Service Center Needs Additional Testing

This post is intended as a general complaint with the hopes that NI will invest additional monies to either redesign Service Center or test their updates more throroughly.

I ran into a situation tonight which should not have occurred with a fully tested application. I opened a Registration Support ticket which I am sure will be resolved, but given Service Center is no longer a new application I would have thought all problems would have been worked out by now.

As background, I own Komplete 3 & 4, Kore, Massive and Komplete Sound 2, running on Windows XP Service Pack 2.

In preparation for upgrading to Komplete 5 (via Komplete 4), I decided to clean my system of all NI applications and start from scratch. I am very knowledgeable about NI installations (directories, Registry entries, etc.) so I know my system had no "leftover NI items" before I started.

Starting from an NI-free system, I installed Intakt and Kompakt ONLY from my Komplete 3 disks. The installation worked perfectly, but the Service Center process failed to register Intakt and Kompakt -- i.e. no Authorization Key for Intakt and Kompakt were generated (an Auth Key for Komplete 3 was generated).

My general plan was:
1) Erase/Uninstall everything
2) Install Intakt/Kompakt from Komplete 3
3) Install Vokator/Spektral Delay from Komplete 4
4) Install Komplete 5 (when it arrives)
5) Install Komplete Sound 2
6) Install Kore 1.1

One advantage of this approach is that I minimize the number of software updates that have to be performed.

Given the realities of trying to maintain and use a personal computer for music production, the Service Center needs to be designed so various types of installations can occur without manual NI support intervention.

Given my Komplete 3, Kore, and Komplete Sound 2 are registered, I would have assumed that the Service Center application could have easily verified my ownership of these products and therefore generated Authorization Keys.

Thank you for reading.

 

Seems entirely reasonable to me. The entire "service centre" scenario appears, by my own experience and posts on this forum, to be clunky. It appears to be costing both N.I. and it's clients an inordinate amount of time and energy. Time and energy equals money.

All the best,
Moniker

 

** Update **
I went ahead and re-ran Service Center today. It automatically updated itself to version 1.2.2.3 (1.1.0.11).

The REALLY STRANGE part about this is Service Center downloaded a bunch of license information (Serial Nbr, System IDs, and Activation Keys) for products I had registered in the past but do not have currently installed.

Prior to this Service Center Update I had Windows Registry entries for the products I have installed on my computer:
-- Intakt, Kompakt, Komplete 3, Service Center, Kore Controller Driver

After the SC update I NOW have Windows Registry entries for the above PLUS:
-- Absynth 3, B4, Battery 2, Elektrik Piano, FM7, Guitar Rig, Spektral Delay, Pro-53, & Vokator

Of course, the real apps I have installed (Intakt & Kompakt) still are not activated.

DESIGN SUGGESTION # 1 to NI:
-- Activation/Registration Data retrieved from the NI database and returned to a person's computer should ONLY contain data relevant to the products that are being activated.
-- For example, if I only have Komplete 3 with only two sub-products installed (Kompakt and & Intakt), then the ONLY data that Service Center should retrieve from NI databases is data that relates to those products only.

 

Agreed on all counts. Following is a letter I just sent to NI's "feedback" email. I absolutely love their products, but as a professional, I don't have time to waste. Unfortunately I have wasted ridiculous amounts of my time over the years just trying to get their stuff to work, and this "Service Center" is just the latest example of something that COULD be a good idea, but as usual, it makes things far more complicated than they need to be!

The letter:

I'm a full-time composer/producer/programmer and I've been an avid user of Native Instruments products for a long time. As much as I love your products, I am constantly baffled as to why you make it so extraordinarily difficult to use them!

I'm referring in this case to your "Service Center" application. Having owned most of your products over the years as well as a lot of 3rd party products that use your Kompakt player or Kontakt, I am glad that you're trying to make the authorization process somewhat more streamlined with this new system. However, it still falls woefully short in several ways, and as a professional user, I simply don't have the time to deal with this kind of thing.

The whole idea behind Service Center is to take care of authorizations in one place at one time, rather than having to do it per product. Good idea, but it's still incredibly frustrating. For example, I just bought and installed Komplete 4. Upon installation, Service Center SHOULD check all my NI product versions for any new updates, then download, install and authorize them in one go.

Instead, I still have to check for updates one product at a time in Service Center. This means manually checking each program in the Finder ("Get Info") and making a note of the installed version then comparing it to the versions in Service Center.

However, the Service Center only shows version numbers in 3 decimal places (3.0.2), but the Finder shows me a fourth (3.0.2.11) - and there's no version release date listed in the Finder, so how am I supposed to know which is more recent, or whether I even need an update? This could be so easy - it should be AUTOMATIC!

