Is there a fix for Komplete Control freezing on scanning plugins?

WilliamAshley · 2025-03-03T04:07:08+00:00

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I am just a little confused why plugins that it gets stuck on aren't just skipped and logged as an error in the scanning log such as occurs in daws. Its a little silly to need to hide my vst2 and vst3 folders to even get past the start screen - attempts to actually scan the plugin folders that NKS is suppose to work with are major plugin folders such as VST3. VST3 needs to contain a whole lot of VST3 plugins. When you have thousands of plugins its a little silly to put trouble shooting on the enduser to figure out what plugin is freezing the scan. While more popups can be seen once you are in the plugin there seems to be a buffer or something that fills resulting in the scan process to freeze up completely. During the plugin load screen those pppups arn't even displayed. I'm a little confused why the plugin has been left in such a clearly broken state and why a standard error log for plugins isn't used or the ability to somehow know what plugins are unable to be scanned or for plugins that require authorization or otherwise to popup on the load screen?

Q1. is there an actual fix for Komplete Kontrol being unable to finish plugin scans so that komplete control is usable with plugins?

Q2. Also if NKS only works with certain plugins why don't they only scan for NKS compatible plugins?

I've wasted a few hours running scans today and havn't found a solution. I am very hopeful someone has found a way that Komplete Kontrol can actually complete the plugin scan. Is there a way to turn off scan on load as in other NI scans in the past? I have scanned through posts related to this bug and havn't found an actual solution - currently things like don't scan the folders, or keep looking for the bad plugins just is not sane when there are 5000+ plugin files to scan through. It seems lost on me why they don't just fix the plugin scanner so that errors are omited and bypassed and logged like every other plugin scanning and verification software.

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Yearofthegoat

Total re-install of KK did the trick - which might mean that deleting the db was the actual thing. Looking forward to the update, thanks.

All comments

Vocalpoint

"I have scanned through posts related to this bug and havn't found an actual solution - currently things like don't scan the folders, or keep looking for the bad plugins just is not sane when there are 5000+ plugin files to scan through"

Respectfully - if you actually have 5000+ plugins installed - I am not sure what you are expecting.

You do not list your machine type, it's hardware, your OS or anything.

For contrast - my DAW is a bleeding edge mid 2024 custom assembled workstation with all NMVe drives, 128GB of RAM and a i5 13th Gen processor - I have exactly 413 plugins and my scantime is 3.2 secs using KK v2.9.6. I do not use any VST2 plugins and all mine are brand name popular usual suspects.

Yes - the KK plugin scan has been the subject of much scorn and ridcule over the last few years and yes the process could be made better - but I can tell you without reservation that it was never tested to plow thru 5000+ plugins in any sort of record time. You will get what you get with this setup.

You have two options - you can either wait it out or lighten the workload - substantially.

Yearofthegoat

Please explain why it gets stuck with just my measly 60-odd? Waited a whole morning - surely it shouldn't take longer than that?!

I have the same issue, KK just hangs scanning. It also hangs in DAWs when trying to use NI's own stuff - Hypha, for example.

This only started to happen with the last 3.4.0 update, as far as I can tell.

Win11 23H2, Ryzen 5900X, 32GB DDR4. Otherwise works perfectly.

Vocalpoint

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/214322#Comment_214322

If it is hanging indefinitely - it is probably hitting a plugin that requires authorization and cannot make that connection (for a variety of reasons). Or one that is simply not compliant. I found the more VST2 plugs I had (on my prior DAW) - the more painful the scan times. As soon as I built a new DAW in Spring 2024 and ditched ALL VST2's - scan times went down to mere seconds

And if it is hanging on NI's own stuff - that sounds like a much bigger issue that just KK.

I do not use KK v3.x (yet) so I cannot comment.

Another trick that has worked for me in the past is to simply delete the Komplete.db3 file found here:

C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\Native Instruments\Komplete Kontrol

And then restart Komplete Kontrol. This will of course take some time but will write a fresh clean DB file which should give you some improvement.

Kymeia

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/43043/is-there-a-fix-for-komplete-control-freezing-on-scanning-plugins

Q1 - if the scanapp is hanging on a particular plugin you can try killing the process - it will just restart then and move onto the next plugin

Q2 - Any plugin can potentially support NKS so that would be unrealistic

However I do agree a well designed scanapp (such as has been in Logic for years and also UAD Luna now has a good one too) should not just filter out incompatible or potentially problematic plugins but it should also

remember them and not keep rescanning them
list them so the user knows which ones have been causing problems
enable a rescan on demand such as if the plugin has been updated and no longer needs blacklisting

This is something I have been arguing for, for a long time. I suspect a big part of the issue with 3.4 is NI have actually introduced a redesigned scanapp (the same one that is in Maschine 3) which is actually faster as it multi tasks. However it is unlikely that this scanapp could have been tested with every plugin people possibly have so some degree of getting stuck on plugins should be expected, and also it may be slower on the first scan given it is a new thing. Over time one would hope that feedback about problematic plugins helps make it more efficient, but being able to actually identify those more easily would seem a logical step for development of this app.

