Hi everyone. I'm having issues with my external hard drives annoyingly disconnecting and reconnecting by themselves. I can use kontakt for about 30 seconds before I get a disk usage spike and a "kontakt has encountered a serious problem" error followed by a message on my computer saying that my external drive has connected to the computer and Albeton crashes. This has happened in the past and usually lasts a couple weeks and will just randomly stop. Anyone have this issue or know how to fix it? Thanks

 

Try other usb ports, test with a 2.0 port just to make sure, if everything works, try another 3.0.

 

I've tried every usb port on my computer. I have a custom PC how can you tell the difference between 2.0 and 3.0?

 

They usually have a different colour.


2.0 Is usually black, 3.0 is blue

There are red, yellow, teal too, I can't remember what versions they represent

 

Do you have windows? There's a power saving mode that's sometimes enabled which will randomly disconnect external hard drives. Also, how old is your computer? I had to replace my computer recently because I ran into a similar issue, albeit with internal ones. I think it was a failing power supply. Edit: Although the tell for the latter is if it disconnects when transferring files and stuff too or just when using Kontakt

 

Do you have your external drives plugged into a USB hub? I had a similar problem recently with a drive disconnecting every so often when I plugged it into a hub with another drive already in it. I switched to a different port (sadly a slower 2.0 one) and that seemed to resolve the issue.

 

Hey, yeah I'm on windows I have a year old custom pc. I do have 4 hard drives plugged into it lol but I wouldnt think thats an issue. I tried turning the power saving mode off among a few other recommended solutions from various websites nothing worked. If I click on the drive it will disconnect and reconnect sometimes. And sometimes randomly it will bling and windows will show me the drive is connected in the bottom right hand corner. Whenever I start to use kontact thats what happens it like disconnects and reconnects and I get a disk spike and it crashes.

 

No they are plugged directly into the back of my pc I dont know which ones are 2.0 and 3.0 but there are like 6 of them and I've tried every single one. Weird thing is that everything was working fine with where they were plugged in and I unplugged one of them to transfer a file from my laptop and it started doing this again. (also wondering if a lack of power and CPU are connected because randomly I'll get cpu spikes on a track and not be able to work at all. Then I'll turn on my computer the next day and the same project is working fine.)

 

Last edited: Mar 10, 2021

honestly, it sounds like you might not have optimized your workstation, especially if the CPU is windows. sounds like some kind of power saving feature is kicking in.

google 'windows audio optimization' & choose the one according to your OS (win 7 or 10). there are several sources for this info. follow the steps provided. it'll make a world of difference.

 

3.0 usually in blue.

I have a suggestion. First, safely remove the USB HD from the PC, right click "safely remove the USB". plug it out from your pc. Shut down the PC. disconnect The PC from the power, manually, turn of the wall switch or extension switch. Wait 1 minute. Then plug in the USB hard drive back to the PC while there is no electricity. Switch everything On one by one, make sure the USB hard drive is powered up (If it use external power, bigger HD) BEFORE you power on the PC. Pray to god as hard as you can while your PC is booting up (you may skip this one, I made this one up). It should work. I did that every time my external drive doing weird shit, it works all the time. I don't know the science behind this one.

 

It sounds like the connection between the HDD and the PC has a subtle fault. Can you change the USB cable coming out of your HDD or is it one where it's custom moulded into the drive casing?

In any event I would:

1. Switch in another USB cable if it's possible to do so to see if that fixes it.

2. If that is impossible or doesn't yield conclusive results, i'd take the HDD out of it's casing & install it inside a different one to see if the drive itself is behaving properly.

 

Mostly its the usb ports power cycling and/or lack of power or bus bandwidth(rarely). Various external USB drives draws different amount of power depending on size/model. eg a 5TB uses around 1.4w idle and 4.2w load at 5V per usb port. Each USB port supply 5V of electricity with max current of 0.5A (500ma) and USB 3.0 around 0.9A (900ma). So just try this to confirm if its a power issue. Check your device manager for power draw.(some USB drivers dont show this info, see pic) Safely remove all the 4 externals and try using only one drive with the Kontakt and see if it disconnects/reconnects. If it works without any issue then you would probably need a powered hub if you do need to connect many externals.

 

Hey, I tried this and its still doing it. Like I said everything had been working fine for months and this just started out of nowhere. Its stopped for months then just now started again which doesnt make much sense. When I load up kontakt it notifies me on windows that the drive is now connected to the computer and then loads up the instrument and everthing works properly for about 2 minutes then I get a disk spike and it crashes. I'm guessing the disk spike and the drive disconnecting and reconnecting are connected?

 

it's all interconnected. I had the same problem with my Mac when I connect certain usb devices in different order or ports. (a lot of devices I use are all usb of different types, also). No Avenger's suggestion to use a better hub which supplies more power was the best solution for my setup. I ended up getting one that is T3 40gbs, SD card reader (for my scsi2sd), display port, ethernet, 2 usb, 3 thunderbolt 3 ports, and some other card reader for like 70 or 80 bucks. I use 2 Lacie Rugged externals and have no issues with random dis/reconnects or r/w speeds at all anymore.

Is this only when using Kontakt? Do you have any other plugins like Omnisphere, etc where you could store the library on the external? I'd probably try getting Kontakt and drive connected where it shows it is working and before the CPU spike (just to confirm the drive is situated correctly), and then a fresh install of Kontakt just to rule it out.

 

Last edited: Mar 10, 2021

If it was working fine before, then there could be two more things to check for troubleshooting before getting a powered hub.
1. Update your drivers for your USB controller. (make sure no usb ports are failing) * if you think this is unnecessary then just
2. Relocate the particular Kontakt library to another external drive and load the library from the new location/drive. (This is to check if your current drive is failing or is going to fail)
If your relocation works then you need a new hdd and if not then you could try the powered hub route.

 

Last edited: Mar 11, 2021

I use omnisphere but that's stored on my PC SSD and that crashes sometimes too. Wondering if this is overall a power issue. Because when I was building my PC I went with the second cheapest power supply lol not thinking it would make a difference.

 

Yeah I have two 2TB SSDs with libraries on them and theyre both not even a year old and both doing the same thing. Its just strange that it was working fine before thats what i dont understand about all this.

 

Whats your power supply wattage/brand? As you said you could be having a power issue (lack of power or lack of clean current continuity or failing psu in other words) or it could be failing USB ports on your motherboard due to a faulty usb chip controller. Just guessing btw.
You could try https://outervision.com/power-supply-calculator and see if you recently added anything to your pc that could be needing more power?? Im curious, what is your SSD model and brand?

 

There are probably 9 USB ports on this computer and ive tried all of them both SSDS are having the same problem. I havent added anything to my pc recently. I have 2 Samsung 2TB SSD drives Gen 2 A 3.1 C. Xidax built this pc Im going to call them tomorrow everything has a lifetime warranty. Maybe they can offer me some type of insight. It's just strange that this happened like 6 months ago stopped after like 2 weeks then just started again now.