Hi all,

I am using Linux MX21 as my OS and I am pleased with it. I managed to overcome a lot of problems in respect to using MX21 as my music system, but of all the Linux distributions I have tried, MX21 strange enough works best. Most of the windows plugins work, only sometimes a GUI is unreadable but until now most important plugins for me work fine.
I also managed to install Kontak regular and that works also well.

So I wanted to try the portable version because it is way more simple to update.
I found this version: Native Instruments Kontakt 7 v7.1.8 PORTABLE WiN-vkDanilov. Installing is easy since it is portable. And it does work. Standalone works and both VST2 and VST3 work. I can play normal nki files.

But.....when I want to add a library, I get this message:


Could not update file:
C/ProgramData/NIKontaktv718/UserData/Settings.cfg

So I tried putting the portable version in other directories. I even placed it in the root, but the error remains.
I checked if the file was editable and it was. I can save it manually.

So the big question: does anyone have a clue what is going on? What am I doing wrong?

Thanks!
Paul

 

Okay, here is a small update.

I still don't know why the file Settings.cfg cannot be updated, but I somehow found a workaround for this problem.
I installed the portable v718 Kontakt in Windows and added a library. I copied some of the lines in that Settings.cfg file to the Linux version. I had to change some things, for example the location was a combination of letters and media information, but it worked!

Then I added a second library in windows and copied it to Linux. That did not work. Turns out there is a second file that needs to be changed. So I changed that as well and it worked!
Now I have got two libraries added via this workaround.

It is not what I had hoped for, but I can work with this.

Still I am very curious and eager to learn what the authorization problem is within Linux. Why is it not possible for Kontakt portable v718 within Reaper to update the Settings.cfg file?

I hope somebody has a clue. Thank you for helping!

Paul

 

it is about read and write property.
the file is read only and should be read and write to enable the add.

 

Hello Bob, thanks for chiming in. I always like the clarity of your answers here!

Yes, I also understand that it must be something with read and write properties.
So I already checked the properties of the file Settings.cfg and it has al the necessary read and write properties.
But maybe the properties should be addressed to an other group than my name?
Since I can change the file, but Kontakt via Reaper is not able to update the file.
Is Reaper or Kontakt working from a different authorization group?



I see that there are different groups to choose: audio, cdrom, dialout, dip, floppy, lp, lpadmin, netdev, nordvpn, paul (that's me), plugdev, sambashare, scanner, sudo, users, vboxsf, vboxusers and video. I tried already sudo and audio, but those didn't work either.
So I am really stuck in what group it might be?

Paul

 

What are you using for running Windows plugins? WINE? WINE has a special group as far as I know (and I'm not sure since I don't use it, only Linux native plugins) so maybe you should add yourself to a WINE group? Are you also in audio group? If you aren't, you should add yourself to these groups and then see.

Here's everything about groups if you don't know how to do it: https://www.howtogeek.com/50787/add-a-user-to-a-group-or-second-group-on-linux/

You can be a member of multiple groups. My user is a member of sudo and audio groups.

 

Hello SineWave, thanks for your help.
Yes, I am using Wine together with Yabridge and I am very surprised that a lot of windows plugins are just working. Really amazing!

I must admit, I am not a very savvy Linux user at all. I did not start using Linux because I was a hobbyist. I was just disgusted by all the m$ data stealings so I started with MX21 mainly to use it as my working system. I would still use windows for making music but without internet. And then I planned to start making music with MX21 seeing how far I would come. The results are way faster than I expected. Now I am already trying to get a portable version of Kontakt to work because the rest is already working!

No, I have not much of a clue about these groups so I am very glad with your link. I will study this.
I have more problems with those groups, because every time a add a plugin in Reaper, I get a warning that the system is out of memory but everything keeps working. I added several plugins and Reaper keeps running without a problem, so I just ignore those warnings.
I googled this warning but these groups are quite a bit above my pay-grade. I can read a bit of regular code and copy that, but these things are a bit too difficult for me to handle.

I hope this page will teach in a simple way how these authorization and audio groups work.

Thank you!

Paul

 

it look like administrative permission trouble with reapper if the portable standalone works.

https://www.playonlinux.com generally works for audio stuff.

 

Hi Bob, yes you are right, it must be something with permission. But how to solve it?
I "installed" (it is nothing more than an extraction of zipped files in an exe file) the portable Kontakt with Play On Linux, but I got an error so that does not work unfortunately.

I forget to mention that not only the VST3 but also the standalone version from Kontakt in this v718 portable version has the same permission problem with the Settings.cgf file.