Then there are usually multiple versions of a product listed in the Service Center. Why can't it just list the most recent version, filtered by platform/OS, to eliminate confusion?

Also, many products are listed several times: by themselves and then under "Komplete." Again, please streamline this and make it obvious.

Another point: the checkbox for "do not display files that I have already downloaded" makes no difference. Every time I use Service Center I see all available downloads even though the box is checked and I've already downloaded several updates.

There are several other issues: the Service Center window can't be made bigger? For some reason, Elektrik Piano shows up by itself in the Activation Status pane (as opposed to being part of Komplete), etc.

The point is, THIS COULD BE SO SIMPLE! You make arguably the most advanced music software on the planet, but you make it horrendously difficult to use. With the skills in your employ, can't you just take the idea of Service Center and make it an automated, one-step process? Again, it should check all installed NI product for updates, download and install the updates, and authorize if necessary.

As of now, this system is just plain awkward at best, and infuriatingly obtuse much of the time.

Please, out of respect for your users, make this process as simple as we all know it could be!

Still a fan,

Jim Daneker



---
Jim Daneker
Music Production,
Scoring For Picture
---
Whine Cellar Studio
www.whinecellarstudio.com
www.myspace.com/jimdaneker

 

Jim, I don't want to keep chiming in on the choruses but congratulations on your succinct letter! It has inspired me to write a polite but insistent criticism in letter form to the CEO of N.I..

Many software companies have impressed me with the security and efficiency of their registration processes. Voxengo is an example. N.I., however, have made me to tear my hair out many times over the years! The hair grows again but my time wasted is lost forever.

All the best,
Moniker

 

Moniker (and others!),

Just thought that in the interest of being fair, I would post the response I just got back from NI. It tells me that they are indeed listening, and it gives me hope that this will all improve. Let's hope it's sooner than later!

RESPONSE:

Hello Jim,

first of all I want to sincerely thank you for your feedback. A lot of things have changed concerning the registration process of our products in 2006. The basic idea behind these changes was to make things better than they were
before. But as simple as it looks from a customer's perspective (and I can fully understand that) the infrastructure that stands behind Service Center and products like Komplete is really indeed very complex. Some changes turned out not to be the improvement they should have been. During the last couple of months there already have been basic enhancements on the registration system that made life easier for users and I can definitely promise you that we work with a very high priority on making the registration and the administration of our products (thinking of updates e.g.) as comfortable and easy as possible. Feedback like yours is always welcome and I definitely hope that we will be able to keep you as a loyal customer.

Your NATIVE INSTRUMENTS Support Team

 

Jim,

Thanks for the copy of the feedback that you received.

I would like to retain an optimistic and fair-minded attitude but there wasn't much concrete in the way of promises made for the future contained in the message. At least N.I. are "listening".

All the best,
Moniker

 

I just got another reply from NI Support, and this was very encouraging - let's hope they are listening AND implementing changes:

"Hello Jim,

your mail triggered quite a lot. I escalated the whole issue as much as I can and I can confirm that it reached the management. So hopefully we will see decisive improvements in this field within the close future.

Your NATIVE INSTRUMENTS Support Team,

With best regards from Berlin

 

Thanks again for the news from the frontline, Jim.

Good news at last for us all!

All the best,
Harry (aka Moniker)

 

** An Update **

-- The most important point is NI is very responsive (I received an email in 1 day, which is great considering the time difference between the U.S. and Germany)
-- A Service Center Update PARTIALLY fixed my problem

I tried something new which created this newer problem:
01. Uninstalled ALL NI apps (including all directories and Windows Registry entries)
02. Installed Komplete 4 (ALL Apps)
03. Installed most current Service Center
04. Activated ALL Komplete 4 (worked perfectly)
05. Installed Komplete 3 (Kompakt and Intakt ONLY)
06. Attempted to activate Komplete 3, but failed on Guitar Rig (Service Center appears to create Registry entries for the entire Komplete product regardless of which apps you install)

Although NI is working very hard to fix these problems, I still conclude that Service Center needs a major overhaul. It appears to be too "sensitive" for any type of non-standard installation.

 

I too echo Jim's well written letter. I'm not a pro like he is, but I've never had the Service Center app's "Do not display files I've already downloaded" button work either. Therefore, I too keep an external scorecard of my NI versions as I never know from the Update Manager what I've got installed at any given time.

My monthly "tune up NI" process for updating goes like this:
1) open the text note I created in OS X's keychain that has all my current NI versions as reported by the program themselves.

