# Native Access "not enough space" fixes



## Soundbed

I wanted a single place to list the fix(es) for not enough enough space when installing libraries from Native Access.






MAC:
• Copy stuff from your HD to an external drive with space until you have oodles of free space on your HD. Remember to empty the trash. Copy it back when the library is finished installing.

• If you have free space and need to "trick" Native Access into realize that "purgeable space" is different from "free space" — find a large sample library in one of your external SDD’s and initiate a copy of it TO your system drive. Yes you are telling the Mac to FILL space. Watch Disk Utility. As soon as the space has been purged to accept the file copy (in seconds) Cancel the copy. Voila you have your *free space* back in a way Native Access can see. They really need to fix this bug and claim the purgable space automatically like other apps can do. Still, this is a very quick work around. (PS: for the Mac naysayers, this is an NI bug not a MacOS bug.) edited from this post by @PhilA

• If you have ever used Time Machine backups on your Mac, try deleting local Time Machine Backups: https://ppolyzos.com/2017/10/20/how-to-manually-delete-local-snapshots-from-time-machines-backups/ or https://www.macworld.com/article/231067/how-to-delete-time-machine-snapshots-on-your-mac.html or 

• Another Time Machine "hack" is to stop creating local backups altogether using the Terminal command sudo tmutil disablelocal (you can turn them back on with sudo tmutil enablelocal of course). https://www.howtogeek.com/212207/ho...d-by-time-machines-local-backups-on-your-mac/ (note the *article is from 2017* and may not work with your OS)

• Try deleting /private/tmp files: in Finder, Choose Go to Folder... from the Finder's Go menu and provide /private/tmp as the path. NI files should be here. Delete them and reboot.

• If you've tried the above and it it still isn't working, wait a bit (with the computer on) ... sometimes the amount of free space magically changes after several minutes of trying the things above.

Also from @Mike Greene in this post:



> this is an issue they're aware of and it does seem to be Mac specific. Here's a page where they explain the problem. Until they fix it (I get the feeling they've been stumped for a while on this one, so it might not be soon), you do indeed need double the size of the library available on your system drive, even if you select a non-system drive as the destination.
> 
> I see three options:
> 
> 1. Temporarily copy something big from the system drive to another drive to clear up space. Install the mystery library, then move your porn folder back to the System Drive and the Mystery Library over to your Samples drive. (Presumably named "Rectum Samples"?)
> 
> 2. Nag the lazy developer to upload rar files of the library. He's probably already planning to do that, but it's a long process, because his rar app is on an old laptop, so it's kinda cumbersome.
> 
> 3. Install it on another computer and copy it to the good computer. (Well, "good" except for the puny system drive.)
> 
> Note that authorizing the library is separate from installing the library. You have to authorize, but you don't have to use NA to install. So Options 2 or 3 will work, even if your system drive has zero free space, since you can bypass that step. In other words, once you've copied this mystery library to your Samples drive using Options 2 or 3, then open NA, add the serial, skip the "Install" process, and it will ask you to point it to the library's folder.



MAC & WIN:
• Change the download and install locations to an external drive in Native Access Preferences. In Native Access, click the "person" icon and choose Preferences... set the Download location and Content Location to /Volumes/<your external drive>/Users/Shared — you will need to create these folders if they do not exist on the external drive yet.

~

What else?

I will edit this post to include useful links / steps.


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## X-Bassist

The only thing that’s worked for me is buying a new 1TB HHD, initialize as usual (mac), then clone my internal to it (serves as a backup too).

Then reboot on the new drive, download the library (plenty of internal space) and make sure it’s on the right SSD, then reboot on the normal internal and use Native Access to locate the libary.

It’s a pain, but nothing else has worked for me. I’m hoping they fix this sometime soon. Have your other options worked? I don’t even use time machine, but have not heard of the other fix.

