Kontakt 6 instruments in “Demo Mode?”

[dumbquestions]

Has this happened to anyone else today?

i had opened a project with noire and a couple older vsts  from Komplete, all in Kontakt 7. They pulled up saying “Demo mode” and didn’t show up in native access anymore. I updated them after seeing that just in case, I now see them in NA but now they don’t open in Kontakt 6. It used to open fine in both so a bit confused. 
 

Assuming they are working out kinks but wanted to see if i was the only one? 

[msmcleod]

I've had this before - quite recently actually.

I fixed it by opening Native Access, then the Kontakt 7 standalone  - everything was fine after that.

FWIW - I always find it's good practice to open the standalone version of any app that comes in both standalone & VST format, first.  Some take a while to update their internal databases/phone home, and this can confuse the VST scanners of DAW's.

[Canopus]

I had this problem in July. When trying to open a project containing NI Session Guitarist Sunburst Deluxe, Kontakt 6 first said that it couldn’t find the samples. After a short wtf moment, I pointed it to the correct sample folder and made a rescan. After that, when opening the instrument, Sunburst Deluxe was in Demo mode?! Unfortunately, in Demo mode, you can’t really see the interface and the settings you've tweaked. It’s more like a white blob.

After some discussions with NI Support, I realized that Sunburst Deluxe apparently had been "upgraded" so that Kontakt 7 was now required for that instrument. And, sure, I’ve got Kontakt 7 as well, but as I couldn't see the instrument GUI in my project when in Demo mode, I would have to start anew. I could hardly believe it. How could they turn an instrument that once required Kontakt 6 all of a sudden require Kontakt 7? It was just so effing stupid.

But I finally got a link from NI Support to the latest version of Sunburst Deluxe that worked with Kontakt 6. As I have K14U, I downloaded every instrument I found on that "upgrade" list, just in case. After downgrading Sunburst Deluxe, I managed to open my project again.

Finally, I wrote a note to myself: Never EVER update anything using Native Access; just use it for installing NEW software. Why? Because you won’t be warned when NI raise the Kontakt bar, and thus crash your existing DAW projects.

[dumbquestions]

oh yea, lots of frustration around this one. So much time i had to spend updating my projects because NI wanted to push Kontakt 7 as “required” for certain instruments. These people too, and lots more on the Native Instruments forum than just the one example below.

https://vi-control.net/community/threads/kontakt-6-8-0-noire-is-gone-all-of-a-sudden-missing-samples.152799/

https://vi-control.net/community/threads/demo-mode-in-full-kontakt-how-can-it-be.140182/

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/31944/kontakt-6-8-0-noire-is-gone-all-of-a-sudden-missing-samples

[Canopus]

I've now read most of those threads and have as a result at least deactivated the setting "Always Use Latest Version of NI Plug-ins" in Komplete Kontrol. But, of course, NI must make sure that you at least get a clear warning in Native Access when an update would make an instrument unusable with the Kontakt version it was once designed for. A short mention of such a requirement change, accessible from some miniscule "Read More..." link, is simply not enough.

[Misha]

"But I finally got a link from NI Support to the latest version of Sunburst Deluxe that worked with Kontakt 6"

That was the only "fix" they could "offer".  The links I got, seemed to be disc images of latest Kontakt 6 instruments., so you kind of overwriting whatever N. Access had done.  Same K6>K7 troubles went for several other Session guitarist and pianos (Noire was one of them)

I am not happy about Kontakt7 for two reasons. First is the backward compatibility issues as described above and second one is UI flickering.  NI tech are "aware" of this issue that a number of people experience. Reported many moons ago, still not fixed. 

 

Anyway, here is an official link with all installers that will work with K6:

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/21349/previous-versions-of-recently-updated-kontakt-libraries-compatibility-with-k6-older-libraries#latest