Kontakt crashes in Studio One occasionally with "kernelbase.dll" error

jaguarguitar
jaguarguitar Member Posts: 16 Member

The issue seems restricted to Kontakt specifically.

I have a huge project, but I've tested loading a blank project, and it happens too. It's so hard to figure out what triggers it, because many times its fine. When it breaks, it screws me up big time and delays me because I haven't been able to figure out how to fix it.

Every time it happens, a crash file is generated. I attached them here, would anyone be able to assist me?

The behaviour is as follows:

  • I can click on the 'plugin' button in Studio One.
  • The window opens but the Kontakt gui is missing.
  • The kernelbase.dll error comes up.
  • I can still hear the midi sound/patch, and playing the song works fine.
  • I can't edit my patches when this happens cuz…I can't see the Kontakt GUI!

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Best Answer

  • Jeremy_NI
    Jeremy_NI Customer Care Posts: 13,047 mod
    Answer ✓

    @jaguarguitar Well, in order to help you, my colleagues asked for the result of our support tool on December 13th but you never replied. If the issue was fixed since then, great, if not please get back to my colleagues.

Answers

  • jaguarguitar
    jaguarguitar Member Posts: 16 Member

    I forgot to attach the CrashFiles. Here they are:

  • PoorFellow
    PoorFellow Moderator Posts: 4,875 mod

    Since that no one gave a response here then I will suggest that you contact N.I. Kontakt Support , In case that you need guidance contacting support : How to contact NI Support and How to get in touch with our Customer Care .

  • jaguarguitar
    jaguarguitar Member Posts: 16 Member

    hi @PoorFellow i did open a ticket with them, i will say, support was abysmal. they told me make sure windows is update and install VC++ and .net but did not tell me which versions.

    when i asked them to clarify, the support person literally sent me an article describing the difference between kontakt and kontakt player, it wasn't even related to my question.

    i ended up reinstalling windows, and well see if the issue persists. im really disappointed, i paid a lot for Komplete ultimate.

  • jaguarguitar
    jaguarguitar Member Posts: 16 Member

    i should mention - i ended up having to analyze the crash dump files myself - i dont think support even looked at them.

    i think i found the issue which was a software interfering somehow with ni but im not entirely sure as i could not read the crash dump file completely.

  • PoorFellow
    PoorFellow Moderator Posts: 4,875 mod
    edited December 13

    when i asked them to clarify, the support person literally sent me an article describing the difference between kontakt and kontakt player, it wasn't even related to my question.

    This kind of lack of attention or confusion from the employee of course is not OK but can both be hard to tell why it happened and might also give a wrong impression how the rest of N.I. support works. (My own impression is that N.I. support in general performs at least fairly OK)

    support was abysmal. they told me make sure windows is update and install VC++ and .net but did not tell me which versions.

    Problem is that if it is an issue related to VC++ dependencies then it really can be that broad , if you doubt that then try this one for size (it mentions each version meaning all and tells you to uninstall all and then reinstall) , other similar advice have been seen to ask people to remove all VC++ and then (re)install only what they need.

    My own reason for not trying to advice is that your problem specifically is described as being not only DAW related but also as Studio One related and I don't know much about any of that.

    I hope that your setup will work after re-installation of Windows. When / if works then remember to take drive image based backups of your working Windows installation.

    If you continue having problems getting your N.I. software to run then please do not hesitate to contact N.I. again. Though e.g. some Windows problems can be hard to pinpoint/trouble shoot then in general then N.I. support ought to get your N.:i software to work.

  • Jeremy_NI
    Jeremy_NI Customer Care Posts: 13,047 mod
    Answer ✓

    @jaguarguitar Well, in order to help you, my colleagues asked for the result of our support tool on December 13th but you never replied. If the issue was fixed since then, great, if not please get back to my colleagues.

  • jaguarguitar
    jaguarguitar Member Posts: 16 Member

    @PoorFellow thanks for all the advice, i took it and implemented it.

    i ended up reinstalling windows. it seems, for now, there is no crash.

    so i suspect, it was a software i had installed called pluckeye, that may have been causing the crash, or maybe some sort of update was applied, something was corrupted, i dont know what for sure.

    after i did the fresh install, ive tested most things, it seems okay, and i actually installed Macrium Reflect backup - and i took an image-based backup of the C: drive on a schedule now.

    • side advice if i may ask - do you think i should be taking image backups of my other data and audio disks too? i have separate physical disks for plugins, and projects. these are backed up using online backup service (backblaze). i didnt feel necessary to take an 'image backup' of them, but is it worth it? i figure the C: drive backup is enough.

    not sure why i didnt consider to do that before —- reinstall was much much more painful than i suspected, so many software.

    lastly, it would be nice if NI could make succinct/singular, where all preset files are stored by default or to provide an option for that (i.e. guitar rig) within NI Access? although i selected the settings via NI Access app - there are also things stored in 'c:\user\documents\' folder, as well i believe in C:\program files\common files, i found some folders anyway.

    @Jeremy_NI thanks for follow-up, ill check the ticket, but all crash results were attached in ticket already, im not sure what else you guys would have wanted.

  • PoorFellow
    PoorFellow Moderator Posts: 4,875 mod

    thanks for all the advice, i took it and implemented it.

    i ended up reinstalling windows. it seems, for now, there is no crash.

    You are very welcome and great that you got your software to work.

    Side advice if i may ask - do you think i should be taking image backups of my other data and audio disks too? i have separate physical disks for plugins, and projects. these are backed up using online backup service (backblaze).

    i didnt feel necessary to take an 'image backup' of them, but is it worth it? i figure the C: drive backup is enough.

    Problem is that when you take a backup of the system drive then you most likely are also taking a backup of all the information stored about e.g. versions of libraries installed. Mind you then I am not sure if the information about library version is saved on Content/library location , it could be but I don't know it it is. But to the extend that the information is stored on the system drive then when you 'only' take backup of system drive then you risk that the system drive backup will contain wrong version information if you later update the Content/libraries and if the version information is stored on the system drive and not the Content drive. But if so then that might incur some problems if only backing up system drive.

    Mind you , I myself usually only takes backup of my system drive, but you should then also notice that I, when needed, for a long time have doubled the space size of the system drive so that I have room for e.g. VSTs and VST installation on the system drive. As prices for not only SSD drives but also for NVME SSD has been dropping then it has made sense to me so that I now have a 2 TB NVME brand name quality high speed system drive. (my 2TB NVME has cost me less than %50 of what my first 512GB SSD cost me) And have prioritized spending money on that over having a SSD Content drive which I only got very recently.

    Anyway , the best combination of 'easy' and 'best' is that you have a large drive for your backups and then regularly takes full system drive backups and then combine that with keeping a number of previous backups so that you attempt to guard yourself against having gotten some not previously discovered problems in your OS that that you took backup of by having backups spanning longer time back to before the OS or the software had the problem while also at the same time hoping that you have no hidden problems in the newest backup , so that you have a choice of backups depending on what is the problem and that the penalty for loading the backup will the least possible by you not loading a backup older than what is absolutely necessary.

    You would want to combine such image based system drive backups as the above with more frequent file backups of e.g. personal files and project files. For that I recommend SynckBack Free/Pro. Please notice though that Synckback Free is rather advanced and require some understanding and practice of using on 'dummy files' to be sure that you understand it so ultimately you might want a file backup program that is simpler to understand and use.

    reinstall was much much more painful than i suspected, so many software.

    The greater the reason to do backup either regularly or whenever so much have changed that you do not want to have to do that over again if can be avoided and combine that with keeping more backups 😁

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