Needless to say I rarely buy a big library from them anymore, thankfully I have a lot already to choose from. I suppose this is a blessing in disguise.😄


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## Soundbed

X-Bassist said:


> The only thing that’s worked for me is buying a new 1TB HHD, initialize as usual (mac), then clone my internal to it (serves as a backup too).
> 
> Then reboot on the new drive, download the library (plenty of internal space) and make sure it’s on the right SSD, then reboot on the normal internal and use Native Access to locate the libary.
> 
> It’s a pain, but nothing else has worked for me. I’m hoping they fix this sometime soon. Have your other options worked? I don’t even use time machine, but have not heard of the other fix.
> 
> Needless to say I rarely buy a big library from them anymore, thankfully I have a lot already to choose from. I suppose this is a blessing in disguise.😄


How much is free on the cloned drive?

No, my other solutions listed are not currently working.

Looking for more solutions.

I have 196GB free on my boot drive, yet Native Access is still saying I don't have enough, when it requires "only" 135GB ... so, I don't have enough space — even when it appears that I do!


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## jbuhler

Soundbed said:


> How much is free on the cloned drive?
> 
> No, my other solutions listed are not currently working.
> 
> Looking for more solutions.
> 
> I have 196GB free on my boot drive, yet Native Access is still saying I don't have enough, when it requires "only" 135GB ... so, I don't have enough space — even when it appears that I do!


I don’t think you have to clone your boot drive. You just have to create an external boot drive. If you do that with a 1 TB drive, and then boot into the new drive and install and log into native access, you shouldn’t have any issues since you won’t have much on the drive. Depending on how you have native access set up, you may need to move the library where you want it. You’ll also still have to locate the library in the native access that resides on your main boot drive once you’ve rebooted into it.


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## dcoscina

I just usually email NI Support for the file and download directly. A bit of a pain but nowhere near as doing the alternate boot drive thing


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## Soundbed

dcoscina said:


> I just usually email NI Support for the file and download directly. A bit of a pain but nowhere near as doing the alternate boot drive thing





jbuhler said:


> I don’t think you have to clone your boot drive. You just have to create an external boot drive. If you do that with a 1 TB drive, and then boot into the new drive and install and log into native access, you shouldn’t have any issues since you won’t have much on the drive. Depending on how you have native access set up, you may need to move the library where you want it. You’ll also still have to locate the library in the native access that resides on your main boot drive once you’ve rebooted into it.


I finally got it working after trying the steps NOW LISTED in the updated original post, including "wait for a while"  ... after a while my free space jumped from about 200GB free to over 400GB free.


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## Soundbed

And again the issue on Macs seems largely related to Native Access having to distinguish between "free space" versus "purgeable space" ... https://support.native-instruments....ugh-free-drive-space-to-install-the-products-

and because some of you won't click the link on that page, here is the page from Apple that says "Available storage space includes free storage space and purgeable disk caches (*disk space might be both available and used at the same time*)."   https://support.apple.com/guide/system-information/see-available-storage-space-syspf9b375b9/mac


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## Soundbed

Added a new one I found today:

Another Time Machine "hack" is to stop creating local backups altogether using the Terminal command sudo tmutil disablelocal (you can turn them back on with sudo tmutil enablelocal of course). https://www.howtogeek.com/212207/ho...d-by-time-machines-local-backups-on-your-mac/ (note the article is from 2017 and may not work with your OS)


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## davidson

I just chose an external drive as my download location as well an my content location as I only had ~100gb free on my system drive (this was for S&A landforms). I was surprised it worked so smoothly as reading the posts on here made me think I was in for a nightmare.


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## Soundbed

davidson said:


> I just chose an external drive as my download location as well an my content location as I only had ~100gb free on my system drive (this was for S&A landforms). I was surprised it worked so smoothly as reading the posts on here made me think I was in for a nightmare.


Mac or Win?


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## davidson

Mac. My install failed the first time using the boot drive as my download location but went without a hitch when I switched to the external which had ~1tb free.


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## ptram

Soundbed said:


> MAC:
> • Copy stuff from your HD to an external drive with space until you have oodles of free space on your HD. Remember to empty the trash. Copy it back when the library is finished installing.


Tried with the recent Asian library. Trying to install into the internal drive, with more space than the external sample drive. It simply refuses to install to that drive, because it's the "wrong path".

Paolo


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## Soundbed

ptram said:


> Tried with the recent Asian library. Trying to install into the internal drive, with more space than the external sample drive. It simply refuses to install to that drive, because it's the "wrong path".
> 
> Paolo


Wish I could help! There are many solutions to attempt. After one “round” of fighting this, I noticed about three hours later I suddenly had hundreds of gigs free (after doing “nothing”)…maybe waiting could help, too..?


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## kgdrum

i'm glad people are figuring out work-arounds. In my case I replaced a 512 gig SSD that had 130 gig of available space(which should have been sufficient but was a no-go for Native Access) with a 1 tb SSD to install a library.
What i find troubling is NI has made it's Mac based customers jump through hoops with all of these time consuming and possible costly hurdles we have to clear just to download,install and use libraries we purchased.
This hasn't been happening for a week or two this has been going on for quite some time and it seems like NI couldn't care less.
@Native Instruments @Yaron_NI: The good news, NI's failure to address and fix this Mac based install available space issue has helped me avoid buying larger more expensive libraries and partially re-enforced my decision to skip a Komplete 13 Ultimate upgrade last month.
Thanks 👍


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## tmhuud

This is ridiculous that this hasn't been fixed. Simply ridiculous...


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## X-Bassist

Soundbed said:


> Wish I could help! There are many solutions to attempt. After one “round” of fighting this, I noticed about three hours later I suddenly had hundreds of gigs free (after doing “nothing”)…maybe waiting could help, too..?


I tried many solutions that didn't work, and didn't want to pay $179 for software to clean out the mac. Sooo... I bought an external drive, cloned my internal to it (plenty of extra space), booted off that drive, and now I'm downloading to my correct drives. Why does it want to see the full download size worth of free disc space on the internal? I have no clue, since it's not set to the internal. 

But I suppose I have to start ignoring NI sales if they are not going to fix this.


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## Soundbed

sorry if these suggestions haven't been helping, friends. I haven't had any issues lately, but I've also purchased another 6TB along the way :(


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## LamaRose

request direct links and use "Conduct" which is the new improved Continuata... or Impulse if allowed


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## Soundbed

LamaRose said:


> request direct links and use "Conduct" which is the new improved Continuata... or Impulse if allowed


true, anything I can download with direct links or a downloader app is welcome these days. and I do try to use those more recently, as well


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## el-bo

How is this situation for Mac M1 users? Is an external bootable system drive the way to go?


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## kgdrum

@VI-Control Admin 

This thread should be a STICKY! 👍


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## el-bo

Also...I know this is an NI thread (Seems a waste of a new thread for a similar question), but...do most of the other installers (Pulse, Spitfire, VSL, Berlin etc.) allow libraries to be downloaded directly to external drives, completely circumventing the internal drive?

Thanks


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## pulsedownloader

el-bo said:


> Also...I know this is an NI thread (Seems a waste of a new thread for a similar question), but...do most of the other installers (Pulse, Spitfire, VSL, Berlin etc.) allow libraries to be downloaded directly to external drives?
> 
> Thanks


Yes Pulse does.


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## el-bo

pulsedownloader said:


> Yes Pulse does.


Cheers!


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## Noland

el-bo said:


> Also...I know this is an NI thread (Seems a waste of a new thread for a similar question), but...do most of the other installers (Pulse, Spitfire, VSL, Berlin etc.) allow libraries to be downloaded directly to external drives?
> 
> Thanks


VSL does via the Vienna Assistant, Spitfire does too


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## el-bo

Noland said:


> VSL does via the Vienna Assistant, Spitfire does too


Thanks! But do they completely circumvent the internal drive (I just updated my question, to reflect this detail) i.e not need to leverage any real space on the internal drive?

