Kontakt on MacOS doesn't recognise NTFS external drives in Files tab

famine
famine Member Posts: 3 Member
edited February 2022 in Kontakt

Hi,

i've recently switched my external M.2 NVMe to NTFS (read a lot of discussions where exfat was not recommended - like https://www.native-instruments.com/forum/threads/exfat-sdd-drives-are-we-still-supposed-to-avoid-these-for-kontakt.428671/)

Libraries tab works fine, but in Files tab Kontakt doesn't recognise any NTFS drive i attach. So the only way I can access Full Kontakt libraries is really nasty: i need to expand every single time: Macintosh HD -> Volumes -> EXT_DRIVE -> Kontakt Full.

Because even i have stored path (/Volumes/EXT_DRIVE/Kontakt Full) in recently introduced `Non-Player content base path` or Quick jump it simply does nothing.

Anyway Kontakt is the only software that does not recognise the external driver.

PS: I'm using Kontakt 6.6.1 on MacBook Pro 2019, MacOS Monterey 12.2

PS2: I'm using Paragon NTFS, i've also tried to completely disable it, and use just native MacOS NTFS driver but still had the same issue.

Tagged:

Best Answer

Answers

  • Jeremy_NI
    Jeremy_NI Customer Care Posts: 9,298 mod
    Answer ✓

    Hey Famine, NTFS is also not recommended, on Mac you should use HFS+ or APFS, as you can read here:

    Notes on Hard Drive Formats on Mac Computers

  • famine
    famine Member Posts: 3 Member
    edited February 2022

    Hi Jeremy,

    as i mentioned, disk and instruments works fine and everything loads quickly without single problem, just detection of NTFS driver does not work in Kontakt and obviously it's a bug - can you please create some ticket with the bug? Or where else i can report/create bug for it?

    To be honest i don't want to buy second 2TB M.2 NVME just for Windows, because of the bug...

  • Jeremy_NI
    Jeremy_NI Customer Care Posts: 9,298 mod

    Hey @famine Unfortunately, there is no bug to report, NTFS is not supported on Mac, You can only read NTFS drives on a Mac, you need third party applications like Paragon to be able to use NTFS drives. We also don't support these applications, as you can read here:

    Storing Libraries on an External Drive for both Mac and Windows

  • EvilDragon
    EvilDragon Moderator Posts: 1,022 mod

    Reading is all that's needed for playing back sample libraries, though... So it should actually work on Mac even with just read only support.

  • famine
    famine Member Posts: 3 Member

    @EvilDragon yep, it should work, but it doesn't :-( ... as i mentioned it works only with nasty workaround, that i need to navigate every single time through whole folder structure via Volumes :-(

    @Jeremy_NI I was just kindly asking for creating bug or feature request or whatever you call it (or redirect me somewhere where i can report it). In both links you've sent, there is no single mention that NTFS is not supported, there are only some recommendations. Like "It may cause performance issues." But i have no performance issue, there is just Kontakt usability issue. Why for example external exFAT drives are detected fine?

    PS: I've been working as a software tester/developer for more than 20 years and from my experience this is really bug, which should be fixed. But if developers won't know about it - nothing can be fixed.

  • Jeremy_NI
    Jeremy_NI Customer Care Posts: 9,298 mod
    edited February 2022

    Hey @famine The developers definitely know about it, and our Kontakt specialists at customer support as well. The issue has been reported already and documented. It's a common feature request (to be able to have one drive for both Windows and Mac). I suspect it's more of an Apple limitation and it's probably a complicated thing to implement if ever possible, but I'm not a software developer myself, so I will try to get some more information from the Kontakt team. We definitely appreciate your input on this.

Back To Top