Maschine + and 1Tb Micro SD card problems

Zman · 2023-06-29T10:35:54+00:00

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I own a Maschine + and decided to buy a new SD Card as the supplied card soon wasn’t large enough. After researching the type of card I decided to buy a Sandisk Extreme Pro 1Tb card. I formatted it in the Maschine + and proceeded to install my expansion packs onto it. From the very first try I kept getting a “failed” message and to retry which I did time and time again. Has anyone had the same problems? I have a 128gb Sandisk extreme Pro SD Card and that works fine so that tells me that the type of card is ok. Could it be the 1tb version that is the problem. Native Instruments say that they have experienced no problems with 1Tb cards so I am at a bit of a loss. Finally I bought this card from Amazon at a cost of £160 so I am assuming it is genuine.

I have completed numerous tests at Native Instruments request, submitted photographs and screenshots but still no success.

Finally I returned it to my vendor on 18th May who returned it to NI. I received it back yesterday with a fault report saying No Fault Found🤬🤬 There was no info about what they had done so I strongly believe they didn’t test it with a 1Tb Micro SD card or it would have failed.

I immediately plugged it in, removed the 64gb card that is supplied with the Maschine + and inserted my 1Tb Micro SD card, formatted it in the Maschine + to remove any files that are lurking and went to my Library.

89 expansions waiting, 953.5Gb available on the memory card and all was looking good. I selected the first expansion and pressed Install and it started to download but 10 seconds later it stopped with a Failed message along with an unexpected error has occurred message. I tried the next expansion and the next but everyone failed.

I checked my Network and also tried it on 2 other Networks belonging to my neighbours but it failed.

The Micro SD Card I purchased is a 1Tb Sandisk Extreme Pro card purchased from Amazon. It is actually the second card from Amazon as when I was having these problems I thought it might be the SD card and returned it as faulty. Amazon were excellent and replaced it but that wasn’t the problem.

I also contacted Western Digital (owners of Sandisk) who were also excellent in their support.

This problem has been there since I purchased my Maschine+ last November and I complained and I received a replacement unit within the first 30 days so this is my second faulty Maschine +

Over the last 6 months my email trail between my vendor in the UK and Native Instruments is massive.I am now in conversation with Naill (Customer Care Manager) at Native Instruments and he offered me this reply,

Our QA has tested the same Sandisk Extreme 1TB that you have, and it works without issue.
We haven't received any other reports of problems with 1TB cards - which rules out an issue introduced with any recent Mas+ update.
Your Mas+ has already left the repair centre, where no issue was found with it. It is already on the way back to the dealer where you purchased it.

I would suggest that you test the device with a 1TB card with the dealer if possible. If the dealer can see that the device is not working as expected, they should be able to offer you a refund or replacement.

After I tested it at home yesterday I drove to my nearest Vendor PMT in Northampton who were excellent and they confirmed my findings. They have raised it as a ticket with NI and asked if I can Video the process and send it to NI. I am waiting to see what is going to happen.

The moral of this story is that when you pay over £1000 for a “flagship” piece of Hardware that doesn’t do what it says on the tin don’t be fobbed off with inadequate testing and “no other reports of problems with 1Tb Micro SD cards” when there clearly are on their own forum. I cannot be the only person in the world with this problem who has raised a ticket with NI can I?

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Comments

D-One

From my experience with SD Cards, the bigger it is the higher the chance something might not work. Even 500GB seems likely to cause issues. Also, note that users report that having a gigantic library makes the browser rather slow/laggy, I am not sure if this issue was already fixed or not, so beware.

I cannot be the only person in the world with this problem who has raised a ticket with NI can I?

No, you are not the only person: https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/977/maschine-expansions-installation-on-new-sd-card-failed

Have you tried this? : https://support.native-instruments.com/hc/en-us/articles/4403973093009-MASCHINE-Download-Fails

Also try installing just a couple of things at a time, cueing up lots of installs at once seems to cause issues more often.

I think the chances of you having a fake card is very low but you can test it, copy random stuff from your computer to the SD and try to fill as much space on it as possible, usually, fake cards have less capacity than what's advertised.. but it's not very common in amazon, its more of an aliexpress issue.