2) run NI Service Center app, which usually requires me to download the latest version and start over. Updating the Service Center app is fine, but there's never a "what's new in this version" or README available to explain what or why I'm downloading, which is a pet peeve. It's also a concern since I need to run SC as an admin user, so not knowing what it's updating/going to update is a security issue for me that I deal with. I know that I could not install this software on my work servers since we have strict policies about knowing what is going to be changed first before rolling it out, so that may be something for NI to consider. Something basic like listing the programs/files that will be replaced followed by even a one-line comment like "fixed bug that prevented XYZ from working with B4 II" would be welcome.

3) Go to update manager and compare my Keychain note version to the Update Manager for *every* NI product I own (Komplete 4, Kore, Massive.) As Jim said, the SC does not report full versions to the fourth decimal place, so I'm never quite sure of course.

My optimal experience would be to run the Service Center when a new update is announced from NI on the web or email, and as long as everything else I have is up to date, see that new update being the only one in my active list and having the update installed when I choose to do so.

Thanks for listening NI, and please streamline the update facility so we can be less like admins and more creative when using your great products.

 

Same issue for me. I have all the products Martin mentions in his original post (plus Komplete 5 now). I've always had some downloads which the the Service Center thinks I haven't downloaded. Until some time earlier this year this didn't affect the web-based Updates page - so I'd go there to check if there was anything new.

In recent times something changed - and now every update shows up all the time in both Service Centre and on the Updates page. So with all the multiple listings under each bundle, I have list of about 150 items to check through.

It'd be nice if I could just get all the updates marked as downloaded. It'd be even nicer if Service Centre could fix this for me...

-Andrew

 

Hello Andrew,

yes, unfortunately the download manager in Service Center does not show which downloads you have done already. This is a known issue and will be solved with a future update. Sorry for the inconveniences.

 

Hi !

I agree to all of your points and I mentioned about the issue w/ checkbox "do not display files I already downloaded" a long time ago !
I wonder why this wouldn´t be fixed since month.

I also have Komplete 2 / 3 / 4, Bandstand and Massive and every Installation/Authorization- and/or Activation process was a mess and very time consuming, - time I´d better spend for creativity.
I think, lots of us have not only NI software on our machines,- there´s a lot of bugfixes, maintenance and workarounds w/ other software too.
It all sums up to a real nightmare sometimes.

So, please, try to keep all as simple as possible,- even we´re able to tweak around in registries and so on.

The moment, I´ve to upgrade to a new DAW will come soon and I will only upgrade to K5 if all the bugs in the instruments as also the install- and activation probs are been sorted out and fixed.
I hope this will be happen very soon, - I have a voucher here which I want to invest in my K5, but not into any installation nightmare and probably partially non functional plugs.

IMO, it´s also a shame, NI Komplete users cannot delete their product activations themselfs anymore but have to e-mail to the support. This is unacceptable. If I buy software, I buy a licence, I´m the owner then and I can do w/ my licence what I want and as an owner.
So, - what´s up ?
If I want to install on a new DAW w/ a different hardware profile, - how long I would have to wait until NI has edited my activations after I´ve sent an email ? Hours, days, weeks?
This is not a hobby, guys !

regards

KB

 

KB,

NI has removed the "maximum number of activations" check from their activation process, so you no longer need to manage your activations. Your user license still restricts you to three Komplete 5 activations (using only one computer at a time), but you can technically activate as many computers as you want.

The only reason NI would have to get involved with activations on a new computer would be if that activation failed for some reason.

 

Thanks for the reply Marius, but you're talking about a different problem. I have the problem on the Updates web page as well.

I assume that NI have a database on their server that tracks what files I have downloaded. This seemed to work for most files in past times (but not all). Then sometime this year, something changed and there is now no record of me having downloaded any updates.

Note that I changed the email address on my account earlier this year. Perhaps this was the key used in this supposed database?

I would greatly appreciate it if all files posted prior to today could be marked as already downloaded for my account. Can this be done?

-Andrew

 

Hi Martin !
Up to now,- I use only one computer at all. But what happens if I want to use 2 computers in future ? I have Komplete 2 / 3 (incl. Care Bundles) and 4 and Komplete 5 will come.
Does that mean I cannot install Komplete 3/4 and Komplete 5 on 2 different machines then to spread out the plugins for better usage of CPU using 2 hosts on two machines simultaneously ?

KB

 

The NI software license has always restricted usage to a single computer at a time, even though they have allowed multiple installations. The intent with multiple (originally 2) installations/activations was to provide the capability for a user to use the products both at their studio and away from the studio (but not at the same time).

With the multi-product bundles (i.e. Komplete) I don't believe the license specfically addresses the situation where someone wants to spread the products in a bundle across multiple computers. Legally, I think you would have right to do this as long as you weren't running the same product on multiple computers at the same time (e.g. running Kontakt 3 on two computers at the same exact time). You could easily argue that you are still abiding by the "only one product running on one computer" rule. Legally there really shouldn't be a difference between the following two scenarios:
1) purchasing 1 Komplete 5 license, running Kontakt 3 on one computer and Guitar Rig 3 on a second computer
2) purchasing individual licenses for Kontakt 3 and Guitar Rig 3, and installing them on different computers.

