Menu
What's new
By:
Filters

QuickLoad not showing correct entries in Kontakt [SOLVED]

Garry

Garry

Senior Member
I have a confusing problem with QuickLoad: via Kontakt, I enter folders and links to specific libraries, as usual, and the link shows up in QuickLoad. Then I noticed that when I go back to the folders, some, but not all of the folders are now empty. If I try to enter the links again, similarly, they are blank when I return to them.

I checked in the QuickLoad folder (Mac HD/Users/user/Library/Application Support/Native Instruments/Kontakt 5/QuickLoad), and sure enough the alias files are there, but they are not showing in QuickLoad in the Kontakt window.

Is it possible that Kontakt is looking for QuickLoad in a different place (I don't know where I can specify the path, or why it would have changed though).

This problem only occurred yesterday, right after I moved all my libraries from the HDD to a SSD, and therefore had to rebuild the QuickLoad library to point to their new locations.
Click to read more...
 
It seems that for the files that don't show up in Kontakt, the target destination of the alias has reverted to the previous location on my HDD (which no longer exists, having been moved to the SSD). Since they don't point to a valid nki file, they don't show up in Kontakt/Quickload.

I don't know why this would happen for some, but not others - I created the links in QuickLoad by simply dragging the nki in Kontakt from it's location on the SSD, so I can't see how that can get corrupted: note that it initially shows up, as expected when I create the link at first, and then randomly some of them disappear (the ones whose path points back to my HDD) some time later. Very strange.

To fix it, I'm wondering is there a way on a Mac to batch rename the target path for aliases, so that the base path of both the alias and the original will be consistent?
 
Last edited:
Do you work in the stand alone version? Doing it inside of a DAW doesn't work. I had the same problem, just deleted the nki files in QuickLoad, dragged them over again from the files section and that solved the issue for me.
 
MichaelB said:
Do you work in the stand alone version? Doing it inside of a DAW doesn't work. I had the same problem, just deleted the nki files in QuickLoad, dragged them over again from the files section and that solved the issue for me.
Click to expand...
Thanks - I just tried that, but still the same result. It's very strange: I drag the nki files into QuickLoad (now whether from in Kontakt within Logic, or standalone Kontakt), I can see them right there, and can load them. I close Kontakt, re-open it, and they're gone - except, not all of them, just some of them! There's no pattern to which are gone (cuts across different developers, or whether I'm dragging them in from the 'Files' or the 'Libraries' tab, so that's quite random), but it's consistent now that it's the same ones that disappear each time. Very odd!

I had a reply from NI (great customer service by the way - replied within the same day with a 10-step procedure) to remove my Kontakt plist to force it to rebuild the database), but this too didn't work.
 
Last edited:
Do you have anti-virus / malware protection on that machine? Maybe it is virtualising the files to a different path for protection (I get that sometimes with Comodo) and therefore Kontakt can't find them when it reloads. If you search for the .nki file aliases/shortcuts, are they in another place?
 
bigrichpea said:
Do you have anti-virus / malware protection on that machine? Maybe it is virtualising the files to a different path for protection (I get that sometimes with Comodo) and therefore Kontakt can't find them when it reloads. If you search for the .nki file aliases/shortcuts, are they in another place?
Click to expand...
No, I haven't felt the need for anti-virus on a Mac. I checked, and there is only one instance of each nki alias on my system. Thanks for the suggestion.
 
Last edited:
Hi Gary, make sure of the following : close Logic , open Kontakt5 (must be Kontakt5) , go to your QuickLoads. Find one of the libraries that won’t load (it says files missing). In your QuickLoad menu, select that library, right click , delete it from QuickLoad. Delete the whole library and rebuild it as follows :

Right click open space, lAdd new folder), enter library name. Build your sub structures for the library (eg Violins, Cellos, Bass etc), DONT add any .nki files yet.

On the left side of Kontakt window, click “Files” tab, navigate to the new location on your ssd disk (in the TOP PART) of the window. Click on “Instruments” (still top part of the window).

Now you will see all the .nki files in the BOTTOM part of the window. Click first one, SHIFT click last one to select a group of them, drag to the Right Side Collumn in the QuickLoad menu , you will see a green circle with a white + sign. Drop the .nki files there and rebuild each section of your QuickLoad menu by dragging the .nki files from the BOTTOM half of the Files tab on the left.

Click a few of the .nki files just to test that they load and no problems reported. Close Kontakt5, reopen again in Stand Alone, test the library you have just rebuilt the QuickLoad menus, make sure they open without problems. If it is working now, it will work whether you open Kontakt in Logic or Stand Alone application.

If you still have problems opening that library, the only other thing I can think of is Kontact is not happy with your file structure of the library on your SSD disk. Make sure that all your libraries follow this kind of structure : I’ll add some library files in my example here, make sure your library structure looks like this :

Cinematic Strings (name of library in the top folder)
Cinematic strings.nict

Documents (sub folder under main folder)
CinematicStringsManual.pdf

Instruments ( sub folder under the main folder)
Violins.nki
Violas.nki
Cellos.nki
Basses.nki

Samples ( sub folder under the main folder)
Cinematic strings.nkc
Cinematic strings.nkr
CS_001.nkc
CS_001.Nkr
CS_002.nkc
CS_002.nkr

End of library. Make sure they always look like this, else Kontact will have trouble reading them. Hope this helps, let me know.
 
MichaelB said:
Do you work in the stand alone version? Doing it inside of a DAW doesn't work. I had the same problem, just deleted the nki files in QuickLoad, dragged them over again from the files section and that solved the issue for me.
Click to expand...
I’ve only ever filled my quickload menu from inside a DAW and I’ve never had an issue. Populating from the files menu or library tab is the only way I’ve ever done it. I’ve never tried from the finder, but maybe that’s what’s causing the OP’s issue.
 