I can offer you a workaround, it's very annoying but should work assuming you have an SD card reader for your computer:

Install as much as you can on your 128GB SD card then move it to the 1TB and test, if it works delete the newly installed stuff on 128GB, install more stuff, and repeat.

Percivale

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/81466#Comment_81466

Maschine+ ships with 64gb sd card right? I'm thinking to buy a higher capacity card but after reading this maybe 512gb will do.

Zman

Thank you D-One and Percivale for your comments.

D-One I have tried every option possible ove the last 3 Months. I have tried 2 brand new 1TB MicroDS cards both purchased from Amazon with no success.

I have tried loading Expansion packs individually but no success. Yesterday i tried 89 individual downloads in case some packs loaded and some didnt but nothing worked.

I have tried Different carriers for the MicroSD cards but no difference.

I have always formatted the cards in the Maschine + from new but now the Maschine + is not recognising either my 1TB card or my 128Gb card.

I also have Western Digital (Sandisk owners) on Standby to test the MicroSD cardif needs be and they are very willing to prove that they are not the villains here but i hope it doesnt come to that.

I agree that there are workarounds and one option would be to use it as a MK3 connected to a PC via USB but that begs the question as to why i spent £500 extra for a standalone version?

I am sure the problem lies with the product. NI have assured me in writing that they have no other complaints about 1TB MicroSD cards and also that their engineers have tested my M+ and returned it with "No Fault Found" on the report. I am persuing this with NI as i wish to see what they tested and how they tested it. It appears to be causing them a few problems to produce this document and i find that a little worrying. I am guessing that being an audited company their records will be first class and available upon request. My conclusion from their lack of response at the moment is that they didnt take note of the problem, didnt test my M+ with a 1TB card so didnt find a problem thus producing a report that isnt worrth the paper it is written and are now in a quandry as to what to do. At the end of the day this is a Flagship piece of hardware that has a specification that it does not meet. I have been super patient with NI and done everything that they have asked but still have a problem. They need to fix the problem or Isuue the Vendor permission to issue a refund. By the way my Vendor in the uk are PMT (Play Music Today) and they have been Excellent!!

Percivale

I would steer clear of 1TB cards at the moment as i have asked on most forums that i am a member of and have hot found another person that is using one succesfully.

I have used the supplid 64Gb and also a 128GB card succesfully. I have heard of others using a 512Gb card succesfully but make sure you but a good spec card that meets their requirements as i did.

This article may help:

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/6039/fastest-sd-card-for-m

D-One

I wouldn't risk going above 256GB, to be honest, but reports of 512GB working are around. I'd reconsider if 1Tb is really necessary... You can always add a tiny USB flash drive if you can spare a port for extra user content storage.

It still doesn't explain how come they advertise the 1TB on the website.

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/81543#Comment_81543

Yes, it ships with a very, very slow card... worth like 8$ lol. Get a Sandisk Extreme Pro, full-size SD, at least 90m/s, you can buy faster (170mb/s) but just beware it won't reach the speed you're paying for.

@Zman : Wait did you get a Micro SD? 😬 I strongly advise against that, there's no reason to use MicroSD adapted to an SD like the original that came with the M+, I have no idea what they ever did that in the first place, it's just an added point of failure. Maybe try a different adapter or return your Micro SD and swap for an SD and stick with 512GB?

I agree that there are workarounds and one option would be to use it as a MK3 connected to a PC via USB but that begs the question as to why i spent £500 extra for a standalone version?

Indeed, that's not a solution.

Zman

I have tried all of the adapter options but failed.

You hit the nail on the head when you mentioned why they shipped the M+ with a micro SD card, purely cost.

I bought the top MicroSD card from Sandisk

Look at the Difference…Why i really dont know but its crazy…

So i guess that is why it ships with Micro SD and a cheap one at that.

Now i am waiting on NI to test a Maschine + with a 1Tb card.

Although i returned my M+ to them somehow they failed to test it with a 1Tb card and that was my whole complaint.

Anyway now they are saying they are going to get the sane card as me and test it in a M+ If it works then great, my M+ must be faulty. If it doesnt work then they have some decisions to make.

Whatever will happen is now in the pipeline. I have got used to being without it for the last Month so another few weeks wont hurt…as long as they fix it or replace it.

Watch this space.

