Can I disable NTKDaemon?

U.Honey

I have purchased two NI plug-ins that run on Kontakt player. I recently installed them on my new MacBook Air M2 and now I see there is a daemon process with name NTKDaemon running on my Mac. It has over 20 threads and it wakes up about 10 times a second meaning that it is using the CPU all the time. I absolutely don't want any extra wapor-ware running on my Mac hogging the CPU. What is the NTKDaemon supposedly doing? How do I disable it from running?

Monochrome

NTKDaemon is needed for Native Access. Deactivating it may will break stuff.

Kaiwan_NI

Hi @U.Honey indeed you need NTKDaemon to run Native Access. If you're curious about what it does, check out this post by Native Access product owner here:

Dev Talks: Why We Transformed Native Access

U.Honey

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/50603#Comment_50603

Can you elaborate on how deactivating (or uninstalling) Native Access will break stuff? I have no plans on upgrading my plug-in versions or buying more from NI. I will disable the internet access in my Mac when using the music apps.

Are there instructions on how to uninstall the Native Access & all other bloatware except of Kontakt player?

Monochrome

Kaiwan_NI already pointed you to the right thread, but to quote it here:

"The gist of [the idea that would eventually shift us to a new approach for Native Access] is that the functionality was decoupled from the interface, and two separate entities operate the system: one is the new dark-themed Native Access (NA2) interface you see today, the other being the NTK Daemon, responsible for activating, downloading, installing, and managing your products. You can think of it as NA2 being the button and the Daemon the wiring and the cogwheels."

Deactivating the NTKDaemon will break this crucial functionality.

Not 100% sure on this, but... you probably could uninstall Native Access and still use Kontakt Player offline once it had been activated online.

akirabass

I don't want to sound like a broken record, but I still don't understand why NTK Daemon requires Rosetta just to install it even long after the announcement of the native compatibility of Native Access 2 as a "system" to Apple Silicon.

akirabass

Fore what is worth, it is clearly stated in the very first section of this page...

https://support.native-instruments.com/hc/en-us/articles/360014683497-Apple-Silicon-Compatibility-News

...that "The products that are natively compatible with Apple Silicon do not require Rosetta."

This should mean that NA2 (or more presicely, the NA2-related NTK Daemon) shouldn't require Rosetta.

U.Honey

For what it's worth, I was able to uninstall the NTK Daemon (easier said than done) and my Kontakt Player is running fine. BTW, I'm not the only one complaining about the music bloatware, here's a discussion thread from another forum:

https://forums.musicplayer.com/topic/184225-sick-of-audio-related-bloatware/#comment-2926260

mac1973

just experienced similar issue on my WIN Laptop.. Fans running as hell.. more than 20%CPU Usage while doin nothing.. just stopped process NTKDaemon.. it sounds so quite now.. Fans stopped, CPU Usage in standard range.. so my question: what is wrong with NI Guys? usually such faults are more on MS side.. so it took some time to identify the problem..

Hayo_NI

@U.Honey NTK Daemon is necessary if you're installing products and activating products as well. Kontakt Player does not need activation as it is a free product, but you might experience limited features with other products if you do not have the NTK Daemon running.