I read the article from SineWave, but at this moment it is a bit too difficult for me to understand.
So I will look further into it tomorrow.

Thank you all for your kind help!
Paul

 

Okay, small update.

I think it is not a permission problem however the error tells so.
I already discovered that there is a second file involved for keeping tracks of the added libraries. And I found out that that file is updated by Kontakt correctly and that file is in the same directory where all the Kontakt file reside so it is not a matter of permission.

Also I monitored what happened in the directory of the Settings.cfg file when I want to save it after adding a library: it creates a file called ".windows-serial" when the error occurs. When I click OK, this file immediately is deleted.
So it seems correct to assume that when Kontakt is able to create a file in a sub-directory, it also should be possible to change contents. Also there is the second file that can be altered as well by Kontakt.

I think the error shows something else is going wrong. Maybe the program is missing a windows-registry element and does not know how to handle that missing and "falls" in an error which has nothing to do with the problem.
Maybe that is the reason why a regular installed Kontakt does not have these problems. Probably during installation of Kontakt the necessary windows registry entries are created.

I guess the only person who could shine some light on this problem could be vkDanilov, the creator of this nice portable version of Kontakt.
But first, I don't know who that person is and how to contact him, and secondly he made it for windows, so he probably could not tell what happens under Wine in Linux.

Anyway, thanks all for reading and helping!

Paul

 

I think you're onto something - problem with registry. I'm not sure how WINE handles Windows registry, but I would try installing Kontakt and register libraries in a VM like VirtualBox then save all the registry settings in a .reg file and try importing it in WINE. Make sure all the files are in correct places, too, of course.

I'm interested in WINE, how it works, that's why I'm here. Shame I don't have any experience with it, but I am very Linux proficient and I still kinda know Windows like my own pocket - one of the reason for disliking it.

 

The difference between a regular installed Kontakt and a portable is the lack of registry entries in the portable version.

I did install a regular Kontakt, but turns out it is not comparable since it has not the file Settings.cfg. In the regular Kontakt it is probably done within the registry and the portable version uses two files. So that will not be of any assistance.
I guess I have to stick to the workaround: add libraries in windows portable Kontak v718 and then copy those entries over.
I did 5 libraries at once and it worked. So, I can live with that.

Wine is a part of MX21, so no problem with that. However Yabridge (no part of MX21) took me some time to figure out .When you do not need windows VST's, then you don't need Yabridge. The second problem is the handling of the audio. I tried Manjaro and AV Linux: they have the audio part already setup well. In MX21 you have to configure it yourself. Also Manjaro and AV Linux have Pulse Audio and Pipewire whereas I am stuck with ALSA. But it works. It's just that I am never able to run a really big project.
So why do I not use Manjaro or AV Linux? Well, it turns out that although both systems are running way more smoothly CPU wise, they start to stutter when playing a Kontakt library like The Giant (only 4 Gb, so not a big one!!!) in a rather rough manner: the system freezes. When I play the same library in MX21, I get a warning that there is not enough memory, but here comes the miracle: how rough I play, the system does NOT freeze! So for me not a difficult choice: use MX21. It also means that I can do my regular things and meanwhile make music without booting in an other system.

One last thing: I run MX21 from an external SSD. On my internal HD is a windows 10 version. I wanted to start with Linux without jeopardizing my windows 10 because that is my work PC. I first tried MX21 from a Live usb stick and I thought it was well worth trying. So I bought an external SSD and installed MX21 on it. Okay, I have to admit, it took me quite some time to set things up the way I like it. The beauty of Linux is that it...well...it just works. And for people who desperately need some windows stuff to work with, MX21 is via Wine very well capable of running most of those programs. It is incredible. To make things even better: there are alternatives in Linux and they are even free! For example: I have a legal license for Total Commander. It is possible to run it under Wine, but you loose a couple of possibilities. Turns out: there is a Linux alternative called Double Commander and it's free! Second example: I bought a simple video editor for windows. Turns out that the fee video-editors in Linux are way better!
Now I am in the stage that I wonder why most people still use windows? I mean, if you only just browse the internet and do some emailing, why the hell do you need windows? Why pay for a product you don't need? Why pay for a product when your data is still getting stolen? Why choose a company that makes it more and more difficult for people to use their own chosen software?

Don't I have any remarks at all? Hmm...to be honest, there is one. You mention Virtual Box. I was interested to see if I could install a windows 10 version with Virtual Box. But I don't know Virtual Box so I started by installing it and figuring around with a Linux distribution. But it turns out that in my PC MX21 decided to install a x86 version of Virtual Box, whereas my PC is x64. I have no clue why the hell MX21 does that? The only thing I can come up with is that it may have to do with the fact that I use MX21 via an external SSD. But logically it makes no sense to me.