D-One

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/81720#Comment_81720

Holly molly, you bought the SD in that picture!?? From my experience, NI is a bit clueless about SD cards... 🤷‍♂️

Well... That's a UHS-II Card, it might be the reason it doesn't work but even if it isn't, you are paying a lot of money (300-400$ ?) for a speed that will never be achieved by the M+... It's complete overkill.

UHS-II has more pins than regular UHS-I, the M+ doesn't have those pins in it's connector, and also I'm pretty sure it's only USB-2 anyway, I think i pretty much proved it here in this post: https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/34053#Comment_34053 , there's more details there.

The tech is supposed to be retro-compatible but with a card like that, you're adding up 2 problematic things: gigantic size + UHS-II.

My advice would be to return the card immediately while you still can and buy a cheaper UHS-I card @512GB max... or you are paying a fortune for a Ferrari to drive at a max of 30km/h... up to you tho.

Zman

Good Morning to all of you Maschine + owners out there. Just a word of warning and advice that may help you.

The Maschine + ships with a 64gb MicroSD card but you may find that you want or need more storage as I did.

I decided that as it could take a 1Tb card that is what i would buy. I researched from the Native Instrument websites which card to get and bought a 1Tb Sandisk Extreme Pro MicroSD card. It was very expensive but I felt was worth the investment as it “Future proofed” my M+.

When it arrived I immediately went about the task of downloading expansion packs onto it but found that initially the M+ wouldn’t format the card so thinking this was just a blip I formatted it in my Windows Laptop with exFat as the format.

I put it back into my M+ and it recognised the card with 953gb storage space. I selected my first expansion pack and it started to load, 10 seconds later it Failed. I tried again and it continued to fail. I tried another expansion pack and it also failed as did the other 82 that i tried. I immediately contacted Native Instruments and raised a ticket. That was 14/07/2023.

For the last 3 months i have been trying to convince NI that my M+ was faulty and that it wouldn’t read 1Tb SD cards.

It has taken more than 80 emails backwards and forwards, extensive testing of my M+, Micro SD card holder changes, Numerous reports to NI of my results, Network tests on 3 different networks and even a replacement MicroSD card just in case that was faulty but nothing changed, it still wouldn’t read the card in my M+. However it would read the stock 64gb card and also a 128gb card i owned.

After 2 months NI collected my M+ and took it back for testing and a few weeks later it arrived back with a report saying no fault found. I unpacked it and within 5 minutes I was getting the same failed messages for downloads of expansion packs. I was very annoyed but I took my M+ to my Vendors store for them to test it which they duly did and found exactly the same as me. They backed me up in my case to NI but NI didn’t listen. They kept saying that they had no other complaints and that i was an isolated case. That maybe so but it still needed to be fixed. My case got escalated to someone higher at NI and he went through all of the stuff with me that I had done before, which I tolerated because I felt at least he might be listening. I asked him why my M+ had been returned to me untested with no fault found and requested an answer. Next day he contacted me and apologised as they had not tested it with a 1TB card, The whole reason for sending it back!

He said that they may have not been told what the fault was and they just did the standard testing with the 64gb card??

Obviously i was not happy with this as it would just add another month onto the time i had been without my M+

He agreed to get it back and also to buy the same SD card as I had to test it themselves. This they did with their own M+ units and they all worked fine so that implied it was only my M+. They tested mine and finally admitted that it didn’t work. Not so bad as this was only 3 months after i first reported it but at least we had some progress.

They agreed to send me another M+ and just to add insult to injury when it arrived yesterday, UPS wanted £100.43 for Duty and Taxes. I refused the delivery and sent it back with another complaint.

NI came back and apologised for the warehouses mistake and said they would re-deliver.

A few lesson learnt from all of this….

FIRSTLY and MOST IMPORTANT… If you own an M+ and you may be thinking of expanding it in the future with a 1Tb card then get a card immediately and test it. Yours may be fine but mine was not. If you do find it is faulty raise a Ticket with NI and if you want to you can quote my name MARK ZATONSKI and case number 3894794 in case they try to give you the runaround and deny that no one else has had a problem. I will also back you up if they give you problems. I say all of this because they seemed to be in denial and tried their very best to avoid the issue.

SECONDLY…. Don’t accept any of their stalling tactics, Stand your ground and be vigilant!

