It is actually, it is anomalous as far as I know. Normally Kontakt, standalone or coupled to a project prompts for location of samples.

But as standalone, it doesn't remember unless you saved that state of Kontakt. I don't know what to say about a Cubase save, you should get a prompt for the Kontakt samples missing.

edit: the pertinent fact may be that 'you need to load the samples from the location where they were when they were sliced'.
Last edited by jancivil on Fri May 04, 2012 5:29 pm; edited 2 times in total

i think it's important to save every preset within kontakt just to be sure you can load the patches using future versions,same goes for guitar rig.

that is not my experience. I had to rebuild a number of projects that used Kontakt plugged into Cubase and I was prompted to find the missing samples that were not where Cubase/Kontakt expected them to be. In every case.

Again, thanks for the support.
As you probably understand my main concern now is to be able to load the kontakt instruments back into the cubase projects. Making sure that doesn't happen again is important of course (I will save everything as instrument next time AND back up the application data) but I need all the help I can find so I am able to make cubase and kontakt load again my instruments. Do you think there is a way?
As far as I understand you suggest that the key might be to have the original wav files to the exact same paths AND THEN do the thing in the pool? That's a bit tricky cause as I've said I have changed them before even I format and as far as i'm concerned they were even in a drive with a different letter which after the format got attached in a dvd drive. The funny part is that even though I moved and renamed folders everything was loading fine before the format which makes me worry that the problem lies into ANOTHER folder keeping data associating the wav files with the kontakt instruments (application data or common files as mentioned) in which case I am probably screwed. What can I do now? Maybe try to... change drive letters from the windows (i think i know how to do that), somehow "guess" (?) the exact folder path name the wav files used to be and then use a flash drive to try and recreate it there? Pretty crazy ah? And all this cause Native Instruments didn't care to include a "prompt and locate" feature, again unbelievable.
But do you think the 'Prepare archive...' thingy will help? I mean, it looks like it's something handling the local cubase project audio files only?
Once again I can't stretch enough how much I appreciate any support, it's been months I try to deal with this now and it drives me crazy.

I don't think the Cubase pool has any to do with the Kontakt problem you have, but I did want to show you how to ensure it finds its files as well.

It appears you have no edits in that .cpr so... I wouldn't worry.

something to know on the Kontakt end is that you can set it to follow relative, rather than absolute paths, which means that the statement of the path doesn't have to be absolute.
That is not correct, it will, it does, consistently. only you have made it impossible in some way.

the factory data doesn't enter into your problem (nor the other Kontakt folders @ 'username'). your problem is with particular data you cannot save to that folder anyway, data which you seem to have misplaced.

My only guess is that your problem follows that you need to load a sliced/edited samples base from the absolutely same location it was when you made the edits.
as far as Cubase is concerned these instruments are empty. But that only follows what Kontakt believes about it.

Cubase does not have your edits if they were made in Kontakt, I'm sorry bringing that [audio pool] in was confusing.

NB: when you save in Cubase it does recall the state of the plugins at that juncture. Because of what you did to break the path, Kontakt takes that instrument as empty, or as the Cubase project loads, it would want Kontakt to load its thing according to the state it was in at last save.

SO. Had you saved the Kontakt instrument you'd be less screwed.

Of course, but we were talking about unsaved instruments, instruments that are inside Kontakt but that are only known by Cubase because there are no .nki of them. The data concerning those unsaved instruments exist only inside the Cubase project file. I don't think Cubase is able to trigger Kontakt's missing files menu by itself.

yeah, I don't think I have ever had anything in Kontakt that wasn't a .nki at all, so... I would reckon that this is the problem, the container for these sliced samples is not known to be anything by Cubase.

I thought you were saying it only caused a search for its own steiny instruments as such.