The reason I ask is that there's a distinct possibility i'm going to buy a Mac with a 256G internal drive. If I can avoid having to boot into external drives (Assuming this is as easy to do on Apple silicon as it always has been) any time I need to download something, it would be better.

Cheers


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## Reid Rosefelt

I'm on the PC and don't have this issue, but I've always changed the drive and folder locations in Preferences each time I install a library, because I like to have, for example, all my ProjectSam libraries in the same folder.

Also, I like to put certain libraries in faster drives, depending on what they require to load quickly. Some of mine are in a regular 7200 drive, some are in SSDs, and some are in NVMe drives. And also, of course, where I have enough space!

One thing I really like about Native Access is how easy it is to move libraries manually if I prefer and then have the locations repointed in Native Access.

But I read something alarming in another forum that the newest version of Native Access may not work this way when you install updates.


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## chlady

I don't have any problem pointing the downloads in NA to external drives on my mac . I don't download anything to my internal system HD.


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## Noland

el-bo said:


> Thanks! But do they completely circumvent the internal drive (I just updated my question, to reflect this detail) i.e not need to leverage any real space on the internal drive?
> 
> The reason I ask is that there's a distinct possibility i'm going to buy a Mac with a 256G internal drive. If I can avoid having to boot into external drives (Assuming this is as easy to do on Apple silicon as it always has been) any time I need to download something, it would be better.
> 
> Cheers


For VSL you can download the install files to the drive of your choice and install to the drive of your choice, so for the libraries you can completely skip the main drive, but not sure about the Synchron player, that may need to be on your main drive. For Spitfire, I know you can install to an external drive, but not sure where the downloads go, maybe someone else knows more.


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## el-bo

chlady said:


> I don't have any problem pointing the downloads in NA to external drives on my mac . I don't download anything to my internal system HD.


Thanks!

You don't seem to be having issues downloading to external drives, but people seem to be having some problem that is preventing downloads, necessitating various options for workarounds. Not sure why people would, for example, set up bootable clones if all it took was downloading to an attached external drive. 

I'm sure it's me not understanding this


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## el-bo

Noland said:


> For VSL you can download the install files to the drive of your choice and install to the drive of your choice, so for the libraries you can completely skip the main drive, but not sure about the Synchron player, that may need to be on your main drive. For Spitfire, I know you can install to an external drive, but not sure where the downloads go, maybe someone else knows more.


I don't have any problem with the players themselves. But I just want to avoid filling up such a small drive with files, samples etc. or anything that can easily be accessed from an external drive.


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## robo3000

I am using Windows and I use filesystem junctions to map sample libraries from several drives to the NA content folder. Using this method NA doesn't even know the library is located on another drive. There is a free tool 'hardlink shell extension' that makes this really easy.


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## Soundbed

I deleted 40GB ... the OS is slowly figuring it out. This is (probably?) why Native Instruments' (NI) Native Access doesn't install your latest sample library **immediately** after you delete "enough" (and empty trash) ... You might need to wait a while before the system realizes that the space is indeed free. That means it's an OS issue, not an NI issue. What do you think? "please free an additional" "not enough space" "not enough free space" "installation has been prevented" "you do not have enough free drive space"


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## Jordan37

I am on a Mac, and when using Native Access (older, version 1, light colored version) to download a large library, I got the dreaded message: 

_Native Access Error Message: "Installation has been prevented. You do not have enough free drive space to install the product(s)."_

I had plenty of extra space available (more than 1TB) on my specified external hard drive to download the library. It was just that my internal start up disk did not have the required space available. However, I was not using the internal start up disk to download the large library, because I had already specified in the preferences to download the library to the external hard drive. This was the dreaded "catch-22" bug that Native Access has been plaguing many people with.

