Libraries won't load in Kontakt 6 anymore
Comments
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This is complete nonsense. K6 is working absolutely fine. On macOS it's even working a lot better than K7. It's silicon-native, too.
And no, in NI land, newer certainly doesn't mean better. Just look at the Battery 4 fiasco.
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And even more nonsense. There was no such mention of libraries not working any longer when updating them. You are making this up.
Besides, how comes it's not all libraries? Most of them have been updated and they're still running fine. But some have been destroyed.
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Yes of course I am making them up - here's the Release Notes on Hybrid Keys - (dating all the way back to 09-14-23):
Anyway…all the libraries that were updated - have this in their Release Notes…
And yes - some libraries were not updated for reasons only known to NI (probably these did not need to be updated)
VP
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Thing is, you don't see these release notes on Native Access 1. And when you drag your libraries over to your new machine and install Kontakt 7 Player, you don't see those release notes, either. All you see is a bunch of update options which is to be expected when migrating to a new CPU platform.
Add to this, if I hadn't installed the K7 Player, the libraries likely wouldn't even be updated.
And add to this that I'd even be sort of fine with all of it if Kontakt 7 wasn't performing so abysmally bad. But it is. And I'm not the one to be blamed for it.
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Well - I am hoping you are still not using NA v1 - that is certainly no longer supported.
We moved over to NA v2 in April/May 2022
Current version of NA 2 is 3.10.3.
Probably a definitive reason why K7 would not install on that older machine too. NA1 is severely handicapped and will be shut off permanently in Feb 2025
VP
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I had to use NA 1 to get some libraries registered. They simply failed to do so in NA 2. But obviously, I am mainly using NA 2.
NA 2 didn't install on that old machine, so K7 was no option, either.
Anyhow, none of that justifies overwriting libraries so they don't work in K6 anymore. Add a renewed version and call it 2.0. Which is even happening in case of Analog Dreams and Ethereal, just that the old version is updated as well (which is just stupid when there's an entirely fresh version they could do with whatever they wanted).
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"Anyhow, none of that justifies overwriting libraries so they don't work in K6 anymore. Add a renewed version and call it 2.0. Which is even happening in case of Analog Dreams and Ethereal, just that the old version is updated as well (which is just stupid when there's an entirely fresh version they could do with whatever they wanted)"
Not disagreeing with this at all.
This was a super hot issue back in November 2023 - but in the grand scheme - it's old news now - the userbase has moved on.
You can certainly keep K6 going - just do not update anything via NA. That page link I sent has all the old K6 library downloads - simply download any that got hosed on your end, reinstall and rock on.
Not much more to say. Ni is not changing anything with these updates since K6 is officially retired.
Continued success.
VP
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See, once again: I did not update anything. I installed everything from scratch on this new machine. And as I already had registered K7P before (just couldn't install it on the old machine), it showed up (along with my Komplete Ultimate 12 package, which includes Kontakt 6).
So, to recap:
- For the most part, I only wanted to install Komplete Ultimate.
- I was presented with a whole long list of items to be installed.
- As this was a "naked" machine, all they said was "install" - not "update".
- The fact that K7P was present apparently triggered the libraries in question to be installed in their latest incarnations, now not compatible with K6 anymore.
In other words: At no point in the process would I have had a chance to see that these libraries are not working in K6 anymore. I mean, all KU12 products are silicon-ready, the libraries worked with K6 - why would I even think they would not work anymore? I was just installing things I had installed already - and they only got broken because NI is trying to force me to upgrade to K7 - which I won't do right now, simply because it's performing utterly poor under macOS/ARM.
This is absolutely inacceptable on NI's behalf.
As said before, I could rescue the working libraries from my old machine (they're loading fine in K7P as well, one more reason to not understand that upgrade), but many people don't have their old machines intact anymore when they're setting up a new one.
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Thanks for the clarification. Did not know it was a new bare metal install. Or that the "new" updates would be queued up instead of the original libraries. Tough one there - and I get the frustration.
VP
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Honestly, who reads every single release's Release Notes? I certainly don't, especially with apps like Kontakt that love pointed-point releases to fix little bugs and add minor touches. I trusted updates to be necessary or improving upon features and performance.
I certainly didn't realise I would render all those libraries useless for Kontakt 6 when I updated them throughout the last year. Certainly my fault, then again, I have an MK3 keyboard, but I also want to be able to open up projects that use Kontakt 6. There is no way to have MK3 compatibility and be able to open older projects with Kontakt 6, as there is no option to seamlessly transfer over from K6 to K7. Any tweaks or changes I made to an instrument in K6 on a project, any automation would be lost. I'd have to open up each and every project, see if I used Kontakt 6, and restore the instruments in respective instances of K7. And who's to say NI won't be introducing breaking changes in Kontakt 8/NKS3, so I'd start all over again? I just don't get why they didn't make a cut and introduced 2.0 versions and only affected those to require K7, just as explained here by Sascha.
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You could have also spent 5 or 10 minutes last fall hanging out here to see the fallout unfolding.
Everyone needs to do just a little bit of homework sometimes.
No one was happy about this transition at all and NI completely dropped the ball on it - but they never really planned to make it easy or Native Access would have been coded properly to stop this mess at the start for all users - by never allowing any K6 library to update without a defined instance of K7 installed..