I do hope though that the above suggestions get incorporated into making it not just faster but also smarter

However I have no idea why there is a report of KK getting stuck on Hypha as that has nothing to do with plugin scanning so may be a seperate and unrelated issue

Jeremy_NI

Hey there, we should have a hotfix coming for scanning issues, it might help for your issue. It's going to go Beta soon, let me know if you want to try this version and I can send it to you to test when it's ready.

Yearofthegoat

Total re-install of KK did the trick - which might mean that deleting the db was the actual thing. Looking forward to the update, thanks.

fantastic74

i want to have a ticket from native instruments about this matter, but i cant find an option to send a message to customer service. Until now I only find a bot who repeats the same answer again and again. Very annoying.

Since my last upgrade of the collectors edition 14 to 15 my komplete kontrol freezes at preset 78206. I do not know which preset this in order to 'quarantine' (take away from the folder) it from the rest from the presets/plugins.

And i see here that the hotfix should come soon after 3 march. It is now 20 days ago and I still see no hotfix and I still cant check with customer care if that hotfix correspond to my issue (ot not).

Does anybody know how this work?

thnx in advance

gtz. Fred

Vocalpoint

"Since my last upgrade of the collectors edition 14 to 15 my komplete kontrol freezes at preset 78206"

Do not understand what this means.

Komplete Kontrol over here has always simply scanned physical plugins at startup (You see their names quickly flash by in the top of the dialog box) and has never made any reference to "preset" names - like ever.

Would be good to see a screencap of exactly what "freezes at preset 78206" actually is.

Jeremy_NI

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/217977#Comment_217977

I'm slightly confused here. You created 2 different tickets lately and my colleagues got back to you. Friday on one and today on another one, where it was escalated to a specialist.

fantastic74

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/218016#Comment_218016

and i see here that the hotfix should come soon after 3 march. It is now 20 days ago and I still see no hotfix and I still cant check with customer care if that hotfix correspond to my issue.

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/218016#Comment_218016

I made one ticket. I dont see 2 tickets in my mail. I made also a ticket for a registry transfer. But you are right, I forgot to reply on the forum that I got a reply that the specialist was going to take a look at it. Now I made a reply on my post in this forum that my problem is fixed with the update and some finding out myself and on my ticket. Hope this solves things out. Thnx for the commitment/involvement from you part to the customers here.

Kymeia

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/220218#Comment_220218

That hot fix came out - 3.4.1 - it did fix some freeze related issues but obviously not for everyone - however the additional info on the scanning screen may help people work out if there are specific plugins that are causing this

3.4.1 - 2025-03-27

Minimum OS requirements:

MacOS 13.- Windows 10 (latest Service Pack), Windows 11.

FIXED Komplete Kontrol freezing in Reaper with certain NI plugins loaded

FIXED issues stopping several NKS products from showing in the browser

FIXED a freeze during plugin scanning

FIXED Update the scanning splash screen to provide more info on progress

FIXED modal dialogues blocking UI in Logic Pro

FIXED NKS hardware partner naming fixed

FIXED Updated controller scripts included for Maschine+

fantastic74

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/220221#Comment_220221

Thank you for mentioning it. I was pretty sure of this.

WilliamAshley

Yes I thought I would reply back.

It seems the hangs I have been having for various plugins have more so been related to them having different versions of Microsoft C+ redistributable they use different version numbers. I am not sure if NI also uses Microsoft C+ resdistributable but currently it is an issue between UA and Sonarworks for me version 14.40 vs 14.42. Or something.

"

Respectfully - if you actually have 5000+ plugins installed - I am not sure what you are expecting."

I am expecting them to work. Its not 5000 different plugins it is usually vst2 and vst3 versions of many plugins. Its very easy to accumulate a few thousand over 25 years of making music with a computer.

Also when you need different versions of a plugin for backwards compatibility or running a specific project it can create a need to have multiple versions of the same plugins.

Windows 11 23H2. Its is a

Ryzen 7 7840HS

64gb ddr 5 ram

ssds

all running about 4 to 5ghz.

Paging disabled loading stuff is slower with pagefile/swap.

"I can tell you without reservation that it was never tested to plow thru 5000+ plugins in any sort of record time. You will get what you get with this setup."

What DAW are you using?

I can assure you it won't be seconds.

No my option is to be patient if scanning takes longer and keep the plugins and hope that DAWs plugin manager have better systems of scanning new plugins so only plugins that need to be updated are checked to reduce redundant processes.

I am guessing most of the delays are caused by authorization checks that will try to ping home or update files which adds extra steps for simply scanning each plugin. However I think the delays were caused by services being buggy and wanting to use windows services to collect data and send it to foreign addresses. These of course are blocked as much as possible because I don't like my data transferred without explicit permission or a need to do so to run a plugin.

