

    Application Version: 1.10.0.0

    Application Timestamp: 63e36745

    Fault Module Name: ucrtbase.dll

    Fault Module Version: 10.0.22621.608

    Fault Module Timestamp: f5fc15a3

    Exception Offset: 000000000007f61e

    Exception Code: c0000409

    Exception Data: 0000000000000007

    OS Version: 10.0.22621.2.0.0.256.48

    Locale ID: 1033

    Additional Information 1: f573

    Additional Information 2: f57306fa255421a6a324fa8f1b91d48c

    Additional Information 3: 7ca5

    Additional Information 4: 7ca554c213cba86664936f0924e29468


    Extra information about the problem

    Bucket ID: b4ec977053c2e351f598e448cc028e0f (1556244672568004111)

    Also, looking at Reliability History tells me that all this process does is CRASH CRASH CRASH in the background. It's not robust at all, and it's kind of shocking how unstable it is. Every time NTKDaemon crashes, there is a BSOD in the Reliability Monitor - at the same Time of Day [directly following it].

    My desktop is unusable as long as this service is installed. If I leave it running for more than 15-20 minutes, it BSODs and restarts.

    For now, I'm uninstalling the service and will just not run Native Access...

    Does Native Access 1 use this service, and can we downgrade to that to avoid these issues? Honestly, I don't plan to buy anything new or subscribe to anything. Just keep stuff updated.

  • LostInFoundation
    LostInFoundation Member Posts: 4,461 Expert
    edited April 2023

    Thank you for infos.

    I’m not so convinced that a couple seconds less to charge something, so called real-time , not having to reenter permission or “deliver account-based information to the user that we feel is important to them” is worth the price, but this is only my opinion and of course you are free to take your “conscious decision” with your products, as users are too.

    In any case, having some first hand infos is appreciated

  • ZDPhoenix
    ZDPhoenix Member Posts: 14 Member

    Ntkdaemon issues here as well.

    I still haven't been able to get NA2 working since Black Friday.

    I'm so sick of this.

  • iNate
    iNate Member Posts: 219 Advisor
    edited April 2023

    Umm... this happens anyways.

    On my PC Laptop, MacBook Pro and Desktop I always had to Enter my Password to "Install Dependencies" after starting Native Access 2.

    It almost never just booted up and went to the screen, and every boot of NA2 took like 90 seconds or more as a result of that.

    It's been several months since I've started Native Access 2 and not had to input my password (on macOS) or accept a UAC Prompt (Windows) to "install Dependencies."

    No matter how many updates go by where they say they addressed this, it remains the same.

    And yes, everything has Full Disk Access on macOS.

    At this point, I'm wondering if the installer may be broken, and things simply aren't being set up properly.

    If I didn't use a Maschine MK3, I'd probably just walk away from the products and take the loss.

    Having to pull an all-nighter to install Komplete Collector's packages 1-by-1 was one thing... Making my computer literally unusable and disrupting business processes is a much higher degree of ******.

    There us no way this level of instability should have gotten past testing, if there is any.

    EDIT: Update...

    No BSODs since I uninstalled NTKDaemon, and my desktop has been on with me doing work the entire time. So yea, it was DEFINITELY the cause for them.

  • iNate
    iNate Member Posts: 219 Advisor
    edited April 2023

    As a further update, my PC hasn't BSOD'd since uninstalling NTKDaemon, and I've been using it for about 4 hours this session.

    So, I seem to have fixed the issue for the moment. I just can't use Native Access 2 for anything, obviously.

  • Milkman
    Milkman Member Posts: 256 Advisor

    Is this mostly a windows 11 / mac issue? Ive got NA + my entire NI library running on 2 windows 10 machines for roughly 3 years, and a 3rd occasionally. (laptop). Ive never had NTKdaemon crash or misbehave, and nothing about it... is suspicious, but this isnt the first time Ive seen people use the word "suspicious" in discussing it, lol. What do I have to do to get it to crash?

