Solved Puzzler: Missing previews -- But only w/Session String Pro 2

The subject pretty much says it all. Session Strings Pro 2 is completely fine, but I think I've broken the Komplete Kontrol previews. Here's the history:

- The product installed fine and I think the previews worked (although it's possible that they never worked, as I didn't spend a lot of time with the product before...

- I moved the library from the default drive to an external drive and relocated the samples with Native Access -- SSPro2 worked fine, but the previews didn't work -- I think that's my bad.

- I reinstalled SSPro2 through Native Access and left the libraries on the default drive -- still works fine, but still no previews.

All other libraries have been moved to the external drive and their Komplete Kontrol previews work fine with them. Any ideas? Thanks in advance.

 

Update: I tried deleting all the SSPro2 folders and reinstalling from scratch. Still works fine. Still no previews on the Komplete Kontrol side of things. Should I be in a different forum? Maybe Komplete Kontrol?

 

Hmmm... but previews are installed along with the library (show hidden files in Explorer, you will see .previews folders in Instruments and Snapshots)...

 

Thanks! Is that true on OSX? or is that more likely a Windows file structure? I'll try to upload a screen grab of a couple of folders on my machine so you can say "no no, not THERE... over HERE..." ;-)

The first window is just proving that hidden files are showing, the second is SSPro2 and the third is SSPro (which has working previews, but no Snapshots folder).

 

Yes, that's true on macOS as well. The folder is called .previews on either system. IIRC, if a file or folder starts with a . on macOS (or any other *nix system), it's automatically hidden from view.

Previews for the first SSP is actually not installed along with it, it's a part of Native Browser Preview Library.

 

Hmm... As you can see in the top window, hidden files are visible right now (shift-command-period toggles 'em on a Mac). I'm not finding .previews files in any of the Libraries. Is the file path I expanded the right one?

Belay that last one -- i'm finding some .previews folders now -- but they only seem to be for third-party instruments, not ones from NI.

Yep, there ARE a few hidden .previews folders sprinkled amongst the libraries, but only a few and only 3rd-party ones. would the .preview folders for the NI instruments be stored somewhere else? that's been my theory -- that they AREN'T with the library and that's why I goofed them up when I moved the library from the system disk to the external.

 

Yes, more recent libraries have these folders (because NBPL wasn't updated in some months now, not sure how often NI plans on updating it anyways).

Actually, it is not unlikely that somehow they didn't include previews with SSP2. But that's pretty weird. I guess, contact NI support?

 

Yep -- that's where I got as well. I've got a ticket in, but it was mid-day yesterday (Friday) so if NI support is in Berlin I'm thinking I'll probably hear back on Monday. Thanks, glad I'm not completely missing the boat.

 

Same issue here. No previews for SSP2. Have a ticket in to NI 3 days and no response. I'm guessing SSP2 did not make the preview list.

 

There's an update to SSP, v1.0.2 in Native Acces. Snapshots have previews now.

 

Thanks. Update worked.

 

good news

the recently-released update to the previews means that they play now. a correct fix to an "inconvenience" problem

bad news

the updates to Previews and SSP2 broke more than they fixed because they wiped out more than half of the instrument presets available in Komplete Kontrol (not previews, presets). now, the only way to access the Ensemble - Modern instrument in KK is to load another instrument (eg Ensemble - Traditional) and then select the instrument/preset using the nav bars at the top of the instrument (which are only available in the Additional or Edit view, not the Default view of the instrument).

here's an example. the first screenshot is of SSP2 in Kontakt5 that shows all the presets for the Ensemble-Modern instrument. NONE of the Ensemble-Modern instrument presets show up in the newly-updated version of Komplete Kontrol. you'll also notice that there are 10 different instruments in SSP2 (traditional and modern versions of the Bass, Celli, Ensemble, Violas and Violins instruments.



none of the Bass or Celli instrument presets (modern or traditional) appear in Komplete Kontrol, only the Traditional presets are available for the Ensemble instrument. etc, here is a screenshot of Komplete Kontrol which shows that KK thinks that available instruments skip all the Bass and Celli instruments and the Modern version of the Ensemble instrument and begin offering options at the Ens - Trad - 1920's preset.



so the good news is that all those choices can be previewed and the previews work, the bad news is that many presets have been deleted from the Komplete Kontrol browser and can only be accessed if you know that they're there and know to switch to the Edit/Additional view. bummer.

 

But wait, there's more...

Loaded up a project that uses one of the now-missing presets and got a file-missing error. The "search filesystem" option didn't find the file, but "search spotlight" did -- that's the workaround if you're a Mac type person. The file that is missing is there, but it's been renamed with the update -- here's the culprit. This is the path on a Mac, but this should give you a hint if you're trying to navigate to it on a PC.

/Native Instruments/Session Strings Pro 2 Library/Samples/Session Strings Pro 2 1.0.nkr (old)

/Native Instruments/Session Strings Pro 2 Library/Samples/Session Strings Pro 2 1.0.2.nkr (new)​

I was using the Ensemble - Modern instrument, which is currently invisible in Komplete Kontrol but is still available if you navigate to it manually rather than through the Komplete Kontrol browser. It loads without errors now that the project has been resaved.

Feels like they really rushed this fix out the door without doing complete QA on it. Hopefully this will get fixed. In the meantime, lots of people aren't going to see most of the interesting instruments in this product.

 

Did you refresh/rescan the library in KK? Try doing that. I see all the presets in my KK browser.

In any case, you need to have both 1.0 and 1.0.2 NKR files after the update is installed.

 

Hm. I wonder if this is limited to Mac. I reinstalled both SSP2 and Previews through Native Access and then launched KK in standalone to let it find new stuff. When nothing changed, I went into KK Preferences/Library and hit the "Rescan" button. Still no change. Is there a deeper dive called "Refresh" that I can try?

I also tried recovering the 1.0 NKR file back into the directory and running through "Rescan" again.

 

Interestingly, the .previews files ARE in the Snapshots now (a change from before the update). They're there for all the instruments, they're just not showing up in the KK browser.

 

Just deleted and rebuilt the komplete.db3 database per this NI support page:

https://support.native-instruments....MPLETE-KONTROL-Browser-is-Empty-or-Incomplete

No change.

 

Weird. Definitely works here.

 

I had updated my ticket with NI Support yesterday morning. Got this back after I'd signed off yesterday:

"This issue seems to be caused by a bug in the current version of the application and library content.

Thanks for your report. We have referred this issue to our developers and will try to fix it in a future version, but we cannot recommend a workaround at this time."​

See above for workarounds. The instrument still works fine, people just need to navigate to the snapshots "by hand" until it gets updated by the developer. First time users of the instrument should definitely take a tour to try out the invisible instruments and snapshots. Komplete Kontrol's mappings of knobs work for all snapshots. Not the end of the world.

 

But... it all showed up here perfectly.