There are a few suggestions posted here that you could try. I've not tried any of them myself !!

 

Hello All,

I am happy to announce a working solution for the Kontakt library tab sort order. It took me weeks of trial and error, but I finally managed to get to the core problem and sort it out. This works for Kontakt 6 and Kontakt 7.

The main issue are the .plist files, which are either corrupted, too old or not complete. Every position of a library is saved in the corresponding .plist file, starting with "0" (first slot in the tab display), going to infinite.

The rumor that Kontakt can only manage a limited number of libraries is a myth.

Kontakt cannot deal with a plist file that does not provide the correct information, foremost the "UserListIndex". Many of my plists were corrupted, probably because some malfunction within the Kontakt version that did not create "healthy" plists. So all Kontakt could do was to toss them around without any sorting. This is also the reason for the scattered changing of the tab orders whenever you close and open Kontakt. Every time it ill be purely coincidental where the libs with the corrupted .plists will show up.

Sorting all libraries can take quite a bit of time, especially if you have as many libs as I do (around 1200). So be be prepared for a long day of fiddling with files.

You will need a proper PlistEditor, I used Plist Editor Pro which is not very expensive and very good for what we need.

IMPORTANT: We only work with the .plitst files in the User/Library/Preferences folder. Do not touch the .plists within the MacHd/Library/Preferences folders as they contain a different information that should not be tempered with.

1) Go to System Preferences (I'm on Ventura) and prohibit Kontakt (all versions) to write or modify your harddrive and any other data. While opening up Kontakt, don't allow it to regain these permissions.

2) Open a .plist file. It should contain nothing but two lines: UserListIndex and UserRemoved.

3) Check if it contains the "UserListIndex" and "UserRemoved" tabs. A lot of the plists that Kontakt generates do not have a UserListIndex line, so you will have to add it manually by typing it in, which is very easy with PlistEditor Pro. If you see a completely blank plist, go to "open new element", and Insert "UserListIndex" (without quotes) into the left side. Then choose number in the middle tab. Then choose the number of your library position.

4) It helps to prepare an excel sheet for reference, so you can enter all library names and plist values into it. I like to order in instrumental groups, not companies, so I made like a 1-100 free slots for "Trailer Stuff", a 200-300 for "Textural" a.s.o. on my excel sheet.

5) Then you will need to go through every single plists file (only those starting with "com.native-instruments"), check and repair them, in case it is damaged, and provide it with a number. Do not drag a library around within the tab view. Absolutely no dragging around. Just look where you want to place the library and choose a number and type it into the plist's "UserListIndex" value. The excel sheet is great because it will give you an overview of where exactly your libraries can be placed. Then lock the plist file. There are two ways to do this:

a) open the INFO tab for each .plist and check "locked"
b) open Terminal, enter "sudo chflags uchg/" (without the quotes obviously) and drag all the plist files you would like to lock into the terminal right to the end of what you just entered. Type in your admin password and all selected .plist files are locked.

6) It does not matter if there are spaces between the numerical groups of the libraries. You could do like 1-25 and the next section could start at 35-100 or so. Kontakt will read over those blank spots as long as the general order of numbers is fine.

7) Say goodbye to your girlfriend for a little while ... it took me two days to get it done.

Now I have a perfectly working Kontakt 7 library tab. Whenever I add a new library, I immediately open the corresponding plist file and type in the correct place and number.

So the chaos ordering had nothing to do with niCNTts, Service Center, SNIPD or some database. Kontakt only gets each position out of each single plist file.

Hope to help everyone out there who has the same issue like I did.

All best
Marius

 

@AllMusic : Hey Marius. You've obviously spent a while on this and I'm glad it works for you. It's a bit misleading however in 2) to say that a plist file SHOULD only contain 2 lines (I presume you mean 2 dictionary entries) ! Most of my libraries have more than that and it's quite normal. Even if you edit them down to just "UserListIndex" and UserRemoved", libraries will often add more dictionary entries, which is quite normal. They are USER preferences after all, there for storing errrrr… user preferences, including library order !! It's what they're for.
Good work anyhow

 

Hi Allmusic,
Yes - you are absolutely right Some libraries do contain more than two entries. Nevertheless, the UserListIndex and UserRemoved are essential to the order of the tab view.
Does my procedure work for you as well ?

 

Honestly, I haven't had time to try. In any case, ordering libraries always more or less worked for me. What you clarified for me with your research is that when ordering failed, it was down to corrupt user prefs files. I shall, when I have a bit of time, be looking into perhaps incorporating some sort of help in doing this rather fastidious task, in my KLU app. I'm not sure the best way to tackle this yet from the user point of view. I was thinking maybe of categories, then ordering within those categories. It would probably also be easier to re-create the user prefs files rather than trying to shuffle them. It also seems, from my tests, that Kontakt deletes and rebuilds a cache of some sort, which so far, I can only manage to do via a re-boot and not programatically, which is a bit of an added hassle !