A lot of plugin companies are collecting data and sending it to companies like google or microsoft for analytics and tracking but if those processes are blocked they take forever to fail on their attempts to send data.

Ideally I would work offline and not have 1000 plugins trying to send data when they are scanned.

NI does seem to be one of the companies that wants to collect data, I could be wrong but NK daemon etc.. are active randomly obviously doing something behind the scenes, but this is bad when you have 20 plugin managers all trying to phone home, of course its worse with ilok usually than stand alone managers but it adds up when you have many different plugin companies all wanting to do stuff other than run the plugins which generally would work on their own.

Its just a lot of checks most likely, it has nothing to do with the actual number but rather than plugins.
Its pretty awful. You pretty much have to use a physical firewall to block all ports that are used and only open them when you actually need to authorize. NI isn't so bad with this but its plugin manager does have dependencies.

The services are buggy. Most of the big plugin makers require services that a computer usually doesn't need that allows remote application management and network access etc.. that just makes no sense to provide for a client rather than a server.

As for NI not loading I think it relates to dependencies or versioning conflicts.

I think it has to do with a dependecy for a NI service as native access also isn't loading.

One of the benefits of having many plugins when one of the plugin companies suddently stops working you still have some alternative options. I am hoping to get this done but often these plugin managers are buggy and don't fix themselves when uninstalled and reinstalled like normal software you literally need to manually scrape off all traces of them for them to reinstall its just bad programming.

For the major plugin makers not sure if this applies to NI but if they used a c+ redistributable they should all update to the most recent version within a very tight window of one another. Having different versioning is just not fair to endusers. Like customers service is like uninstall the other companies dependencies but the standard should be all companies update to the most resent redistrbutable and provide a patch or update so their software will install and run. I don't think it is a lot to expect.

The other bare minimum is listing all services, and other file dependencies all ports and foreign addresses that must be available for the software to run. Randomly needing to trouble shoot to find this out is a massive time waste when a companies plugins randomly stop working every month and hours need to into fixing them.

Finally make sure you software can be uninstalled and reinstalled in totality so that a fresh install of the software is possible rather than just checking to see if files already exist and leaving the old files present as this prevents corrupted installations from self healing.

The sad fact is they likely make the software just not user friendly what good does a spinning wheel do me for for trouble shooting the reason, why not have a time out that actually says why the loading failed. Native access or Komplete Kontrol not being able to say what the issue is leave things in the dark.

I am suspecting now whatever the issue is probably relates to native access also not loading right now. I can't remember if native access was working at the time, but native access seems to be one of the buggy ones it'd be great if it was as simple as a dependency not being started or a port being blocked it needs access to.. but the software should say what the problem is not just have a wheel spinning.

As for komplete kontrol I really do think the scanner just is buggy and breaks for an unknown reason, likely due to errors backing up and causing the error buffer or something to crash. Not sure what it is but it is a buggy plugin scanner.

—

I'll take a look at this

"That hot fix came out - 3.4.1 - it did fix some freeze related issues but obviously not for everyone - however the additional info on the scanning screen may help people work out if there are specific plugins that are causing this"

Not sure if this is applicable but the issue of fixing individual plugins was that you needed to do it within the komplete kontrol which wouldn't even load so you couldn't fix issues for individual plugins because komplete kontrol won't open wtihout scanning when it is installed.

Also it wan't even the plugins that were showing, because it seemed to keep scanning for a bit as the error screens were background processes and weren't brought to focus so the error screens had no window and the plugin showing was one that occured after that error because some type of scanning continued even when an error occured rather than pausing the scan until each error is dealt with as it occurs.

BIF

That was a lot to read, and without the benefit of quotation marks or markup, I got lost more than a couple of times.

Are you still having the problem?

And do you still have 5000 plugins?

And do you still have duplicate VST2 and VST3 versions of the same plugins? If so, how many dups are there?

Kymeia

Not sure if this is applicable but the issue of fixing individual plugins was that you needed to do it within the komplete kontrol which wouldn't even load so you couldn't fix issues for individual plugins because komplete kontrol won't open wtihout scanning when it is installed.
Also it wan't even the plugins that were showing, because it seemed to keep scanning for a bit as the error screens were background processes and weren't brought to focus so the error screens had no window and the plugin showing was one that occured after that error because some type of scanning continued even when an error occured rather than pausing the scan until each error is dealt with as it occurs.

I know but that was not the case for everyone getting freezes - some were before scanning even started, some were during the process. I think the problem is there were several issues that needed fixing with the new scanner, one was initiation of scanning, one was making sure more plugins passed the scan (that one is probably ongoing as there is no way the team would have access to to all plugins and all environments possible so it will improve over time if people report problems), and another was making it easier to spot plugins that were stalling it. Personally I think they also need to add a proper plugin validation tool like in Logic but that's not going to happen anytime soon.

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