Kontakt 7 randomly freezing for minutes and crashing

zaj16664

I've been avoiding using Kontakt since I've had this issue for ages. Kontakt randomly freezes for up to 2-5 minutes at a time, and also freezes my DAW along with it. In rare cases it causes my DAW to crash entirely.

I have a video recording of Kontakt freezing here. Freezes occur at 0:29, 1:19, 2:13, 3:09. (I'd like to post a link to the video but this is a new account and I'm not allowed to post links yet)

2024-05-30 22-56-13.zip

Different things can cause Kontakt to freeze, including opening/closing the window (most common), switching tabs in the UI, clicking the instrument config button. (It feels like whenever the UI window size changes it has a chance of freezing)

I've done many things to try to fix this. I've tried reinstalling a fresh install of Windows 10, reinstalling Kontakt, updating Window's C++ Redist packages, downgrading to an older version of Kontakt, switching to a different DAW (confirmed freezing on FL Studio, Ableton, Reaper). No matter what I do the freezes still occur.

Kontakt has no logs so I have no idea how to further investigate this, can anyone help me please?

My OS: Windows 10, 64-bit

CPU: i7 13700K

Kontakt version: 7.10.1

zaj16664

Even weirder is that the freezes sometimes stop occurring for several days. After a few days, Kontakt starts freezing again when opening/closing the window. Sometimes I thought I had fixed the freezing issue, but it was just Kontakt pretending to be fine until a few days later it starts freezing again!

zaj16664

To add, I've also done all the suggestions on this page already:

https://support.native-instruments.com/hc/en-us/articles/115004169849-Kontakt-Crashes

The freezing don't get fixed with these methods.

zaj16664

bump, hope this can be fixed

zaj16664

bump again

PoorFellow

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/191906#Comment_191906

Even weirder is that the freezes sometimes stop occurring for several days. After a few days, Kontakt starts freezing again when opening/closing the window. Sometimes I thought I had fixed the freezing issue, but it was just Kontakt pretending to be fine until a few days later it starts freezing again!

This can be due to any number of hardware or software problems.

A failing hard drive or other failing hardware can lock or semi-lock drive access in between. Same goes for software problems like antivirus running in the back ground or suddenly being activated and/or interfering with Kontakt or it's files. .

Of course it can also be a problem with using Kontakt on your computer.

Most basically then you can open Task Manager and see which process, or drive or whatever is taking up resources when you experience the problem.

Or when opening Kontakt and doing what you do then also open Windows' Resource Monitor app and have that running in the background then when you experience the problem then check the Resource Monitor where you can see a lot more. E.g. what takes up CPU or how active a disk is.

That could possibly help you pinpoint a problem.

You can also study the crash reports in the Windows Event Viewer

To open Event Viewer: Windows versions with the Start menu: Choose Start menu > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Event Viewer. Select the Application log.

Windows versions with the Start screen: Open Search, then type eventvwr.msc to find the Event Viewer.

Then feed us the content of the crash log so that we can take a look. I can not guarantee that I can help but if you want me too try then either quote my post or call me like this: @zaj16664 (make sure that it appear in bold blue like that)

BIF

Hello OP. Sorry, I haven't seen this thread until just now.

Windows 10 should be fine.

What is the precise version of Kontakt? And what version of Native Access?

Now for the hard part:

What hardware do you have?

1. You listed the CPU, but let's see what your motherboard, memory, graphic card, and other internal components are.
2. What is your audio interface, what version is it, and how is it cabled to your computer?
3. Also, please describe the hookup you have to the hard drive where your Kontakt libraries are. For example, is it an internal SSD, an external SSD, or an older hard drive connected to eSATA? Is your library drive the same one where your OS is? Connected how…with a SATA cable? Or a USB cable? If USB, is there a hub in there, and is it powered or not?
4. Are your Kontakt libraries or your VST instruments showing up on One Drive, DropBox, or similar cloud storage?
5. How many monitors, and what kind of cables are you using to get video signal to them?
6. Are you using discrete graphics (like AMD or Nvidia cards?), or do you have one of them plugged into the motherboard's "Intel graphics" or "AMD APU graphis (or whatever AMD calls their version of this).
7. What MIDI keyboard(s) are plugged into this system, and how are they cabled in? Using USB-C? Or older USB? Is there a hub in that mix? Are your MIDI controllers plugged into the same ports as a hard drive?
8. When you boot your system, how many total USB devices are there for P&P (Plug and Play) to find? Include the hubs as USB devices, because they need to be found too, just like any camera, midi controller, or external hard drive.
9. Can you clear your Windows event logs and retest? It might be easier to find the problem when you're just looking in log files that are mostly empty except for when the problem happened.
10. For those times when Kontakt actually dies, are you able to restart it and get "somewhat normal" behavior from it, or do you have to reboot?

I numbered the above items, not as a way to prioritize my questions…just as a way to give you something of a logical order you might be able to follow. I know this might take some time for you to collect the info, but sometimes we figure out the weirdest problems when the person having the problem mentions something that seems completely harmless to them.

Thanks in advance, and I'll try to come back here later this weekend. 😁

zaj16664

Thanks @BIF and @zaj16664 for the reply! I went through the event viewer and I believe I might have found the cause of the freeze:

I have a network drive which maps B:/ to 192.168.1.189 on my local network. It's a NAS server I use to run backups regularly. However, I only turn it on at night to save energy, meaning it cannot be connected to most of the day.

When Kontakt stops freezing, this error event appears in my logs:

My best guess is that Kontakt occasionally scans all drives on the system, including the B:/ drive which is a network mapped drive. This is why it occasionally freezes "at random" - my NAS server is turned off and so the request to B:/ will eventually time out after a long time. I can confirm that Kontakt stops freezing when I turn on my NAS server, and Kontakt starts freezing when I turn off my server to save power.

Is there a way to stop Kontakt from interacting with that B:/ drive? I rely on that B:/ drive to run backups and wouldn't want to remove it

Vocalpoint

The better question would be: Why do you need to map a drive to your NAS?

Can't you just input the backup path into whatever software you are using for backup? Or are you copying files manually or something?

I have at least 50 various backup jobs going from workstations to servers and none of these workstations have any mapped drives.

VP

zaj16664

I'm using a command line tool to run the backups. However, the tool doesn't support network paths like "//my-server-name/path", I had to map a drive to a local drive like "B:/" for the tool to work correctly.

Though, network drives are a regular feature of Windows. It would be better to have Kontakt double-check whether a drive is a network drive before attempting to access it.

Vocalpoint

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/205572#Comment_205572

What tool is this? Haven't met a script or tool yet that cannot be retrofitted for UNC paths.

VP