The Sheer Joy of 3.10.2

tempsperdu · 2024-04-18T20:28:19+00:00

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Oh yippee, not only have I got 26 updates. I got another new version of Native Access guaranteed to warm the cockles of even the lowliest heart.

Let's revel in the improvements!!!!!!!!

OK, let's have a good few minutes of Loading Products...well, 5 to be precise before giving up and restarting.

How many times is it going to ask me to login before saying it can't...oh 3...guess it could be worse...OK I'm off out I'll try later.

Attempt 2.... Loading Products for 6 minutes before I restart it........................

Oh, only took two attempts before it tells me it can't log in.

Good of NI to realise how boring it gets when things ... you know... just work!

Tries again..........nope still won't sign me in

OK, I have to delete NTK Daemon yet again and reboot

OK.... Nope, it still don't work...

Goes for tea.........

Some time later.....

OMG... it's actually opening, and now it's telling me there's yet another update to NA

I let the busy GIF be busy having the NTK Daemon rifle endlessly through my VST3 folder as it really needs to know what's in there, though no one knows why........which took just over 29 minutes......WOW!!! ... and I used to think 10 minutes was bad.............................

Well they are installing, and it's not at all confusing that after saying something has been installed, it doesn't disappear but instead has update highlighted again and the figure doesn't go down.

Oh dear...try to start some more, but apparently downloads can't be started............................

Hit refresh and here comes the busy GIF again....roll eyes............oh NTK Daemon is rifling through my VST 3 folder yet again...................................................................

After 17 minutes I gave up to try again later................................

OK another login disaster, another uninstall NTK Daemon and a reboot............................

And.......

Another login disaster............................

NA2 the 'gift' that keeps on giving......

Let's try again tomorrow.....

You couldn't make this up......

... Nor would you want to......................................

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Comments

_Stevie_

@DunedinDragon

I'm not sure how it would be my plugins. I have roughly the same number
of NI fully compliant plugins (200) from both NI along with other 3rd
party vendors such as Heaviocity, Spitfire, Luftrum, Impact Soundworks,
etc. as I do 8dio plugins (240) most of which are not fully NI compliant
are enormous in comparison to NI, particularly the full orchestras and
Choirs, but they all load the same.

Plugins ≠ libraries!

We are not talking about libraries but VST/VST3 plugins.

_Stevie_

double post

Jojo123

@tempsperdu
AFAICS the four main NI programmes, NA2, Kontakt. Komplete Kontrol
and Maschine now rifle through your VST3 folder before becoming usable.
It seems to have problems with some plugins, so it endlessly rescans
them.
Why?
No-one will say, the programme either does this itself, in concert seemingly with the NTK Daemon, or the NTK Daemon solely.
Not at all sure when this was introduced, and some claim this activity is not taking place with their installation.
So
we don't know why it is doing it, we don't know why some don't seem to
be affected, and no-one that can do something about it seems to really
care………………………………
So we are all in the dark and a tad furious. It's far from an optimal relationship between company and users, some might say.
Sorry to hear about your issues with Massive, I have to admit that to date I haven't had any issues there.
You could try running Process Monitor when it opens to try and work out what is going on.

Thanks for your response. I agree it more than likely seems the NTK Daemon could be involved as you've described, but as we don't know, I hope NI will pony up with information about it. We should know what is on our systems!!!

Im on Mac. 2019 intel iMac 8 core i9 40GB RAM 500GB internal SSD - I run Samsung T5s, and T7s - Logic doesn't use VSTs but AUs. I work diligently to keep all of them with lots of free space. Just a thought, do all your drives have a reasonable amount of free space. Especially with SSDs nasty things can happen if they get too full. I personally shoot for no less than about 30% free but 20% may be OK.

My system is solely used for music and thats it. Im very careful what I install and keep things as trimmed as possible. I don't go on the internet with it at all unless its for Apple updates, or things to do with my music products. The Mac equivalent to Process Manager, is Activity Monitor and I'll be paying a bit more attention to whats going on in there. I remember asking if NA1 had this NTK Daemon, but nobody answered, or at least conclusively. I cant find it anywhere in Activity Monitor, but I remember seeing a Folder of it somewhere. Not sure what to make of that. Its not in the start up items and its nowhere listed as being given full disk access. If its indeed not running then my slightly longer load times could be as I said, using more NI stuff in that particul;ar project. I'll be taking a bit more notice of the extended load times on these. Also

I'm not a Maschine user. Im still on the SAME KK from early last year. It worked well until I did an update. The update hard crashed Logic. After expending more effort than I should have, I got the old installer and been on it since. After all the drama with K7 KK and NA2, all of which I watched and waited patiently to update, I'm literally too scared to update so still on older versions all of which work well aside from a few glitches.

Yeah it cheeses me off about Massive and its probably been about 2 years now.

@_Stevie_
Kontakt 6 doesn’t do it, Kontakt 7 does.
This issue is in the code.

Do you know what version of Kontakt 7?

tempsperdu

Thanks for the link, Stevie. :)

_Stevie_

Do you know what version of Kontakt 7?