Weird. Never had a problem just dragging the folder into the Quickload window, stand-alone or plug-in.
 
MichaelB said:
Hi Gary, make sure of the following : close Logic , open Kontakt5 (must be Kontakt5) , go to your QuickLoads. Find one of the libraries that won’t load (it says files missing). In your QuickLoad menu, select that library, right click , delete it from QuickLoad. Delete the whole library and rebuild it as follows :

Right click open space, lAdd new folder), enter library name. Build your sub structures for the library (eg Violins, Cellos, Bass etc), DONT add any .nki files yet.

On the left side of Kontakt window, click “Files” tab, navigate to the new location on your ssd disk (in the TOP PART) of the window. Click on “Instruments” (still top part of the window).

Now you will see all the .nki files in the BOTTOM part of the window. Click first one, SHIFT click last one to select a group of them, drag to the Right Side Collumn in the QuickLoad menu , you will see a green circle with a white + sign. Drop the .nki files there and rebuild each section of your QuickLoad menu by dragging the .nki files from the BOTTOM half of the Files tab on the left.

Click a few of the .nki files just to test that they load and no problems reported. Close Kontakt5, reopen again in Stand Alone, test the library you have just rebuilt the QuickLoad menus, make sure they open without problems. If it is working now, it will work whether you open Kontakt in Logic or Stand Alone application.

If you still have problems opening that library, the only other thing I can think of is Kontact is not happy with your file structure of the library on your SSD disk. Make sure that all your libraries follow this kind of structure : I’ll add some library files in my example here, make sure your library structure looks like this :

Cinematic Strings (name of library in the top folder)
Cinematic strings.nict

Documents (sub folder under main folder)
CinematicStringsManual.pdf

Instruments ( sub folder under the main folder)
Violins.nki
Violas.nki
Cellos.nki
Basses.nki

Samples ( sub folder under the main folder)
Cinematic strings.nkc
Cinematic strings.nkr
CS_001.nkc
CS_001.Nkr
CS_002.nkc
CS_002.nkr

End of library. Make sure they always look like this, else Kontact will have trouble reading them. Hope this helps, let me know.
Click to expand...

Thanks Michael for the detailed reply. This is exactly how I have always constructed my QuickLoad library, so there's nothing different I'm doing there.

But I think I've figured out the problem: the read/write permissions of my QuickLoad folder somehow changed - I just checked and it is read only: therefore as I was populating the Quickload menu, when I would add a new link to a library, it was there in QuickLoad, and presumably it saves these on-the-fly updates in a temporary memory somewhere, as they were active and I could use them, but the alias wasn't being written to the QuickLoad folder, so it wasn't over-writing the previous files. So at some point, QuickLoad must then re-read the saved Mac aliases, and so changes them back to their original location, since that hasn't been updated. Since only some files were not updating and not others, I presume the read/write permissions of the subfolders were inconsistently corrupted within the quickload folder, hence the reason why some would update and others not.

That's my current theory, I'm going to change a few folders, and see what happens - hopefully that resolves the problem.

Will let you know, but thanks for the help so far.
 
Hmm... slightly new theory, that doesn't seem to be quite right.

Now I think the problem is that dragging the files in QuickLoad isn't over-writing my existing aliases. If I drag the files in via QuickLoad, and watch what happens in the Finder, they don't update. I can still load from them, so they must be being stored elsewhere, but the existing aliases (still pointing to my previous location on the HDD) do not get overwritten, thus the reason why they revert back. But if I first delete the existing files, either from within Konkakt or from the Finder, then when I add the links in QuickLoad, it works and I presume those links will now be persistent.

Let's see how long this hypothesis lasts...
 
Oh you HAVE to delete the old entries in the Quickload window before adding the new link. It's not very sophisticated.
 
VinRice said:
Oh you HAVE to delete the old entries in the Quickload window before adding the new link. It's not very sophisticated.
Click to expand...
Well, that only seems to be inconsistently true! For some folders, it seems to have overwritten the old files, and for others not. Anyway, I'm taking no chances - I've just deleted the old files, and will begin the laborious process of rebuilding the library!

It takes me a couple of hours to rebuild everything, and this will be the fourth time!! So, if it decides to delete itself again this time, then no matter where you are, you will probably hear the scream! The thud you will hear moments later, is the sound of the computer making its way through the window!

Thanks for the feedback guys - always good to have moral support when the computers conspire against us!
 
Ok, so everything re-loaded and is now stable. So, in case people read this in future having had similar problems, the learning is:

- when transferring your libraries to a SSD, all of your QuickLoad entries will no longer be valid, as they are pointing at the old location
- there doesn't appear to be a straightforward way to batch rename the targets, so they all have to be rebuilt (at least on a Mac, not sure about PC)
- if you are transferring from one external drive to another, you could just rename the new drive to be the same, so the links will have the same path; if you are transferring from your internal drive to an external drive, that's not possible, and you have to rebuild everything.
- when rebuilding the QuickLoad database, it is safer to delete all the previous aliases in your Quickload folder - if not, you risk some of them not being overwritten (I don't know why only some and not all, this seems somewhat random, perhaps it was to do with write permissions of the subfolders, not sure), and Quickload will default back to the original, now non-existent target of any that were not overwritten, and therefore disappear from your QuickLoad library since its pointing to something that doesn't exist, so it ignores it.

So, all good now.

Quick question: does anyone know what the 'Bank' tab is for in QuickLoad; I store instruments and Multis in the corresponding sections, but not sure what 'bank' is referring to here?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom