Session guitarist picked acoustic suddenly won't work, crippling existing projects, please help

lingyai · 2024-06-25T22:14:40+00:00

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I've no idea why this has happened, a few weeks ago I used this library, all was as fine as it's ever been, whether in Kontakt 5 when I bought the library, or when I migrated to Kontakt 6. I'm on a Windows 10 64-bit PC.

Yesterday I wanted to load this library Kontakt into 6 but noticed that it was suddenly gone from my Libraries tab. Wouldn't load from the files tab.

So I downloaded and installed Native Access again (now v3.11.1), deleted the library, reinstalled it. Native Access said it was installed though it was still absent from the Libraries tab.

Using the Files browser I clicked on Picked Acoustic.nki and got a message "Your version of Kontakt is too old to load this file. Please update to the latest version."

Was using Kontakt 6.71. (I also have K5 installed and K7 Player, though I never use the latter, crashes my DAW and I don't need it for anything. Would delete it but figure that could break something, who knows, NI seems to work in mysteious ways these days). In Native Access there was a blue "i" (info icon) under "Kontakt" (unhelpfully it doesn't say if it's K5, K6 or whatever) saying an update was available.

So I updated, to what turns out to be Kontakt 6.8, the "i" icon is gone and no other "alert" is shown by it in NA. But no change; the library is again shown by NA to be installed, but it is still missing from the Library tab, and again, using the Files browser I clicked on Picked Acoustic.nki and got a message "Your version of Kontakt is too old to load this file. Please update to the latest version."

This is no longer amusing. I've paid for and registered the library and Kontakt; for no apparent reason this library breaks; I obediently jump through all the hoops of updating NA and Kontakt when it is suggested, and it still doesn't work; just at a time when I really want to resume work on projects which use it, but which are now off limits because my brand new update to K6 is still considered to be too old. Well, it's the only version NA offered me, so... ? Does this mean I have to updgrade to K7 to use this library? I won't be be bulldozed into that.

I'm not a techie. Can someone offer any clear guidance? All I want is my projects back, with that library loaded, using the same settings (picking patterns etc) I'd been using in the projects? Most of the software I've used since the early 90s tends to remember settings, launch when you launch it etc.

Does using this as directed need this be so very painful?

I love my Kontakt libraries (I've spent thousands on them over the years) but now fear using them unless I render every stem to a wav file because god only knows when I will lose access to them. They should rename Native Access to "Native Access Denied".

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Accepted answers

Jeremy_NI

You can find the zipped library here, with instructions on how to install it:

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/32123/session-guitarist-picked-acoustic-previous-version-link-contains-wrong-file

lingyai

What VocalPoint and Jeremy suggested worked, thanks very much.

Very happy indeed to get to a solution in the end. But this journey was needless. I have two suggestions for NI.

1) As you're always tinkering with Native Access, fix the bug whereby the affected libraries which are not accessible are shown to be accessible, i.e. as "Installed" with nothing indicating that some action is needed.

Because we're supposed to trust NA, right? It's like our HAL (from 2001: A Space Odyssey) only not evil, it's there to guide and serve and deliver us safely as long as we trust it, right?

So when NA indicates a library is good to go, it should be good to go; but when the user's next move, i.e. trying to use it, results in an error message like what I got and so many others get, it sows serious doubt in a users' mind, as the error (especially if it happens from one week to the next, as in my case, with no obvious actions by me in the meantime) is inherently inexplicable, based on the info provided via the GUI at the time of the error and the user's knowledge that they have already paid for and registered the software, and used it without a problem before.

It signals that both Kontakt and NA are wrong. This makes users doubtful and grumpy. Customer goodwill can evaporate fast. Even from people like me who’ve been using Kontakt avidly for close to 15 years. Letting this happen could end up as a reputational own-goal if you’re not careful.

2) If for some reason this basic logic (IF some action needed to use library, tell user, ELSE say it’s ok to use) just can't be implemented, a tiny bit of well-placed communication could pre-empt this sort of confusion / hours spent trying solutions.

Perhaps it is obvious to certain folks who frequent product forums that this problem is "old news", but in certain other galaxies, the humanoids do not visit the forums, rather they just expect things (including error messages) to work, and use the time saved on things like music-making.

So, as NI knows this is an issue, to the point that it hosts a page of legacy installers to remedy it, please consider, in the next version of NA, additional text in the error message box which I and others do see / are baffled by, which could go a such a very long way towards preventing users from freaking out when they find themselves suddenly and inexplicably locked out of using instruments and thus face the prospect of crippled projects.

