Kontakt on MacOS doesn't recognise NTFS external drives in Files tab

famine

Hi,

i've recently switched my external M.2 NVMe to NTFS (read a lot of discussions where exfat was not recommended - like https://www.native-instruments.com/forum/threads/exfat-sdd-drives-are-we-still-supposed-to-avoid-these-for-kontakt.428671/)

Libraries tab works fine, but in Files tab Kontakt doesn't recognise any NTFS drive i attach. So the only way I can access Full Kontakt libraries is really nasty: i need to expand every single time: Macintosh HD -> Volumes -> EXT_DRIVE -> Kontakt Full.

Because even i have stored path (/Volumes/EXT_DRIVE/Kontakt Full) in recently introduced `Non-Player content base path` or Quick jump it simply does nothing.

Anyway Kontakt is the only software that does not recognise the external driver.

PS: I'm using Kontakt 6.6.1 on MacBook Pro 2019, MacOS Monterey 12.2

PS2: I'm using Paragon NTFS, i've also tried to completely disable it, and use just native MacOS NTFS driver but still had the same issue.

Jeremy_NI

Hey Famine, NTFS is also not recommended, on Mac you should use HFS+ or APFS, as you can read here:

Notes on Hard Drive Formats on Mac Computers

Jeremy_NI

Hey Famine, NTFS is also not recommended, on Mac you should use HFS+ or APFS, as you can read here:

Notes on Hard Drive Formats on Mac Computers

famine

Hi Jeremy,

as i mentioned, disk and instruments works fine and everything loads quickly without single problem, just detection of NTFS driver does not work in Kontakt and obviously it's a bug - can you please create some ticket with the bug? Or where else i can report/create bug for it?

To be honest i don't want to buy second 2TB M.2 NVME just for Windows, because of the bug...

Jeremy_NI

Hey @famine Unfortunately, there is no bug to report, NTFS is not supported on Mac, You can only read NTFS drives on a Mac, you need third party applications like Paragon to be able to use NTFS drives. We also don't support these applications, as you can read here:

Storing Libraries on an External Drive for both Mac and Windows

EvilDragon

Reading is all that's needed for playing back sample libraries, though... So it should actually work on Mac even with just read only support.

famine

@EvilDragon yep, it should work, but it doesn't :-( ... as i mentioned it works only with nasty workaround, that i need to navigate every single time through whole folder structure via Volumes :-(

@Jeremy_NI I was just kindly asking for creating bug or feature request or whatever you call it (or redirect me somewhere where i can report it). In both links you've sent, there is no single mention that NTFS is not supported, there are only some recommendations. Like "It may cause performance issues." But i have no performance issue, there is just Kontakt usability issue. Why for example external exFAT drives are detected fine?

PS: I've been working as a software tester/developer for more than 20 years and from my experience this is really bug, which should be fixed. But if developers won't know about it - nothing can be fixed.

Jeremy_NI

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/3739#Comment_3739

Hey @famine The developers definitely know about it, and our Kontakt specialists at customer support as well. The issue has been reported already and documented. It's a common feature request (to be able to have one drive for both Windows and Mac). I suspect it's more of an Apple limitation and it's probably a complicated thing to implement if ever possible, but I'm not a software developer myself, so I will try to get some more information from the Kontakt team. We definitely appreciate your input on this.