Paul

 

why most people still use windows?
audio drivers for the hardware is the linux missing part.

program data can be a system protected location, as program files. try another location for portable.

 

Well, you'd be surprised. I have a Roland FA-06. It is recognized by MX21 and works in Reaper as an audio-interface.
I have a Canon printer/scanner. And although there is no fancy pancy GUI for it, via the option Printers I can turn every parameter and the same applies to the scanner.
I borrowed an NI Audio Kontrol 1 audio-interface and it is recognized out of the box by MX21.The same for a Behringer UMC22. I borrowed those two to check if my problem in Manjaro and AV Linux would be solved with a separate audio-interface. It did not unfortunately, but I mean there is equipment that can be recognized by Linux if it is USB class compliant. And a lot of external equipment is. But I hear what you are saying and of course there will be equipment that cannot be used.

I already tried that. I even placed it in the root. No difference.
I think only vkDanilov would be able to shed some light. Anybody knows how to contact him?

Paul

 

I had the exact same issue with the portable version. The problem is in the kontakt helper program itself.

The portable version uses its own library manager tool that is located in C/users/public/helper/Library manager.

If you have the Kontakt portable version 6, you can just replace the Library manager folder from version 7 with the one from version 6. It will work fine and save the settings.cfg without issue.

Power to the Linux audio people!

 

Could you please explain a bit more? Since it is portable, I do not have a library manager in C/users/public/helper/Library manager.
I made a directory in /home/paul/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/NIPortable718 in which everything is extracted.

I extracted the portable version of v6.7.1 and copied the Library Manager, but I still get the same error for settings.cfg. It is even not present after extracting the portable exe file.

Could you explain a bit more what you have done? How did you extract the portable file, in my case KontaktPortable_v718.exe?
Did you make a directory in another part of the C drive?

 

So I started over, and deleted everything. I then installed v7.1.8 into "/home/paul/.wine/drive_c/ProgramData/NIPortable718/".
I used yabridgctl to sync the plugins and Reaper recognizes the VST2 and VST3. I then installed v6.7.1 and copied the contents of the directory "/home/paul/.wine/drive_c/ProgramData/NIPortable671/Helper/Library Manager/" into the one of the v7.1.8. However, same error still.

Do you have any idea what I am doing wrong?

 

I have unfortunately encountered the same problem, but i can live with doing the windows workaround. Can you please explain which files you have to copy over from the windows version to the version in the Linux wine-prefix(i am thinking its the UserData folder). Also what lines do you have to edit in the Settings.cfg?

 

I just try to figure out what the structure of the contents was. In that way I discovered that 2 files are necessary:
- Settings.cfg
- LibraryHints.xml
You will see that when you start Kontakt portable, there seem to be a lot of missing libraries. Those libraries are in the LibraryHints.xml file. So when you want to use for example The Giant, look first for the nicnt file that contains the necessary information:

<Library>
<Name>The Giant</Name>
<Company>Native Instruments GmbH</Company>
<SNPID>152</SNPID>
<Relevance>
<Application nativeContent="true">Kontakt</Application>
</Relevance>
<RegKey>The Giant</RegKey>
</Library>

Now go to Settings.cfg and look for this statement: searchDBFolderCustom_0001 or searchDBFolderCustom_0000.
After this add the following:
[The Giant]
Name=sz:The Giant
SNPID=sz:152
Company=sz:Native Instruments GmbH
ContentDir=sz:k:\KONTAKT LIBRARIES\@PIANO\Native Instruments - The Giant INSTALLED\
Visibility=dw:3
JDX=sz:023730940B73318EAEAD916E3989EC68BE72599A2F1738F828A7D028C9B1ECCA
HU=sz:6B70EC16E02410D1A515685C1001D559
ContentVersion=sz:1.0.0
UserListIndex=dw:1
UserRemoved=dw:0
K5DbCacheImportSize=dw:4
K5DbCacheImportData=sz:AAAAAA==

Do this for every library you want to add.
Attention: my libraries are at disk K, directory k:\KONTAKT LIBRARIES. So you must use windows disk names and directory names, NOT the Linux names.

BTW: Important: when changing these files, be sure that Kontakt is NOT running!

Hope this helps?

Regards,
Paul

 

thanks a lot all the libraries are loaded in and seems to be working fine.

 

Great. Linux FTW!