Kontakt 8.8 - all libraries show as Demo

I fired up my home installation yesterday, intending to do a bit of piano practice using a couple of Kontakt libraries, and found I couldn't access anything - every one of my 311 libraries was marked 'Demo'.

I followed the procedures listed on the Support site but nothing worked. I raised a ticket and despite having both the dump file generated by Native Access and screenshots of every stage in the process, they referred me back to the stock answers which I'd already showed not working!

At the same time, I found that Kontakt would not connect via Midi to my Nektar Panorama T6 and Aruba devices. All of this had been working flawlessly for months prior to yesterday.

So far, I've reinstalled Kontakt, Komplete Kontrol, and I'm a fair way through reinstalling every single library. The total download will be in excess of 4Tb. On my 1Gb home fibre connection, this isn't too much of a problem, but I'm dreading finding that my studio (~30mb connection) has the same issue.

I'm wondering if anyone else has had the same issue, and whether it's related to recent Windows MIDI updates - and whether there's an answer that won't mean I have to re-download all 311 libraries in my studio!!

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TimC340

Actually, NI support have come back to me. From my logs, they worked out that CCleaner was almost certainly the culprit, in that it probably interfered with the registry entries for the various plugins within the NI programs. Anyway, I’ve reinstalled everything and it’s now working as it should so you can mark it as solved!

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Uwe303

Hello,

so i guess you followed this:

https://support.native-instruments.com/hc/en-us/articles/4402377887121-My-products-are-showing-as-demo-in-Native-Access

and have you looked under windows security, the last entry called something with protection, its a list with all events that has something to do with protection. Maybe you find some entries there related tonative access or other native instruments programs.

TimC340

My fat finger hit ‘yes’ when I meant ‘no’! (Bloody phone screen!)

Yes, as I explained, I followed all the relevant advice given in the support pages, including the one you linked. It made no difference.

I have now reinstalled every NI library, and most of the third-party ones, and also Kontakt and Komplete Kontrol themselves. I have resolved both the ‘Demo’ issue and the Midi issue by doing so. What I haven’t been able to do is establish a cause. Fortunately, my studio computer (identical installation except Windows 11 Pro 25H2 rather than 11 Home) is not similarly affected.

I guess I’ll just have to put it down to a Windows idiosyncrasy and move on…

PoorFellow

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/256102#Comment_256102

My fat finger hit ‘yes’ when I meant ‘no’! (Bloody phone screen!)

I changed status to not solved for you…

TimC340

PoorFellow

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/256587#Comment_256587

Thank you for sharing what was the problem. This finding might also interest @Vocalpoint and @Jeremy_NI , though I expect that both would already be able to put CCleaner 'on the list of suspects' if on the radar - which let's face it that it is not always on the radar when it ought to be (at least not for me)….

Vocalpoint

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/256603#Comment_256603

@PoorFellow

Like "Clean My Mac" - this app has been the cause of more issues than I can recount.

Full disclosure - I once used it here circa 2017 but dropped it after it was sold by the original owners (Piriform) to same guys that run Avast. Shortly after that - it made news as nasty adware AND had a huge malware backdoor issue in late Sept 2017. After that the damage was done and it was time to move on.

Ironically - never have my machines run better than the day after I dumped that app :)

As far as the OP was concerned - never dawned on me that anyone would actually use this thing in this day and age - so I never really thought about it.

But I guess anything is possible :)

Uwe303

And as far as I remember it is already not recommended to use cleaners like that, maybe a hint would be nice if you install native access for the first time, or on the na download webpage!?

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