  • iNate
    iNate Member Posts: 219 Advisor

    View the "Reliability History" on your machines and see if it shows up there.

  • Kubrak
    Kubrak Member Posts: 3,031 Expert
    edited April 2023

    I have had never problem with NTKDaemon or NA2. I have it on two Win10 maschines, one uses Intel, the other AMD....

    But sure, it should not crash, or even create BSOD. It is pretty difficult to make BSOD. Generally it is mostly related to HW "issues" or problems in HW drivers.

    In any case, it is MS library (ucrtbase.dll) that causes problem (crashes), not NI code.... At least not directly.

    Here is a list of possible causes...


  • Vocalpoint
    Vocalpoint Member Posts: 2,225 Expert
    edited April 2023

    "In any case, it is MS library (ucrtbase.dll) that causes problem (crashes), not NI code"

    I beg to differ on this statement as this MS library is universal in scope and is in use around the world for hundreds of apps. If there really was some sort of nagging issue with ucrtbase.dll - we would have heard about that long ago as this core library has been in use for years.

    This specific issue (and trust me - I have spent days studying it) is a fault in the code within NTKDaemon.exe (Specifically version 1.1.0 as 1.0.0 did NOT crash like this).

    NI has tried to wish it away (in my communications with their support) like they are not capable of creating bugs but I will take a Microsoft core OS file anyday over this oddball service module when it comes to declaring which one is less troublesome.

    VP

  • Kubrak
    Kubrak Member Posts: 3,031 Expert
    edited April 2023

    Well, it may be caused by NI code, but MS library crashes.... If that crashes to BSOD the fault is almost surely caused by MS library.

    I have experienced several bugs in MS standard libraries, some of them quite severe and totally stupid. I had the source code to seek and fix it myself....

    The thing is that the MS library on computers that have problems may be corrupted or libraries it loads may be corrupted....

    Most users do not have problems with NTKDaemon. Problems must be (most probably) user specific.

  • Vocalpoint
    Vocalpoint Member Posts: 2,225 Expert

    To be very clear - it is NTKDaemon that is crashing and its crash "cause" is its (poor) interaction with ucrtbase.dll.

    It is not possible for ucrtbase.dll to crash. It is merely a well known, very stable C++ library that has shipped with Windows for years.

    I documented and traced 10 VERY detailed instances of the NTKDaemon crashing successfully and in all cases - it went down in a heap - and referenced invalid memory access to ucrtbase.dll as the cause. Its crashing is what causes the package to "reinstall" itself - with all those DOS windows flashing by etc.

    I have since stabilized my instance of NTKDaemon by setting its startup to Automatic (delayed) and checking that it is running every time I use NA2 - so far so good.

    NI has work to do and it cannot come any sooner - this is a very shaky piece of software that is inexplicably in charge of some very critical tasks for Native Instruments products.

    NA2 should be bulletproof by now - this ongoing crashing ****** should be embarrassing to the dev team.

    VP

  • Vocalpoint
    Vocalpoint Member Posts: 2,225 Expert

    I checked each one of these links and if you took time to read them all - you would see a variety of solutions ranging from Task Manager (Power plan issue) to Sharepoint (Sharepoint issue) to Intel updating their drivers.

    Not a single one of these issues is the actual fault of ucrtbase.dll - which by the way has been static and the same version for several years now. I checked a base Windows 10 ISO from 2021 with the version I have installed here in 2023 and it is identical.

    MS has not updated this file in a long long time - which does grant it immunity by any means - but it's hard to find fault when the version has not changed for years.

    VP

  • Kubrak
    Kubrak Member Posts: 3,031 Expert

    Yes, the problem was not in the applications that have crashed or did not function.... That is what I wanted to point out.....

    Maybe that problem is not in ucrtbase.dll, maybe they still have the bug in routine for printing float numbers they used to have in standard VC++ library.... Printing longer numbers wrote outside temporary buffer allocated by MS and overwrited whatever was there. Leading to random errors.... Took me several days to locate source of problems as one would not expect such a serious bug in standard library.

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