URGENT! "Samples Missing" in every project that uses Kontakt libraries!!!

One possibility is that Kontakt, or less likely Sonar,  is running with different permissions than it was previously, and can no longer access the sample library. Are you logging on to a different account now? You could try running Sonar as administrator. If that does not work, you can find out about permissions of your Kontakt library folders. By using the following procedure you can modify the permissions even if you do not currently have ownership of the folders. You would need at least read permission for "Everyone," to be sure that you can access them from any program on the computer from any account. Normally, you would need permissions at least for the account name you are running Kontakt/Sonar from. 
 
http://www.thewindowsclub.com/take-ownership-windows-8
 

Thanks for your tips. Slartabarfast (nice Hitchhiker reference), I don't believe it was an issue with permissions since I'm logged in as administrator and have full control over the folders. Anderton, I'm hesitant to do a reset and scan since it says that will reset all of the user settings. But, I have some good news. While I still haven't discovered the exact cause of the issue, I have found a simple workaround that at least allows me to load up each project with all the samples and continue my work. I luckily have all of my Kontakt instruments on the same external drive, and even more luckily I have all of them in the same parent folder labeled "Virtual Instruments". So, upon loading my project and being prompted with the "Samples Missing" box from Kontakt, I can choose to manually find the samples, and by simply choosing the "Virtual Instruments" parent folder, it's able to find every sample that is used in that project, since I have all of my Kontakt libraries in that folder. It's going to be a bit of a pain to have to do that for every single work-in-progress project that I load from now on, but it finds all of the samples almost instantly after pressing OK. Once I've saved the project one more time with everything loaded correctly, the next time I open the project everything in place. 

I'm still curious about the cause of the issue though, so if anyone has any more suggestions or experience with this, I'm all ears :)

If you load Kontakt in stand alone mode outside of Sonar, are the samples found? I'll guess that they are not, but if I'm wrong then try running Sonar as administrator. Running a program as administrator is not the same as logging in as administrator. 
 
I doubt it is privilege-based, but maybe I'm wrong. I *think* there is an option you can check when you are prompted to find samples that will do it for all libraries, but I'm not certain. 

PeteL
Look at the path Kontakt lists for the missing samples - the hard drive specifically. Then look at what the hard disk containing your libraries is currently assigned to. What I've found in the past is that if I plug a different number USB drives into my laptop, or in a different order, the drive letter assignments could change, and the samples will not be found. To solve this I changed the letter designation of my library disk to something higher than the maximum number of disks I'll ever have connected; in my case "L" for library. Since I did that, the library external hard disk always comes up as "L", and samples are always found.

PeteL, you are right on the money! I just checked and my hard drive has indeed been renamed to a different letter. I loaded up a project that had some non-Kontakt libraries, but were still on the same hard drive, and those too couldn't be found. It's definitely an issue with the drive being renamed to a different letter.

Now, if I may ask, what's the best way to permanently rename that hard drive, to "L" (for example)? Also, after renaming it, how do I tell both Kontakt and Sonar to look for this newly named drive? 

Here's the details ...

To change the drive letter:

1. Right click "My Computer" or "This Computer"
2. Select "Manage"
3. Select "Disk Management" from the list on the left side of the window
4. In the list running down from the top middle of the window, right-click your library disk
5. Select "Change Drive Letter and Paths ..."
6. Click "Change" in the popup window
7. Select your new drive letter from the dropdown list
8. Press OK
9. Press OK to the warning popup (by later telling Kontakt about the drive letter change, it WILL run correctly)
10. Close the computer management window

To tell Kontakt where the libraries now are:

1. Launch Kontakt (I launched the standalone version)
2. Open Kontakt Options (the gear icon at the top of the window)
3. Click the database tab at the left side of the options window - you will see the currently incorrect library paths
4. Click "Remove" for all the existing paths, and then click "Add" to navigate and add in the new paths (now on "L" drive). Repeat for each library

If you have a large number of libraries, and you expect repeating step 4 above will be tedious, you can try the following instead. Press "Reset and Scan". I assume you'll be prompted to navigate to where you want Kontakt to look. If so, choose the L drive (or whatever you chose as a letter). Kontakt should now find all the Kontakt libraries on the disk. If you don't get a prompt to choose where to look (I don't recall ... it's been a while!) the worst thing it'll do is scan every connected disk, which will take longer. I would have suggested this paragraph as the first option if I remembered for sure that it asks you to choose where to look.

Good luck!
Pete

Yes Bob, Kontakt will indeed look for the libraries in the old location, which is why the second half of my instructions assigns Kontakt the new locations. Once the drive letter is reassigned to something that will not get "bumped" by other lower lettered drives and Kontakt is told what the new drive letter is, it will run flawlessly for ever. Or until you have about 8 external drives simultaneously plugged in before you plug in the "L" library drive - then "L" will get bumped to "M" by the OS and Kontakt again will not find the libraries.

You could just rename the library drive back to what it used to be, and all would work, but I opted for a permanent solution and thought I'd pass it on. Going back to the old drive letter will work right after doing it, but if in the future another drive bumps the library's drive letter up, you're back to the problem in the original post.

PeteL
Here's the details ...

To change the drive letter:

1. Right click "My Computer" or "This Computer"
2. Select "Manage"
3. Select "Disk Management" from the list on the left side of the window
4. In the list running down from the top middle of the window, right-click your library disk
5. Select "Change Drive Letter and Paths ..."
6. Click "Change" in the popup window
7. Select your new drive letter from the dropdown list
8. Press OK
9. Press OK to the warning popup (by later telling Kontakt about the drive letter change, it WILL run correctly)
10. Close the computer management window

To tell Kontakt where the libraries now are:

1. Launch Kontakt (I launched the standalone version)
2. Open Kontakt Options (the gear icon at the top of the window)
3. Click the database tab at the left side of the options window - you will see the currently incorrect library paths
4. Click "Remove" for all the existing paths, and then click "Add" to navigate and add in the new paths (now on "L" drive). Repeat for each library

If you have a large number of libraries, and you expect repeating step 4 above will be tedious, you can try the following instead. Press "Reset and Scan". I assume you'll be prompted to navigate to where you want Kontakt to look. If so, choose the L drive (or whatever you chose as a letter). Kontakt should now find all the Kontakt libraries on the disk. If you don't get a prompt to choose where to look (I don't recall ... it's been a while!) the worst thing it'll do is scan every connected disk, which will take longer. I would have suggested this paragraph as the first option if I remembered for sure that it asks you to choose where to look.

Good luck!
Pete

Perfect! Thank you very much. I'll try this out after work today. Cheers :)