Hi everyone,
I'd like to report what I believe is a reproducible issue affecting Maschine 3 after certain Native Access updates.
I'm posting this here because I'd like to know whether other users have experienced the same behaviour, and hopefully provide useful information to the Native Instruments team.
My setup
- Maschine 3 (latest version)
- Native Access (latest version)
- macOS (tested on both a MacBook Air M2 and a Mac mini M1)
- All NI libraries installed only through Native Access
- Libraries stored on an external SSD
- No manual modifications to the library folders
The important point is that the exact same issue occurs on two completely different Macs.
The problem
After some Native Access updates (Native Access itself or Expansion updates), Maschine starts reporting Missing Sample errors when loading presets from various Expansions.
For example:
Missing Sample
.../Deep Matter Library/Samples/Instruments/Bass/Bakchos/Bakchos C1.wav
The strange thing is that:
- the sample does exist
- the folder structure is correct
- permissions are correct
- the issue affects multiple Expansions, not just one
Behaviour
If I manually locate one missing sample, Maschine immediately relinks the entire Expansion.
Everything works again...
...until another Native Access update, when the problem comes back.
Investigation
I wanted to understand what was actually happening instead of simply relocating samples every time.
After checking that every sample was physically present, I renamed the Maschine database:
~/Library/Application Support/Native Instruments/Maschine 3/komplete.db3
I then launched Maschine.
Maschine automatically rebuilt its database, rescanned every installed library, and all Missing Sample errors disappeared without manually relocating any samples.
This strongly suggests that the issue is not related to the Expansion content, but rather to the Maschine library database (komplete.db3).
Why this matters
I'm using Maschine professionally in a recording studio.
When you're working with clients, it's impossible to know whether an Expansion will load correctly until you actually open it.
Having to relocate samples in front of a client is not a good experience, even if there is a workaround.
Possible improvement
It would be great if Maschine could automatically detect an inconsistent library database and offer something like:
"Your library database appears to be invalid. Would you like to rebuild it?"
instead of reporting hundreds of missing samples.
Has anyone else experienced this?
If you've had similar "Missing Sample" issues after updating Native Access, I'd be interested to know:
- Which OS are you using?
- Internal or external drive?
- Does rebuilding
komplete.db3 solve the issue for you as well?
A message to the Native Instruments team
I've been using Maschine professionally for many years, and I genuinely believe it remains one of the most inspiring music production environments available today.
Its workflow is unique, and I really hope Native Instruments continues investing in its development.
That's precisely why I wanted to take the time to investigate this issue instead of simply reporting "it doesn't work." I hope the information above helps the development team identify the root cause and improve the reliability of the library management system.
Thank you for taking the time to read this 😊
