KVR Audio

jancivil · Post by **jancivil** » Thu Mar 17, 2022 11:50 pm

similar thread to this:
https://www.native-instruments.com/foru ... ths.67703/

there's a disagreement on the facts there as well. Relative paths means all things being equal the expectation the samples are in the same relation to the rest of the folder structure is good, you're good. So someone else with a different system may be able to load a relative paths-saved instrument, so long as it's all the same relatively speaking. Absolute paths means the other user is SOL.
Other factors may enter however.

Here's me making something fail: Geosonics II was loaded, the patch called simply Geosonics. I saved - relative paths - the nki under the name Geosonics II in a user instrument folder I just created. If I close out, come back & go to the dialogue "Load recent...", there's that name, and it remembers my path, loads, done. I change the name of the user inst. folder and the same move produces 'File Not Found, make sure your drives are connected.'. If I change the name back to "Geosonics", same File Not Found.
(This is standalone, in any host, relative, absolute paths, doesn't matter. Kontakt doesn't know anything except the relationship between instrument and samples automatically.)

first rule for me is don't f**k with names; if you do, expect to have to know where you last put the thing.
As a rule, know where your things are, be organized. People like to call this a bug, it isn't.

Caine123 · Post by **Caine123** » Fri Mar 18, 2022 12:37 am

jancivil wrote: Thu Mar 17, 2022 11:50 pm similar thread to this:
https://www.native-instruments.com/foru ... ths.67703/

there's a disagreement on the facts there as well. Relative paths means all things being equal the expectation the samples are in the same relation to the rest of the folder structure is good, you're good. So someone else with a different system may be able to load a relative paths-saved instrument, so long as it's all the same relatively speaking. Absolute paths means the other user is SOL.
Other factors may enter however.

Here's me making something fail: Geosonics II was loaded, the patch called simply Geosonics. I saved - relative paths - the nki under the name Geosonics II in a user instrument folder I just created. If I close out, come back & go to the dialogue "Load recent...", there's that name, and it remembers my path, loads, done. I change the name of the user inst. folder and the same move produces 'File Not Found, make sure your drives are connected.'. If I change the name back to "Geosonics", same File Not Found.
(This is standalone, in any host, relative, absolute paths, doesn't matter. Kontakt doesn't know anything except the relationship between instrument and samples automatically.)

first rule for me is don't f**k with names; if you do, expect to have to know where you last put the thing.
As a rule, know where your things are, be organized. People like to call this a bug, it isn't.

well, it still should say "geosonics" not found, so you still know what the name is it is looking for...
and renaming, moving, or changing a library is something totally different you have to differentiate.

so far i found out the following. normally if you use a NON-library sample and move it etc. it asks next time the exact name and shows it, so you can browse throught files/folder etc. this is normal like good vsts do it. and it loads it fine then.

but my issue is, it just says library not found, yeah you crap program, which library? of course the never-making faults guys say you have to sort and organize and write down every step, note which patches you use, take screenshots and make videos of every projects.... cause the programs in 2022 might still be too idiotic to give a more explanation especially from BIGGER?! companies with MORE money....
hence afaik all vsts so far let me know which samples i used, which files are missing and let me relocate. but no Kontakt is too proud of itself and is not a bug, is is a golden standard and may not be criticized.. come on.

so again, if you rename specific patches i can understand, it still shall say what preset name it looks for, but just say library not found, error, is just idiotic! or bad, crap whatever, take a word.

Caine123 · Post by **Caine123** » Fri Mar 18, 2022 6:44 pm

opened a ticket at NI, lets see what they say, i guess, we cannot help.

EvilDragon · Post by **EvilDragon** » Sun Mar 20, 2022 1:09 am

Caine123 wrote: Fri Mar 18, 2022 12:37 am but no Kontakt is too proud of itself and is not a bug, is is a golden standard and may not be criticized.. come on.

Calm down... Nothing is ever perfect, there's bugs in each and every program everywhere. Nobody's saying Kontakt cannot be criticized - I have a bunch of my own criticisms for it

But I would really like to know how you even managed to get that dialog (from the first post). Which K5 version do you have installed, is it the latest one (5.8.1) or older? Anything else you could say about the project, like do you even roughly remember which libraries were used?

This sort of dialog would only show for a Kontakt Player library, as far as I can tell, especially if it was installed but not actually activatd.

m-ac · Post by **m-ac** » Sun Mar 20, 2022 11:46 am

EvilDragon wrote: Sun Mar 20, 2022 1:09 am This sort of dialog would only show for a Kontakt Player library, as far as I can tell, especially if it was installed but not actually activatd.

That's interesting. So the message in the first post in related to missing player libraries? Like I mentioned, I get that a lot with old projects from years ago. I can't think off the top of my head what player libraries I've uninstalled since then, but at least it gives me a path to follow if that's the case.

EvilDragon · Post by **EvilDragon** » Sun Mar 20, 2022 1:31 pm

Yeah, I cannot see why such a message would show up for non-Player libraries. In non-Player libraries missing case you just get a Missing Samples dialog...

m-ac · Post by **m-ac** » Sun Mar 20, 2022 1:55 pm

EvilDragon wrote: Sun Mar 20, 2022 1:31 pm Yeah, I cannot see why such a message would show up for non-Player libraries. In non-Player libraries missing case you just get a Missing Samples dialog...

