is there a number to call these guys? I need to talk to someone verbally not some AI chat

Why is it so hard opening a ticket on support site?

As I don't work at NI and also being just a customer I can only make guesses about the reasons for not offering phone support. But I expect that it is much cheaper for NI. Other reasons are that you can file your support issues 24/7 worldwide and someone at NI can get back to it when office hours start. A written ticket can be better transferred to other specialists on complex topics if needed. And on a phone line you have to wait until an agent can pick up your call - please wait… Current waiting time is approximately 90 minutes. Hate this. And if your case cannot be dealt with by first level (which is usually almost everything what you cannot sort out yourself) they even don't do much more as creating a support ticket.

Other advantage of mail support: You have a written proof of what NI granted you (or didn't).

My experience with support via Chatbot and Ticket at NI is quite good. Of course could be quicker sometimes but my last issues were resolved in less than 24 hours (not at weekends) and all my issues were sorted out in a good way for me.

Repeatedly posting the same question and picture isn't going to help matters.

You didn't answer my previous question - did you open the website mentioned on the keyboard screen and follow the instructions there? The exact message you're seeing is covered on the support page.

Also, if you search the forum: → click this link ←

The reason, simply put NI have many more users today (as they really target the bedroom producers) and less staff than they use to but also, 15-20 years ago most people getting into music and producing kind of learned many of the basics and computer stuff and usually had a better sense of overall troubleshooting where now many people growing up have no real idea how a computer even works let alone when anything decides not to work, how to even begin to troubleshoot and usually reach out for guidance instead of learning to troubleshoot. I mean, half the users that post about their issue for the first time don't have the sense to even explain what OS they are on let alone read the manual or search for answers.

So you have companies pulling in more users with less staff coupled with less knowledgeable users and more complicated software and integrations. If NI did have a phone number, the forum would be filled with complaints one can never get through. The days of "good/fast support" from large companies is long gone and now a producer working in a professional studio that has a genuine major problem is treated the same as little timmy who just got a keyboard for xmas and has no idea how to open the box…

To Address Your Question:

This issue/question has arose numerous times on the forum and has several suggestions with a search.

If you have your keyboard attached directly to your mac and have update issues the suggestion is (as strange as it sounds) to use a USB hub. This means if you do not have a mac compatible USB hub, you have to head out and buy one. Strange I know since most suggestions for other hardware recommend to never use a hub and connect instead direct to the PC.

There is some basic troubleshooting here (but doesn not even suggest this as a potential solution funnily so I cannot blame you for the frustration TBH:
https://support.native-instruments.com/hc/en-us/articles/14229160390045-Kontrol-S-Series-MK3-Troubleshooting-Firmware-Update-Issues

However there are multiple warnings about not switching off or disconnecting the keyboard during the update. Now I would hope the engineers were intelligent enough to design the update process so the system has a "bootloader" which can communicate with the update software even if there is no firmware or an issue with firmware, who knows but failing any fix via trying all that is suggested, you will need to wait for support and sadly that can be very hit and miss, usually the mods on the forums here can help you get answers much faster