THIRDLY…. Native Instruments are not as efficient as they would like you to believe they are. They are sometimes slow at responding and when you do get a response they don’t always give you the correct answer. Certainly when it comes to their repair centre they appear to be quite inefficient. That may not be their fault as it’s possible that there are some communication issues within NI but it is still NI’s problem to sort out.

This has not been a good experience for me but i am advising any of you that may be thinking of upgrading to a 1TB MicroSD card to test it as soon as possible and certainly before your warranty runs out (although the warranty period would be irrelevant as your M+ may have been faulty from new in which case it is up to NI to fix it).

I made one big mistake… When i first received my M+ I didn’t realise I would run out of storage space so quickly so as I didn’t buy a 1Tb card and test it within the first 30 days I wasn’t entitled to an exchange with my Vendor. Had I found this problem much sooner then it would have been swapped out and returned to NI and I would have had many more months of usage.

Any questions please ask.

6xes

interesting dilemma you found yourself intertwined in...

i can only speak from the experience of upgrading storage on hdd controllers, of portable USB hdd cases, where you would put a hdd inside the case and then power it via usb...

i have learned that not all portable usb hdd controllers support 2tb... and realising this, i take it to be a reference for any other storage upgradeable device, in that a controller has a maximum limit..

if it has been clearly stated somewhere that the Maschine+ supports up to 1Tb of storage on their microSD cards, then im sure you have a valid and justified reason to vent & share your frustrations... otherwise i would be cautious in making any assumption that expanding beyond the stated limit of 64gb to a 1tb microSD...

even now i do my homework before venturing off to make purchases of storage upgrades, making sure it will support an increased storage amount.

i do respect the fact you are bringing this issue to the fore.... as it will help others think twice about the limitations of hardware... whether it be standalone or desktop based

CH7

Personally, i would have cloned the built-in SSD to the larger capacity SSD drive. This of course means going inside and possibly voiding your warranty. At least then, you would have the 'old' SSD as a full system backup/snapshot.

Most cloning software will allow the full capacity to be recognized without you having to tweak the partition size. The first time you use the Maschine+ i'd rescan so it finds all the files. [I have not confirmed this for the plus]

A 1 TB SSD is super cheap compared to 1 TB microSD, which I view as temporary storage for transporting files, like your user projects. microSD is also a lot slower than SSD.

Also, the Maschine+ is based on some variation of Linux and doesn't use Fat32 or exFat by default, although it will recognize those formats for the microSD. Be careful when removing the microSD, make sure your saves are completed first, as you can lose data.

https://www.ionos.co.uk/digitalguide/server/know-how/exfat/

LostInFoundation

Thank you for making us aware of your experience. It would be extremely helpful if once you’ll have your new M+ in your hands (without having to pay Duty and Taxes) and try again with the 1Tb microSD you’ll report here if you finally succeed or if the problem persists.

Or any other user having experience with large storage cards reading this could report their experience, maybe stating which model and brand work well, in order to avoid others to buy an incorrect one. Specially if Sd cards work better than microSD with adapter as CH7 suggests.

@6xes Yes it is clearly stated by NI that it supports up to 1 Tb cards. 64gb is not a stated limit, it’s just the card they include in the package

They even have an article saying there is no limit and they tested with 1Tb cards

ozon

If I read correctly and didn’t miss any additional information, all users who report problems are using the same type of 1TB microSD card by SanDisk. Maybe that exact product is not compatible?

Jeremy_NI

Hey @D-One I'm forwarding these comments to the Maschine Plus team.

D-One

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/88017#Comment_88017

I think it's unlikely but it's def a possibility, it just so happens to be the most recommended SD Card brand, so this will keep happening for anyone who doesn't search the forum.

Considering that high capacity 'quality' SD's cost around 150-300$+ a list of what they tested to work is the least they can do, the best would be to buy the top 3 brands and test them all and provide propper recommendations.

tribepop

FWIW I’m running my M+ on a micro 1TB Sandisk Ultra and I haven’t experienced any problems. I’ve installed a ton of expansions and user content and the disk is prolly 40% full. I bought the M+ used and it came with the SD card already and I haven’t reformatted it.

D-One

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/88206#Comment_88206

Oh, the mystery intensifies... Which exact card do you have? Can you take a pic or provide an accurate link?

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