Here is the NI support page about it

Here is a Native Instruments forum discussion about possible workarounds

NI support suggested that I upgrade to the newest version of Native Access (currently 2.1.0, dark colored version) and that solved the problem. 

I can now download the very large library in Native Access onto an external hard drive with extra available space, regardless of the space which is available on my internal start-up disk. The dreaded "catch-22" bug was apparently solved with the new version of Native Access (2.1.0), for me on a Mac. However, YMMV - Your Mileage May Vary.

I hope this info may help someone who has been in a similar predicament...


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## Fleer

Yep, seems to work here too, with the newest Native Access version.
BUT this means I have to change both the download and content paths in Native Access preferences. Only changing the content path to the external drive still brought up the dreaded "not enough space in your system drive" message.
I also changed my Mac's system Privacy preferences to Full Disk Access to include Native Access. Don't know if that was needed, but I read somewhere this would help.
Finally, on a less positive note, I did get a "waiting for connection" message after a while, actually ending the download and requiring a manual relaunch to continue. 
I'm wishing third party devs for Kontakt Player would always provide a direct link to their libraries, as Native Access remains a world of pain.


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## synthnut1

Just bought AI Solo….You don’t have to download it, or enter your serial numbers…It’s all done automatically….The problem is that it’s a large download, and the dreaded “not enough disc space on your system drive” is bound to bite you….I manually backup to an external drive….This Native Access PITA problem with needing all this space on a system drive led me to find something interesting when looking to see what I could move to create space on my system drive….

The majority of space that was used on my system drive was taken up by an IK Multimedia folder in ”Users”>”your personal file”>”documents”>”IK Multimedia”…….

I got in on a big sale from them last year, and bought the farm !….This folder contained over 200gb of Ik Multimedia goodness ! After more investigation, I found that IK defaults to loading everything on your system drive…Back then they made no big mention of sending these files to a different location on your computer….Not to worry ! I had over 100 gb left on my system drive after all was said and done UNTIL NATIVE ACCESS REARED IT’S UGLY HEAD !

I dropped that entire IK folder into my external manual backup drive for safe keeping…..This left me with plenty of space on my system drive to satisfy Native Access….Also hit the person icon in native access and hit ”preferences”you can change your download,content, and other info…hit save…then hit the 2 circular arrows at the top of the page….This refreshes Native Access….

I hope this helps someone who has loaded up a bunch of IK products, and needs to create space on their system drive for the ongoing problem that Native Access has done nothing about for YEARS !


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## Soundbed

Soundbed said:


> • If you have free space and need to "trick" Native Access into realize that "purgeable space" is different from "free space" — find a large sample library in one of your external SDD’s and initiate a copy of it TO your system drive. Yes you are telling the Mac to FILL space. Watch Disk Utility. As soon as the space has been purged to accept the file copy (in seconds) Cancel the copy. Voila you have your *free space* back in a way Native Access can see. They really need to fix this bug and claim the purgable space automatically like other apps can do. Still, this is a very quick work around. (PS: for the Mac naysayers, this is an NI bug not a MacOS bug.) edited from this post by @PhilA


Wow, am I glad I made this thread. I've spent parts of the last hour dealing with this again, on a Mac Studio (M1 64GB) ... copying 400GB off my 1TB SSD onto a slow HDD backup disk.

Hmm... Native Access was saying it needed 388GB free, for a 98GB install. 420GB were free and I kept getting that message after restarts. I thought most of these bugs were fixed but I guess not.

SO, finally I consulted this thread, found the solution described in the quote above, to "trick" the drive into realizing the space was available for my download.

Why bring the thread up again to y'all?

Well, mostly replying to say "hi" to everyone checking the latest posts.

"Hi!" 

But also, if you need this fix or any of the others described in this thread — in these times of mass installs of all our fresh, shiny, new (or old but new to us) libraries — here you go! Bookmark it, or whatever. Cheers!


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