I still try to reload my instruments with no success. I wish all this and people's kind input could resolve into a solution.
If I understand well the only proposed solution was to somehow recreate the exact path the wav files used to be. Unfortunately there is no accurate way to do this apart from guessing. My attempts in that direction, all these days, were unsuccessful.
I don't know whether the paths I tried to create are wrong or that the method isn't the solution. While having Battery notifying for a few missing samples where I simply point out the right direction and everything's fine, Kontakt simply stays silent, prompting nothing, loading nothing which I still don't get.
We've been trying to examine why that happened and what comes up is
a). I should have saved as nki.
b). Kontakt doesn't show a "missing file" warning for some reason. Maybe that's because there is not a nki. But my understanding is that it should try to locate the "wav" files anyway since as I said I never saved as nki. in the first place and everything was loading fine before.

Much has been said about the reason that happened, could we maybe focus in a proposed solution?

Food for thought:

1.Can I somehow FORCE kontakt or cubase to show a missing file dialog so I locate and load my instruments?

2.IF the "recreate the exact paths" is the key, is there an accurate way to find out what those paths were exactly? I mean, that data should be saved somewhere in cubase/cpr file no? How could I possibly extract that information from the cpr files? Someone suggested to open the .cpr as a .txt file with notepad. I did that but among all those parameters I only found info about the audio file paths used straight from cubase. Not about Kontakt instruments / loaded wave files.

3.If we can also rule out the possibility that it was some other secondary folder long lost after the reformat (such as kontakt app data/common files etc.) which was responsible for keeping data linking the wav files with the cubase projects/kontakt instances used on them (since there were no nki. files) what on Earth could I possibly do to make them reload back again?
I can't afford losing those instruments, it's not like they are attached to some melodies I could simply just redo. They are attached to midi tracks handling complicated breakbeat manipulation.
I really wish I could find peace with it all...

So, I started a new Cubase project, loaded Kontakt 4 and dragged a wav file into it (a break) creating a new instrument.
I sliced it and dragged the slices at will creating a midi file with them. I did NOT save as .nki. Basically, I followed the exact process I used to.
I saved the project and closed Cubase then started renaming some crucial folders which equals to "temporarily deleting them" (since system couldn't find those folders to load data from them) to see what might cause a problem.
*First C:\Users\*Username*\AppData\Local\Native Instruments\Kontakt 4 as Ew suggested.
Btw, the subfolders "Temporary Conversions" and "KConvert Temp" remain empty. I don't see any temporary nki. files saved anywhere. I assumed IF there is anything related with instrument data it could only be in "KConvert Logs" or the "default" folder.
So in the C:\Users\*Username*\AppData\Local\Native Instruments\Kontakt 4 I renamed the last subfolder to "Kontakt 44" thus making it unavailable. That would be the same as reformatting, making the folder disappear. I fired up Cubase again to see what happens.
The folder "Kontakt 4" was recreated and my "sliced" instruments loaded fine.
So I guess that rules out the possibility of "non-saved as nki" instruments to be held there.
*I tried the same with C:\Program Files\Common Files\Native Instruments\Kontakt 4 with the same result
*Finally, I renamed the folder the wav was to see what happens. Even in the case the previous two folders I mentioned were unavailable (renamed) Kontakt prompted to resolve the missing file, when I pointed out the right path it reloaded it with no problems, something that doesn't happen with those old wav files/instruments before the reformat I want to reload back in.
So I guess the only logical solution is that there must be some OTHER folder keeping "temporary" conversions/data of wav files dragged into Kontakt but not saved as nki.
Think about it, Kontakt must read information from somewhere in order to maintain all the slices and edits in a wav file, it's only sensible isn't it?
So the questions of what that folder is and/or if that's not the case how could I reload back my instruments remain…

I believe kontakt 4 (as well as most well-behaved plug-ins) will store all of their data in the VST chunk which is stored with the native host's document.

When a host reloads a saved document it will call the SetChunk function which the plug-in uses to restore its data.

Setchunk? What's the path of this location? I mean the one you claim the kontakt data to be saved. So I try and check whether it is saved there/gone if I delete it. Do you have any ideas of how could I reload back my instruments maybe?