For example, "If you are running Kontakt 6, you might be able to solve this problem by visiting this page", where "this page" is a hyperlink to the page with the downloads. Or something, I'm sure you can converge on suitable text.

Because the solution is indeed easy once you know how; but how is one to know how? Great that the forum has people like those who have replied to my post with solutions (thanks again), as a safety net, but not everyone will automatically head here; in google searches for the answer, one sees so many pages and sources of "wisdom" proposing different solutions. Having to research through this and try stuff out massively sucks, values our time at $0/hour, and is wholly unnecessary if NI would put the answers right before the users eyes, somewhere in the GUI. Remember what the U in GUI stands for.

After all, in Francisco Partners' press release announcing the acquisition of NI, it said how it aims to make NI "user-centric," so this should be preaching to the choir, no?

In summary: Make things which just work. That failing, tell the user what heck is going on. Engineers I know make doing these points of pride. Multiply the hours of troubleshooting / worrying saved by the estimated number of users helped, and you're talking a nice little gift for humankind.

(Fanbois who want to tell me paying customers should just roll with whatever technical ineptitude / poor communication NI chooses to dish out, as it's "where the industry is heading, don't be a luddite" etc: 1) Changes which break things are not progress, they are just destructive disruption; and 2) I can't hear you know, I'm in the outer reaches of our solar system, planning new adventures with my rescued Kontakt library and projects, vrroom vrroom! But I can see Uranus)

I'd mark this as solved but see no obvious way to edit my original post's title, and as I'm done with my latest dose of NI non-obviousness, so please, mods, can you amend?

All comments

DunedinDragon

Well you can certainly stand your ground on not moving over to Kontakt 7, but now that you're up to date on the latest version of Native Access you're going to be pretty busy keeping things knitted together. Your Kontakt 6 will work with the older versions of the libraries, but if you downloaded the newer version via Native Access you may have to run both to keep things working well with the old Kontakt.

The issue is the format of the libraries changed from VST2 to VST3 in the new version of NA, Kontakt and Komplete Kontrol which is where the industry is moving and by default it loads the new VST3 version which your old setup doesn't know how to handle. You're not alone because there are a number of folks that, for whatever reason, don't want to move to the new system so they work with a hybrid of the two.

Personally I transitioned totally to the new system including NA, Kontakt 7 and Komplete Kontrol and never lost a single project and all are working perfectly every day on my Windows 10 PC and laptop and I never lost any of my saved configuration stuff (including Picked Acoustic). But I don't have any reason to hold back because all of my NI libraries as well as Spitfire, 8DIO, Heavyocity and many other vendors are working perfectly on the new platform.

By the way I'm pretty sure a 90's version of Windows (which if I recall was still Windows for Workgroups) won't be running any current versions of software, in fact the vast majority of 90's versions of Windows software will likely not be compatible with your Windows 10 machine. It's the nature of technology to advance forward.

Vocalpoint

All Kontakt libraries from NI were updated in the fall of 2023 to mesh with the new MK III hardware and the then new Komplete Kontrol 3.x.

All updates moved the minimum version of Kontakt to 7.6.x at that time. If you reinstalled NA and re-downloaded Picked Acoustic - you will have the latest version - which requires K7.6.

The fix is to go here:

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/21349/previous-versions-of-recently-updated-kontakt-libraries-compatibility-with-k6-older-libraries

Then find the link for the previous K6 version of PA and reinstall it. Be sure to uninstall the latest one first.

Jojo123

and….

A word of warning (unless NI have since fixed it in the last couple of days). If you use the link to get the older version for this library, be aware you could be in for a world of hurt, as recently as this week some posted about getting the wrong version, so they are STILL serving the wrong (the latest) version on googledrive. Why this has been allowed to continue since last year I'll never know.

Jeremy_NI

You can find the zipped library here, with instructions on how to install it:

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/32123/session-guitarist-picked-acoustic-previous-version-link-contains-wrong-file

Jeremy_NI

I also updated the main thread.

lingyai

Thank you both, Jeremy and Vocalpoint! 👍️

lingyai

What VocalPoint and Jeremy suggested worked, thanks very much.

Very happy indeed to get to a solution in the end. But this journey was needless. I have two suggestions for NI.

Because we're supposed to trust NA, right? It's like our HAL (from 2001: A Space Odyssey) only not evil, it's there to guide and serve and deliver us safely as long as we trust it, right?

After all, in Francisco Partners' press release announcing the acquisition of NI, it said how it aims to make NI "user-centric," so this should be preaching to the choir, no?

I'd mark this as solved but see no obvious way to edit my original post's title, and as I'm done with my latest dose of NI non-obviousness, so please, mods, can you amend?

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