And yes - I am certain the same thing will occur with K8 - at least we will be prepared this time.
VP
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I could have. I could also have realised earlier how much I loved my back-then girlfriend some 20 years ago, but I'm making mistakes and learning throughout my life :-) .
And I also didn't have an MK3 keyboard last fall and don't feel obliged to check forums for software I am using in order to keep up to date (I'd never get any work done). I would think developers make sure I can use it without breaking 'old' (and I don't mean even two years) projects. Even with K7 installed, I would expect they did a workaround (like 2.0 or 'MK3' versions installed alongside legacy ones that open up in K6) instead of dropping the ****** on us.
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"I would think developers make sure I can use it without breaking 'old' (and I don't mean even two years) projects. Even with K7 installed, I would expect they did a workaround (like 2.0 or 'MK3' versions installed alongside legacy ones that open up in K6) instead of dropping the ****** on us."
Logically sound and totally fair - however your expectations are skewed and not in a good way.
K6 is retired (and has been) since Fall 2022 - there was no requirement for NI to maintain any support for this version - regardless of how many "old" projects we have in the hopper.
They had a new major hardware release (S-Series MKIII) and instead of looking back - they looked forward and updated ALL Kontakt libraries to be ready for this new marketing push.
Yes - they made a lukewarm attempt to "warn" us via Release Notes (which no one reads). And yes - a properly coded Native Access surely would have avoided all of this nonsense - but NI is having enough trouble just getting NA to work on the basics for the last year - let alone having the smarts to determine whether you are a Kontakt 6 or Kontakt 7 user etc.
This specific issue (Kontakt library updates) was literally blowing up everywhere in Sept/October 2023 - if you were even the least bit interested in any DAW and recording - there was no way anyone would have missed this - unless of course - you do not ever go online and stay far away from every vendor you have bought something from. Nothing can be done about that.
No - it seems that all we want to do these days is load up Native Access - and then blindly click every Update button we see - without so much as checking anything for compatibility or any other reason - all in the hopes or expectations and workarounds that the vendor "has our back".
At the end of the day - it is on us if we do not want pop in a forum at least once or twice a year, check the Internet now and then, check social media or do any number of other things that would have saved us all a ton of headaches.
As you can see - trust no one. Do the work and update only when it makes sense.
VP
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@Vocalpoint I understand what you are saying. In fact, I was hanging around here around that time, but I missed out on the whole library-upgrading topic. I wish I had seen that, so I could have prepared my slightly older projects earlier. So either I was blind, or it wasn't as unmissable as you put it.
I don't agree with my duties to regularly check online representations of my software's vendors. As most audio people, I have loads of plugins from a variety of software companies. I'd be spending half my day going through all their forums and/or social media accounts just to check any updates won't break my projects. And yes, I'd expect software companies to provide updates and having check their compatibility and the consequences of installing them. Occasional bugs occur.
From the top of my head, I only remember one company invalidating their plugins with updates (by changing the underlying VST3 plugin IDs with minor updates, resulting in 'plugin not found' errors or reset plugin states). Most companies manage to sunset older plugins or libraries and still give users the option to use what they paid for, even if they don't provide any more updates. The way NI handled this isn't justified or clever, when there would have been ways to avoid this.
I'll live, and I'll probably be able to restore my older projects (the one affected yesterday didn't have any automation involved, so all good), but I hate to take the blame for this, don't like the idea of opening and checking each and every project I used K6 on, and I would certainly be devastated realising I can't transfer over my K6 projects to K7 without losing e.g. automation.
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"I don't agree with my duties to regularly check online representations of my software's vendors. As most audio people, I have loads of plugins from a variety of software companies. I'd be spending half my day going through all their forums and/or social media accounts just to check any updates won't break my projects. And yes, I'd expect software companies to provide updates and having check their compatibility and the consequences of installing them. Occasional bugs occur"
Prepare to be very disappointed then over the long run. Every plugin update from every vendor (I easily have 50+) has the potential to compromise any project at any time.
And this NI thing was not a bug - it was a plan. They want you off K6 and over to K7 and this/was/is a way of getting you there. While I do not believe their intent was to make everyone miserable - there also was no clear way of updating these libraries without a hassle factor of 10+. I guess it was the lack of any foresight whatsoever tha tipped me off.
That said:
"From the top of my head, I only remember one company invalidating their plugins with updates (by changing the underlying VST3 plugin IDs with minor updates, resulting in 'plugin not found' errors or reset plugin states)."
I guess I am in another world as a Studio One user. EVERY plugin ID is unique and every major update from every company represents "plugin not found". This whole Kontakt 6 thing is/was a constant grind for me - regardless of what Native Access was going to do (or not do) back in the Fall of 2023.
For us Studio One guys - if one wants calm - you have to leave every version of every plugin you have ever owned - installed - until the end of time to be able to properly open old projects.
There is no concept of a "gentle migration" or anything else to help a user out. It is brutal - but until Presonus does us a solid and makes this easier - I need to be on constant alert - hence my acceptance of being diligent (and aware) of every change from every plugin vendor (regardless of the time required).
If I take my hands of the wheel for even a second - trouble is always waiting around the corner with the "next" plugin update - be it a big vendor or a tiny one.
Again I trust no developer to make it easy for me - only I can do that.
VP
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