# What causes "Demo" mode?



## Tod (Oct 11, 2020)

Hi my friends,

A customer recently purchased one of my instruments in Kontakt and they are getting a "Demo" mode situation. This would be unrelated to my instrument and I have not run into this before. What could be causing this?


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## Polkasound (Oct 11, 2020)

The most common reason is that they are using the free version of Kontakt Player and not the full version of Kontakt.


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## Beans (Oct 11, 2020)

Most libraries will work fine in the full, paid version of Kontakt. The exception would be if the library needs a specific version or later of Kontakt, like 5.8.1.


Some libraries will work fine in the free Kontakt Player. This will have required that the library developer previously paid a licensing fee with Native Instruments.


If such a license does not exist, then opening the library in Kontakt Player will put it in "demo mode." This means that after 15 minutes, the sound will go silent and the in-Kontakt editing features will become unavailable. Closing out and re-opening will reset the timer, I think.
If your customer does have the full version of Kontakt, ask them if they are using Komplete Kontrol. I've read about cases of Komplete Kontrol "forgetting" that Kontakt full exists and defaulting to Kontakt Player. If I correctly recall, disabling Kontakt in KK (Edit > Preferences > Plug-ins), closing Komplete, re-opening, then re-enabling Kontakt in the Komplete Kontrol plug-in manager jumpstarted it into working properly again. They might need another Komplete Kontrol restart after that sequence; I don't recall.


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## Tod (Oct 13, 2020)

Sorry for not getting back sooner and thanks so much for your replies, I still haven't heard back from him so I'm not sure what to think.


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## derstefmitf (Oct 14, 2020)

We have a similiar problem with a customer right now. Only selected NKIs from a product suddenly show the DEMO mode, others don't. The customer have them open in one instance of Kontakt (full version). We are still communicating with the customer. Will keep you informed.

[EDIT] He is using the Player, not full version.


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## derstefmitf (Oct 14, 2020)

@Tod does your customer use Multis? In our case the customer can get rid of the demo mode if he goes to next NKI in the folder via the small arrows in Kontakt and back again, so this looks like a bug. He uses 6.4.2


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## Tod (Oct 14, 2020)

derstefmitf said:


> @Tod does your customer use Multis? In our case the customer can get rid of the demo mode if he goes to next NKI in the folder via the small arrows in Kontakt and back again, so this looks like a bug. He uses 6.4.2



I'm not sure derstefmitf, I finally got a message from him last night saying he had resolved the issue. His emails were very short and difficult to read but he did say something about updating the Kontakt player.


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