Kontakt 8.8 makes new loaded instruments go down the window : Help !

Hey guysI installed kontakt 8.8 on a mac. (Sonoma/ logic). My default kontakt instance has 16 preloaded empty instruments, each one assigned to a midi chanel. So I can drag nki’s on them. But with 8.8 version, the new loaded instrument goes at the bottom of the window and won’t stay in place ! This is really boring for organisation. Each Time I need to scroll down to drag it up to its initial place. Same when using the arrows to change instruments. How can I back to old behaviour ? Thanks

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Accepted answers

Matthew_NI

This is a bug. It'll be fixed in Q1.

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Ted525

Don't know if I've been clear. For ex: if I have 4 instruments loaded in kontakt and I want to replace the second, I drag and drop the nki on the second instrument and then It opens below my 4th instrument instead of staying in place. I need to drag it up to its original place. Is there an option to avoid this ?

DunedinDragon

There doesn't appear to be, but it would definitely be useful

Kymeia

I think you still can do this in classic view

Ted525

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/252859#Comment_252859

I only use classic view. And I didn't find how to get instruments remain in place. This is happening only in the last update. I think I should re-install previous version.

Kymeia

OK just tried to replicate and was able to - it is annoying - I don't remember this being in the update release notes so not sure what was changed or why? It should be optional

I did find if I load from the Quickload menu they stay in place but admittedly not as convenient as drag and drop - see video

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/2cajja1m4uqoaewcedz05/Screen-Recording-2026-01-03-at-13.45.18.mov?rlkey=3i0974cs5p63ukt744ni10q12&st=nk5qe513&dl=0

Ted525

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/252867#Comment_252867

Thank you for your video. I tag all my nki files by category (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7T8_-LI3cA). So drag & drop is the way I use kontakt ! I have no choice going back to older version…I hope NI will correct this issue.

Matthew_NI

This is a bug. It'll be fixed in Q1.

Rocko

Is a 4-month window really the best estimate for a hotfix?

This isn’t a minor edge case—Kontakt is currently rendered unusable for a lot of us. It looks like the Library tag / MIDI block was simply left out of the implementation.

Please escalate this to someone who can patch it quickly and ship a targeted hotfix, instead of waiting for a full release cycle.

Matthew_NI

Yes.

This isn't hotfix territory - that's reserved solely for critical instabilities.

In terms of escalation: I am that someone. I'm a member of the Kontakt team, and also the Director of Product Management for Kontakt, Kontrol, Maschine, Traktor and other unannounced projects. I'd challenge any suggestion that Kontakt is rendered unusable.

As frustrating as this issue might be, you have two choices available whilst awaiting a fix.

If the instrument list is out of order, click+drag to place it back in the order you'd like.
Log into your NI account, and download the installers for Kontakt 8.7 (or indeed any prior version).

As you're likely already aware: Kontakt 8 updates approximately every ~6 weeks. Once in a while we may skip a release, but in 2025 we updated Kontakt 8 a total of 13 times. As such, we anticipate ~2 releases in Q1, and this bug fix could very well end up in either of them. But each issue is prioritized against the next, and in the world of frequent delivery things continually evolve. This is why I offered nothing more specific than that we aim to resolve this bug in Q1.

Hope that helps!

Rocko

sorry wrong bug

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