Good info

jancivil · Post by **jancivil** » Mon Mar 21, 2022 12:20 am

So this is "Powered by Kontakt" capital-L Library it can't find.
Sorry, I'm evidently not too swift. For this to be recognized as a library, over there on the left sidebar with a pretty picture, there has to be a certain file type in the top folder of the installation. For some years this is .nicnt. Before it was (Library Name) info.nkc and (Library Name) info.nkx in there. I don't know if there is some change in a Kontakt 5 version that would make the older type invalid, last time I looked at it they were fine.

jancivil · Post by **jancivil** » Mon Mar 21, 2022 7:34 am

I had to rebuild my entire setup this last week. The only things Kontakt did not find are on a drive it had never seen, and these were saved without thinking about relative paths. 6.7 did the same insane thing as 6.6.1 but I was able to make it stop by deleting the instance and reloading it this time. This has to be a bug (prob'ly only for VE Pro, too).

All of my VSL on either drive loaded; this difference is there is something Kontakt does not have, directory managers and a tigher-assed folder regimen, so as long as a library resides under the top folder created in installation VI Pro, Synchron Player, Synchron Pianos have the location sussed. IE: you can keep adding things & it's all good. So Kontakt doubtless leaves something to be desired in the design.

There are quite a few people, it even seems like the vast majority of people using BFD3.4 are having massive problems because people think an application should be able to sort all their incoherent directories with no difficulty at all. (There's a whole thing with Windows people I've seen here all along insisting they should be free to determine where everything is absolutely. Bit of a pet peeve here. Don't make the thing do extra work.)
While it has always had an inviolable folder structure, neither fxpansion nor BFD Drums appear to signal to users that you want one_top_directory under which everything resides, and generally people have really tried not to hear this from me, anyway. With Kontakt, it's Native Instruments/Content and it all goes here. But because it's 'my' folders and not NI's, the Content on the external drive is a mystery to Kontakt until it's pointed there. But, keep it simple.

EvilDragon · Post by **EvilDragon** » Mon Mar 21, 2022 7:51 am

Well, at least for Player libraries you can install them anywhere, in Native Access you can change the content path to whatever you see fit, and when installing a library the last set content path will be taken into account and written into the registry/plist. You don't at all need to have all the Player libraries you own in one single folder.

For non-Player libraries as I mentioned a few times already, since 6.6.0 there's a base path you can use for all the indie libraries, and they too can be splattered all over various drives you have... as long as you symlink from those drives to the non-Player base path and keep those relative paths in check, everything will be dandy and you will never see that Missing Samples dialog again.

jancivil · Post by **jancivil** » Mon Mar 21, 2022 6:43 pm

"You don't at all need to have all the Player libraries you own in one single folder."
I mention it for two specific reasons trying to advise: 1) it's more organized and possibly fosters a habit of knowing what and where your shit is.
2) because of the other UX, with directory managers, where as long as you install under a top folder everything is known about the location. Nothing has to be further managed.

The VSL stuff was found instantly regardless of drive or knowing about a symbolic link.
Obv. you don't have to.

EvilDragon · Post by **EvilDragon** » Thu Mar 24, 2022 7:49 am

I mean you can make it appear so that you have all the libraries in one folder, by using symlinks, you dedicate one folder as your "root" and point all your samplers to that one folder (whereas actual libraries could be wherever).

I have 8 SSDs with libraries sprawled all over, 8+ TB of data. Also feels kinda safer (esp with SSDs) to have things split out like this, because SSDs fail suddenly and catastrophically, so having one huge SSD does seem like a riskier proposition in the long run.

jancivil · Post by **jancivil** » Sun Mar 27, 2022 12:12 am

"kinda safer to..."
fair point. I have my stuff over 3 SSDs, meaning 3 top directories for VSL, and having to point NA preferences to content location variously. I don't worry a lot about either because it's all recoverable directly from source. Except for some older things, but I now have either updated or abandoned.

frozenjazz · Post by **frozenjazz** » Thu Nov 28, 2024 11:00 pm

Hi guys,

Mmm, two year later... I have the same issue as the OP!
Reopening and old project from 2021... where I was not keeping track of the name of the libraries.
I reinstalled K5 on my current system, most of the K5 instances had "missing samples", very easy to fix, just point to new location, done.

But for one of them... no idea what the library was. Am I simply screwed? I checked my project file (Reaper, .rpp), I can see the preset name, yeah... but not the path to the library...

I can't believe there is no way to decode the project file, or put K5 in a kind of debug mode so it will at least give a hint about the name... ?

Thanks,

EvilDragon · Post by **EvilDragon** » Thu Nov 28, 2024 11:14 pm

Kontakt does not store the library name, it only stores the paths of the samples. In the Missing Content dialog, you can make the width of the column which lists the file paths wider, so you could read it out fully where it's assumed to be, maybe it helps in figuring out what the library was.

Kontakt 5 - Library not found error - Yeah but what library?