From my perspective, the only legal "quirk" about Komplete bundles (and even upgrades/updates) are the products are all tied together from a user licensing perspective, meaning you can't break them up and sell them individually.

From a practical/technical standpoint, you don't have to worry about any of the above, since NI has removed the "check the number of activations" check from their authorization system. I assume they did this to alleviate the customer service workload of having to help people manage their activations.

Bottom line, from a technical standpoint you have nothing to worry about installing on two computers, and from a license standpoint I think you would be OK also.

Anytime I look at anything legal, I try to understand the intent of the legal language.

Another way to interpret NI's licensing intent would be that if you want to run a specific NI software program (like Kontakt 3) on multiple computers running at the same time (e.g. multiple computers in your studio), you need to purchase multiple licenses. As an example, there are composers/producers who have 5-10 computers all running Kontakt 2, supporting the streaming of very large orchestral templates running at the same time. In this situation, each of those computers would need to have their own Kontakt 2 license.

 

A dongle would easily and quickly cure all the hassles straight away.

Since someone seems to suffer from sort of a dongle fear, several companies are offering the dongle as an option: why doesn't NI just do the same?

Upgrading the OS, changing a drive, using the software on countless computers (and even different OSs) but not at the same time... all this is easily achieved with a dongle, and indeed I've NEVER EVER had the shadow of a problem with my Steiny, Korg, Arturia and so on plugs and apps.

 

Hi !

Thx for reply.

Above you say "originally 2 installations/ activations on 2 machines, but NOT at the same time"

Marc says this in Guitar Rig Forum:
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2 at the same time, so you can buy new machines without issue.
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<<<

1.)
I buyed Komplete 2 (this, for me is one Product in it´s own box)

2.)
I buyed Komplete Care 2005 (also a separate product) ...
This followed by an upgrade to ...

3.)
Komplete 3 (also a sep. product in it´s own box here)

4.)
I buyed Komplete Care 2006 (another separate Product) ...
This followed by a upgrade to ...

5.)
Komplete 4 (this is an upgrade box )

Because of the purchase of Komplete Care 2005 and 2006,- I got several instruments as "Bundle supplements" for Komplete Care 2005 AND several for the payment of Komplete Care 2006, - this before these products were available as separate products in shops and in the followed up Komplete Bundles.

In addition,- I got Massive for free as a download w/ a separate serial number,- this as a compensation for the Komplete Care 2006 desaster.

At least,- one pack is leftover here, which is the basic licence for my 1st Komplete 2 prelaunch bundle,- my original B4.

You see, there is a pretty amount of stuff I payed for and this isn´t comparable in any way to users, who NOW probably buy Komplete 5 and want to spread out their plugins over 2 or 3 machines.

What I want is:

a)
A new DAW which is able to run a new upgrade to Komplete 5,- all the plugins which need more CPU power.

b)
Keep my old DAW and install all the plugs of Komplete 2 /3 and Komplete 4 I liked before AND will run on this older machine because of their lower CPU consumption as also the plugins of Komplete 2 /3 /4 which are discontinued now in Komplete 5, but I´ve payed for in the past.

c)
Using this both machines in MY studio simultaneously and not in different locations.

d)
eventually install some of the plugs of the Komplete series on an upcoming notebook for live-usage,- this not at the same time w/ the computers in my studio ( I don´t perform live in my studio, you know ... )

Add. info: The notebook will be a Mac eventually, the machines in the studio are PCs w/ XP.

e)
I got an offer to do arrangements for a well known producer, - he prefers to work in Logic Pro,- I myself use Cubase.
I have an operator who owns a Mac G5 and Logic Pro which I want to use for these jobs then.

I have Mac licences of my Komplete plugins too which I don´t use up to now because I´m on PC.
So, can I install my NI products on my operators Mac for rendering the NI products to audio after I exported my midifiles to this Mac. I don´t see I want to learn Logic in addition or buy a Mac desktop machine, that´s why I want to work w/ an operator, - here in my studio and not in a different location.

Add. info: Using OMF as a audio file/project export won´t possibly work correctly w/ Cubase and Logic, - so this way above would be the only one.

Is that possible ?

f)
If I use my voucher to buy Komplete 5, there now Massive will be included !
Can I sell my copy of Massive and it´s serial I got in 2006 as a download and compensation for Komplete Care 2006 ?
I don´t need that twice.

You see, the situation can be more complex than expected.

w/ hope to get a satifying reply ...

regards

K.B.