# Does Kontakt 5.6.8 send usage data when this option is disbaled?



## Anthony (Sep 3, 2017)

I checked "No, I don't want to contribute" anonymous usage data in Options, and yet Kontakt is still clearly sending information. Is this normal? If so, what type of information is it sending?

I discovered this behavior while attempting to determine the source of the *severe* real-time peak spikes I'm experiencing in Cubase 8.5 when tracks with Kontakt and some of the Orange Tree Sample libraries are selected. The problem is unique to that combination, and only when these tracks are selected. All of my other plugins work fine. 

I'm running Win 7 x64 with an RME UCX (firewire) interface. All plugins are 64 bit and the system is very stable (and has been for years).

Any insight into this problem would be greatly appreciated. Cheers...


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## EvilDragon (Sep 3, 2017)

https://support.native-instruments.com/hc/en-us/articles/209545029-What-is-Usage-Data-Tracking-

It cannot be specific to some libraries, because there is no way for libraries to communicate with outside world (there is no such functionality in KSP).


When the option is disabled, there should be no outgoing network traffic, apart from a loopback (localhost) connection to Native Access, which is extremely low overhead.


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## Anthony (Sep 3, 2017)

Thanks for replying.



EvilDragon said:


> It cannot be specific to some libraries, because there is no way for libraries to communicate with outside world (there is no such functionality in KSP).



I don't think that communication is specific to some libraries (like Orange Tree Samples). I know it's Kontakt itself that is accessing the Internet. What I was saying is that the spikes/performance issue in Cubase is specific to the combination of Kontakt + OTS.



EvilDragon said:


> https://support.native-instruments.com/hc/en-us/articles/209545029-What-is-Usage-Data-Tracking-
> 
> When the option is disabled, there should be no outgoing network traffic, apart from a loopback (localhost) connection to Native Access, which is extremely low overhead.


Hmm. Judging from the intensity and duration of network traffic reflected on my network activity monitor, it seems like the amount of information being sent/received is fairly substantive. Whenever I select a track with an instance of Kontakt and then open its GUI, it immediately starts sending/receiving data. And it continues to do so until I close it.

Is this observation consistent with your notion of "low overhead?"

Cheers...


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## gamma-ut (Sep 3, 2017)

Which OTS libraries are affected? 

Is it possibly checking licence status for Kontakt player-compatible libraries and somehow getting stuck in a loop?


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## EvilDragon (Sep 3, 2017)

Anthony said:


> Whenever I select a track with an instance of Kontakt and then open its GUI, it immediately starts sending/receiving data. And it continues to do so until I close it.



That is very weird, I would contact NI support with that info. Also, if you can somehow sniff what that network traffic is consisted of, by all means do that (ProcMon might help).



gamma-ut said:


> Is it possibly checking licence status for Kontakt player-compatible libraries and somehow getting stuck in a loop?



Plausible, but if it were checking license status and got stuck in a loop, the libraries would likely open in demo mode...


Alternatively, you can always go ahead and disable your network connection when doing any sort of DAW related work...


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## Anthony (Sep 4, 2017)

gamma-ut said:


> Which OTS libraries are affected?
> 
> Is it possibly checking licence status for Kontakt player-compatible libraries and somehow getting stuck in a loop?


Not an exhaustive list, but I noticed it on Evolution Mandolin, SLIDE Acoustic, and Angelic Harp.


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## Anthony (Sep 4, 2017)

EvilDragon said:


> Alternatively, you can always go ahead and disable your network connection when doing any sort of DAW related work...


Yes, this is good practice (and is the way I normally work). But I was trying to find out why I was getting such severe spikes and went online, and then happened to notice network activity whenever the Kontakt GUI was opened.



EvilDragon said:


> Also, if you can somehow sniff what that network traffic is consisted of, by all means do that (ProcMon might help).


I just did this and all the remote addresses came up as "localhost," as you suggested. I didn't realize that my activity monitor displayed this information as well. Does this mean that nothing is being transmitted off my system?

And on a related note, can this (localhost) activity be causing the spikes I'm experiencing?

Thanks for helping out...


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## gamma-ut (Sep 4, 2017)

I've got Slide Acoustic out of that lot. Under K5.6.8 running in Cubase 9 on OS X Sierra, I've got nothing going out or coming in. Kontakt sometimes does access configuration.native-instruments.com when instantiating but that's it.

The stuck licence-check theory doesn't make a lot of sense I must admit. But, at this stage it sounds like a bug that happens to be triggered by something that OTS scripts use within Kontakt and it doesn't matter whether it's a Player-compatible library or not.


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## EvilDragon (Sep 5, 2017)

There's nothing that CAN be script-triggered, there is absolutely no relation between usage data tracking and KSP code.


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## gamma-ut (Sep 5, 2017)

EvilDragon said:


> There's nothing that CAN be script-triggered, there is absolutely no relation between usage data tracking and KSP code.



That's not my point. I'm just saying some odd coincidence of API calls leads to Kontakt or the underlying OS going a bit haywire.


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## EvilDragon (Sep 5, 2017)

I guess that's not out of the realm of impossible, but somehow it seems highly improbably to me that that would be the case...


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## gamma-ut (Sep 5, 2017)

It's software. Anything can happen with some weird bugs. 

However, the high throughput to localhost makes me wonder if somehow Kontakt is treating the drive on which the samples are stored as a network volume when it is, in fact, local. You'd wind up with a ton of apparent network activity that simply loops back onto computer. The extra layer of indirection might lead to spikes/stutters. However, that assumes the samples are being streamed from disk and are not loaded upfront – I haven't looked to see if Slide Acoustic does DSD.


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