Hey ya'll! Long time lurker, new poster here.

I've recently installed Omni (moria's version from the sister site) and cannot for the life of me get it to locate the STEAM folder.

I'm running Windows 11 and the STEAM folder (also from sister site) is located at:
C:\ProgramData\Spectrasonics\STEAM
which is supposed to be the correct location.



I've done my research and followed Pirate's generous instructions at this very famous thread and gave proper permissions to EVERYONE and made myself the owner as well. (see attached image). I've followed these steps over and over again and still get the usual barrage of errors when it can't locate the STEAM folder:

"The STEAM folder does not have write permission. Try running as adminstrator."
after clicking OK , the second error appears
"STEAM folder is not writable."
then it opens the Application and another error appears:
"Error loading waveform"
etc.

I'm just about out of hope/ideas. I don't think I've messed up the STEAM folder at all, but I've included screenshots of inside the Spectrasonics folder and inside the STEAM folder, for good measure in case anyone sees something that might be off.

Any help would really be appreciated and I apologize for such a cliche install issue. Thanks!

 

First thing I would do is move the entire spectrasonics STEAM apparatus OFF of C: drive. It's easy to do and is something that you will want to do eventually anyway because omnisphere and it's libraries will fill up your C:/drive quick. To move the folder make certain Omnisphere is NOT running and just move your current structure to another drive that has ample room to store all the data.Then set those permissions on the newly placed folder structure and start at the ROOT folder and take ownership of the entire tree. Then set the perms for that ROOT and EVERYTHING under it. Once all is completed, fire up omnisphere and it will ask you where the STEAM folder is. You just point it to the NEW location and you should be golden. NOTE: Make certain the ROOT folder ("spectrasonics") is directly under the Drive letter - as in no other folder preceding it [EX; D:\Spectrasonics\STEAM]...

If that doesn't help then start killing the crap services that can interfere with such things like OS updaters, A/V, other autonomous apps/services that make background connections to who knows where. Killing internet altogether on that machine would not be a bad idea either.

 

Hmmm thank you for the suggestion! I've already tried killing the internet and disabling defender/firewall. I initially put the STEAM folder on my external F:/ drive just out of instinct because it was so large. That was before I realized it had to be contained within the "Spectrasonics" folder, which installed in C:/ by default.

I will try your suggestion and move the entire "Spectrasonics" folder to the the external and change the permissions for the "Spectrasonics" folder and all contained within it, before trying again.

I'm still skeptical, as I'm not sure why switching the Drive will help it find the folder any better. But I will report back! I appreciate your help

 

https://support.spectrasonics.net/manual/Omnisphere2/25/en/topic/get-started-page04

 

I have the STEAM folder located on a different SSD pointed to by a Symlink or shortcut. This can be done for legit or patched Omnisphere.

• The original directory structure should be:
• C:\ProgramData\Spectrasonics\Stea

• After moving the STEAM folder, the directory structure will be:
• C:\ProgramData\Spectrasonics\Steam <(Symlink or shortcut pointing to drive & Steam folder)

For me, this is:
E:\Instrument Libraries\Spectrasonics\STEAM

 

On Mac, you do not need to use a Symbolic Link even. You can use an Alias. (just for later info purposes).... it's the same thing.

When you first load Omnisphere, there is a button on the bottom left that says Diagnostics. Click that. The last line at the bottom will show your current Steam path. You create your alias/symbolic link from that folder with your content and drop it in the folder that is your current Steam folder. You can change the Steam folder wherever you want, the link just needs to point to the correct second location. The link just forwards from where it looks to where the Steam content actually is.

For as many people ask about this, it is way easier than one might suspect.

 

Put your spectrasonics folder anywhere you want. Then in admin command prompt type :
mklink /j "c:\ProgramData\Spectrasonics\Steam" "[FULL PATH TO YOUR FOLDER ENDING STEAM]"
i.e. for the above example:
mklink /j "c:\ProgramData\Spectrasonics\Steam" "E:\Instrument Libraries\Spectrasonics\STEAM"

These are a great hack for network added storage too as they show up in most programs that cant see network shares.

 

Yeah so I moved the Spectrasonics folder to my external and now I can't even start the plug-in because moving the whole Spectrasonics folder messed up the plugin location. I think I'll have to move it back (or reinstall/update) and then just move the STEAM folder inside it to the external instead.

I'll give this a shot and create a symlink once I move the STEAM folder. Thanks! Hopefully this works.

 

Any idea what I might be doing wrong here? Anyone's welcome to chime in, as I'm not so great at this. Says "Cannot create a file when that file already exists" and doesn't seem to have created a symlink.

Also noticed another folder with some kind of default settings just appeared in the empty STEAM folder. Hoping this is normal?

 

mklink /D "C:\ProgramData\Spectrasonics\Steam" "F:\Steam" issue this command.

That Omnisphere folder gets created per product. So if you had Trilian or whatever, there would be folders there for those, too.

 

Thanks for chiming in! Same issue unfortunately :/ Anything else I can try??

As for the STEAM path in Omnisphere's diagnostic section, here's what it says. Looks like the right place.