All of them

Maciej Repetowski

Kontakt has no business to check on AU or VST3 plugins at all. I would understand KK and Maschine (any new plugs, NKS compatibility and such). It would be nice to hear from NI on why does Kontakt need to scan AU/VST3 plugins in a first place.

DunedinDragon

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/152045#Comment_152045

For my purposes I use them interchangeably. Since I'm fully converted to the new platforms (Native Access, Kontakt 7 and KK) they generally work the same which may change in the future obviously. But if it helps you better understand feel free to convert my use of Libraries to Plugins.

_Stevie_

I'm not sure if you are even understanding what we are talking about.
Using your own terms to your personal liking doesn't make it easier.

Kontakt is slowed down because it scans VST plugins.

DunedinDragon

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/152072#Comment_152072

DITTO in duplicate….

DunedinDragon

Just for clarity, from the OS perspective what varies with Kontakt 7 from KK is that in addition to antimalware (which is a process owned and initiated by Defender) is the system process owned by the Windows OS which is the SIHost which further affects the loading time under Kontakt 7 which isn't initiated in KK. The impact is different however in that as a system background process it appropriately manages it's priority level in the processing queue such that it doesn't dominate the other active running processes like antimalware does. This means that, unlike antimalware, Kontakt 7 never stalls completely while loading, but continues to get time slices so it can do some processing on it's own, but it still endures delays caused by SIHost. This may be related to scanning, but who knows.

Vocalpoint

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/152027#Comment_152027

Stevie

With a 1.3 sec startup time here for Kontakt 7 standalone (and even less in Studio One as an "instance") - I am still baffled as to how the "code" would have any time to scan anything.

Now - if it does actually scan my 369 plugins in that time span - I say hats off to the programmers for making it possible to do that in a mere blink of an eye.

And yes - I read your post on VI-Control with interest (GREAT thread once it filled right out) and it is blatantly obvious that K7 not only requires a new database to feed that flashy new library browser but also the new MKIII NKS direct compatibility (light guide ,previews that can be done directly) etc. Nothing like this existed in K6. Not hard to see where this extra overhead is coming from.

But I do believe that many folks in that thread (including EvilDragon who knows more about Kontakt than anyone) state that the initial startup time for either a new (or even possibly updated) Kontakt instance will be longer and subsequent startups (which I can confirm) should be very fast.

_Stevie_

The thing is really simple: Kontakt is a paid product, it is (for some) not working as it should.
NI should fix it. Period.

All these: "I can't reproduce this, it's working for me as it should", "your system is ancient", "K7 now has NKS and lightguide support, it's supposed to be slower" are strawman arguments.

What do these arguments actually have to do with the fact, that Kontakt 7 is scanning ALL plugins on our systems every time it is instantiated?

And nope, the issue is still investigated. No one at NI does know any details.

tempsperdu

The overriding issue here in many ways is that a number of people have been very vocal about this scanning activity and how damaging it is in many cases. NI has been completely unvocal about explaining what exactly is going on and why, which apart from being insulting and belligerent beyond belief, is incredibly suspicious……what could there possibly be to hide, and how can they possibly think it is of no concern for users? When asked direct questions about it, they completely refuse to answer and ignore any questions.

Is that really any way for any reputable company to behave…. I doubt many would say yes.

Vocalpoint

"All these: "I can't reproduce this, it's working for me as it should", "your system is ancient", "K7 now has NKS and lightguide support, it's supposed to be slower" are strawman arguments"

Just know this will be VERY interesting (and possible humbling for some) to find out after ALL this "year long investigation" of the "scanning" phenomena that one's system (or it's ancient-ness or it's massive plugin count - OR something in addition to these) turns out to be the reason after all.

We are all running the same code here - but we are not all rocking the same plugin counts and certainly not the same hardware.

Logically (as some users are seeing HUGE scan times and others are not) - there is clearly some else going on here - that goes well beyond the actual code.

To wit - I just ran ProcMon here - based on your instructions - with Kontakt 7 (7.10.1) about a half hour ago - and I see no such evidence of anything being scanned at startup whatsoever.

With my 1.3 - 1.5. sec startup time - I mean - how it is even possible to scan my 369 plugs in that time frame?

UPDATE: New Kontakt 7.10.2 just released moments ago via Native Access:

Will update and see if anything is improved.

UPDATE - I updated to 7.10.2 (from 7.10.1)

Startup time (standalone) went from 1.3-ish seconds to 5.2 seconds - for this first run of 7.10.2

However - subsequent runs are now also locked at 5.2 seconds.

So it appears for me for now - this has now gotten worse.

_Stevie_

We are all running the same code here - but we are not all rocking the same plugin counts and certainly not the same hardware.

Same code, yes. But not the same system settings, applications, services, etc…
This is from the 7.10.2 changelog:

FIXED Kontakt standalone crashes when Canon EOS camera
software is installed

Not everyone has Canon EOS software installed, but some do. The code of Kontakt 7 had to be adjusted.
See what I mean?

Again, Kontakt 7 is not a DAW, it doesn't use plugins. I'm not sure if there is a simpler way to put it.

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