The Sheer Joy of 3.10.2

Hello, all!

Some familiar, friendly, and also new faces here. If you don't know me: I represent Maschine and Kontrol, and it's from that lens that I hope to add some clarity about why we do certain things. Meanwhile, I know @Hayo_NI and team are hard at work resolving some Native Access issues, and bringing forth an updated community forum post to help.

It is really really important to separate this thread into two concepts: WHY and WHAT.

WHY do we scan things?

WHAT is causing recent performance issues?

I think in trying to diagnose the latter, conspiracy theories about the former began to ferment. Recognizing the issues are deeply frustrating (we are users too, so have also been affected), I wanted to offer some explanations by way of help.

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WHY

We scan VST plug-ins for routine reasons. There is nothing untoward about the WHY.

• NTK Daemon is the engine that powers Native Access. It is explained here.
• We scan 3rd party VST plug-ins for routine reasons: we make multiple plug-in hosts (Maschine, Kontrol).
• Hosts regularly scan plug-ins to keep their database (and knowledge of the plug-ins within it) up-to-date and reduce loading or stability issues. For instance, a re-scan often fixes a majority of the plug-in hosting issues reported to us, or indeed to other hosts (e.g. DAWs).
• When any host scans plug-ins, the plug-in may also report activation status to the host, again as routine.
• Many 3rd party VST plug-ins are also Native Kontrol Standard (NKS) compatible, and install relevant metadata and imagery to power the software←→hardware mapping(s). In such cases, we're also looking for that metadata when scanning. This is benign and simply functional, rather than anything invasive.

We also scan content for similar reasons.

• Content in this context refers to Kontakt instruments (1st or 3rd party), not VST instruments.
• Such instruments are also scanned as a matter of routine.
• Such instruments may also be NKS compatible, come with relevant metadata, etc etc.
• In terms of Kontakt scanning behaviors, I hope this helps shed some light:
  • Our product scan implementation – regardless of whether it's packaged in the ScanApp for Kontrol, Maschine or integrated into the Browser always performs the same product scan.
  • Since some of our products are interested in VSTs by NKS partners, all products that use the same scanning code (NA, MAS, KK, GR, Kontakt, MX) scan for VSTs as well.
  • I can assure you that Kontakt, MX, GR don't do anything with that information, but the scan happens anyway.

The above helps explain WHY we do things, particularly in relation to Kontrol and Maschine, hence why some of you DM'd me to chime in.

However, there are also questions about WHAT is happening at present, as load times have increased in correlation with recent updates. I can give a brief overview, but rest assured @Hayo_NI and team are working hard on a longer, more qualified community response and shipping resolution to the issues.

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What

• Native Access 2 is currently experiencing a regression. That much is clear.
• The root cause is still under investigation. It may have something to do with deprecated HFS file-paths, and various related and new formats, but @Hayo_NI and team will let you know once it's been properly dealt with (read: I am not qualified nor the right person to deal with this).
• It also seems as if there is either an issue resulting in Native Access validating paths and checking activation states of products that are only relevant for Kontrol and Maschine. Native Access knew to ignore these prior to 3.9.0, hence the temporary workaround posted below (use NA 3.8.1)
• The symptoms are multiple and variable, but can affect load times, and our knowledge of installed products, which in turn causes loading issues.
• Not every user on every system will see them. Which is why some of you have, and some of you haven't (note: please try not to argue with one another when experiencing variable issues).

—

How we'll proceed

@Hayo_NI is working on another community post with more details to address the comments within this thread, and he and the NA team are hard at work resolving them.

Though the root causes may be multiple, and the symptoms may be variable, there is a potential workaround our customer support team has established, that may help some of you. I cannot possibly promise it will help all. I will post this workaround in a separate post below this one, temporarily. Typically, requests for such information should be addressed exclusively via our customer support channels, but in this case I recognize the criticality of the issues for y'all, and that waiting a week or so for response is untenable.