 

It might help if I was on Windows. But the response you are getting about "Cannot create a file when one already exists", is stating that your link already exists.

I would start over with your commands. Go into the Spectrasonics folder and see if anything was created using the J option instead of the D. I might even do the little cleanup job and reboot. Then try again with the D optioned command.

There is probably some file inside that folder. Delete it. It should be basically empty. Then I would look at the F drive folder after that. If you do not see files, just make sure you do not have any hidden files due to Windows folder settings.

When you have a file in use error, don't forget you can always just rename that file for testing purposes. If you add BAK to the filename or extension just to make sure the system cannot see it.

Obviously, do not delete any Steam content. You are looking for an incorrectly created shortcut file.

 

The ProgramData\Spectrasonics folder should remain in place. Only the STEAM sub-folder should be relocated. Once relocated, there cannot be a STEAM folder in the ProgramData\Spectrasonics folder. Only where the Symlink or shortcut points to. Otherwise, the mklink /D command will throw an error.

For a shortcut.

• Right-click the relocated STEAM folder
• From the context menu select Create shortcut
• Move the STEAM - Shortcut to the C:\ProgramData\Spectrasonics folder & rename the shortcut to just STEAM.
• Launch the standalone exe for Omnisphere. You may have to use the 'Refresh' button at the bottom of the preset selector as a final step.

Hope this helps...

 

Are you sure you also granted write access to all the sub folders and child objects under the Steam folder?

 

I created the shortcut as you described and used that folder to run the symlink command and it was successful. Not sure if this was redundant, but it created the folder which i renamed to STEAM, as shown below.


Unfortunately, still haven't made any progress in standalone omnisphere recognizing the folder :/

At this point I really don't know what the issue is though it seems like it should be something simple!

Yes, I did. I checked the box to do that and granted ALL access to EVERYONE, and did the same for Admin, user account etc.

Thanks everyone for helping thus far. If anyone has additional tips, please let me know. I'm trying to be transparent and detailed in my responses to hopefully figure this out. At this point I'll throw $20 to someone reputable in the community to hop on TeamViewer if you're confident you can figure this out. Otherwise any help is still appreciated

 

Anyone?

 

The solution may be the following (STEAM folder has to a sub-folder):

F:\Spectrasonics\STEAM
not
F:\STEAM​

 

Like @quadcore64 said. The steam directory must be 'X:\Spectrasonics\STEAM'. What is very simple to do and works for me all the time is:

1. Right click on the STEAM folder and choose 'create shortcut'.
2. It will create 'STEAM - Shortcut.lnk'.
3. Rename this to 'STEAM.lnk'.
4. Move it to C:\ProgramData\Spectrasonics\STEAM directory overwriting the existing one.

Now the this part should be OK.

If you still get this error:

"The STEAM folder does not have write permission. Try running as adminstrator."
after clicking OK , the second error appears
"STEAM folder is not writable."

Then it definitely means you haven't set the access rights correctly!!
Most likely you have set it only for the root level but not for the lower levels in the directory structure.

To set rights correctly you must not only check under 'security>edit'. You need to use 'security>advanced' to inherit the full access rights to all sub-containers and child objects (sub directories).

To do this correctly look at the following video and skip to 02:10:

Hope this will solve your issues?

 

Im not trying to be difficult here but thats not true!

Regarding my installation it was as straight forward as follows
A/Follow all the steps in in terms of correct installation "if your updating esspecially or it will not authorize "
Remember to also update the patch bank "library" upto the version your running , or you will have an error regarding the patch bank
I myself have omnisphere installed on C:
"However, the actual Steam folder that comes with the install, i simply placed onto an external ssd
Then booted up Omnisphere, whilst i did initially get the error we all get>
"steam folder could not be found, would you like to locate it"
Then i selected the correct external ssd, pointed it to "Steam"
And then i had another error "This folder cannot be accessed as it is write protected" Or something very similar
I then went into properties on my external drive and changed my account regarding my profile to "Full Control"

Then when i booted up omnisphere all was well
I must say that you do not have to point the plugin to \Spectrasonics\STEAM
That said i must elaborate, if im remembering correctly ,when first installing, and locating the Steam folder, the system should specify "spectrasonics automatically prior to locating the Steam folder"
ive never personally had to enter "spectrasonics\Steam, this is why im postulating that that bits automatic as you can put the folder anywhere and then point to it,

Although when i say you can put it anywhere, obviously i simply mean that you can copy the steam folder to another drive/location, i didnt mean to put it into a folder within the main o:s files

 

Last edited: May 6, 2024

Thank you to you and @quadcore64 for replying. I followed these directions exactly and made a new shortcut. Unfortunately still wouldn't work. (This is after selecting the new shortcut at C:\ProgramData\Spectrasonics\STEAM)

and then I got the usual write permission errors you mentioned.

Yeah I had a feeling the problem was still with the permissions mainly, but I've done the ownership AS WELL as the full access/permissions over and over again. Here I am granting ownership to my user account.

Is this the correct account to grant ownership too?? I've tried Admin as well. I think I'm doing everything right, but nothing seems to be helping :/ Thank you again