I finally broke down and ordered Kontakt 5 because I needed it for a library. I was not happy about being coerced into to buying K5. That's 99 bucks that was supposed to go toward Omnisphere 2.
 
So I ordered it on the 23rd of last month. But I still haven't received it. Their FAQ says to expect 6-8 working days for UPS Ground. Shoulda been here 2 weeks ago.
 
So I emailed them, asking for a UPS tracking number so I could see if it got lost in shipment. They wrote back to say sorry, it's on back order. Back order? That's not supposed to happen when you buy direct from the manufacturer!
 
My theory: Kontakt 6 will be announced soon, so they've not re-ordered K5 units lest there be leftovers in the warehouse. That would be just my luck.

Was the best (online) deal at NI? A lot of times JRR shop and similar shops will get you an additional discount as well as confirm if it's in stock before you pay.
 
Meh NI.....their stuff works very well, but first you need to have it. 

$99 was the best deal I could find. Actually, I could find no third-party retailer that even carried the upgrade. Not JRRShop, not Sweetwater, not Musician's Friend. It would seem that NI is the only source, which would fit their M.O.
 
Now I see on the NI forum someone is asking when K5 will be available again...NI says "April". I can't help but wonder if they're intentionally re-ordering only enough units to fill orders as they come in, to minimize excess inventory. Could be they're about to punish me for dragging my feet so long, by making my late-in-the-game purchase immediately obsolete.
 
I should have stopped upgrading after Kontakt 2.

Yeah, but then you would have been in the same boat as me...I downloaded some newer samples that require kontakt 5 but at the time, I only had kontakt 3 which caused all kinds of issues, so I finally broke down and got kontakt 5 which btw works great now on my samples I use for my music:)
 

That's the boat I'm in...I bought Kirk Hunter Concert Strings last December but only 2/3 of it runs on Kontakt 4. The newest features require K5. What's frustrating, though, is that there was no technical reason for the vendor to switch platforms aside from pressure from Native Instruments.
 
And there is no technical reason why NI couldn't have forward-compatibility as long as a library doesn't use the newest features. Cakewalk manages to do it, as well as every other vendor I do business with. But NI forces obsolescence in order to keep customers paying over and over for the same product. They don't even try to maintain compatibility between fix releases!
 
I'm tired of it and swore that K4 was the last upgrade for me - but they have their ways to getcha.

of course:).......those new awesome samples you just have to have for this awesome great song of yours, kind of really pushes one to go ahead and purchase Kontakt 5....
 

So my daughter came to visit tonight and noticed an envelope in the bushes by the gate, brought it up to the house and surprise! it contained my long-awaited Kontakt 5 upgrade. UPS is notorious for refusing to open a gate to make a delivery, so they just tossed it over the fence. Fortunately, it was not raining today.
 
This product has taken nearly 6 weeks to get here. NI had told me it was back-ordered, which made me wonder at the time if Kontakt 6 might not be right around the corner. That would explain why the manufacturer had no inventory. That would be goodness, though, since a) the version that was arriving was sure to be up-to-date and b) I might qualify for a free upgrade to K6.
 
Alas, none of those speculations are true. Despite them having to re-order disk sets themselves, the software itself was still almost a year out of date. So much for avoiding a download by buying a boxed set. And the disks were loose and out of order, as if they'd been hastily assembled.
 
Imagine my surprise when I opened a K5 library and it told me "sorry, your version of Kontakt is too old". Keeping up with Kontakt revisions feels like chasing a moving target.
 
What really sucks is this counts as my budgeted GAS-mitigation inoculation for both March and April. That means no Omnisphere2 until June or July. Of course, it may be that long before their servers are back up anyway.

Good to hear you got it resolved.
 
After multiple instances of UPS delivering stuff to my neighbors, and the fact that I'm apparently at the end of their route and sometimes don't get deliveries until 8:30 PM (!), I now virtually always arrange to pick up my UPS packages at the local center.
 
There's not much worse than seeing a notification that a package you're waiting for has been delivered and it isn't there.

On the plus side bit, it's just Kontakt not Komplete Ultimate with (prolly) 20+ updates.

drewfx1
There's not much worse than seeing a notification that a package you're waiting for has been delivered and it isn't there.

Or chasing the UPS truck down the street because the driver knocked once and quickly left before you could get to the door.
 
Or finding a "sorry we missed you" sticker on your driveway gate even though you were home all day waiting for the truck.
 
Or finding your $1200 microphone sitting in the rain 100 feet from your house. 
 
Actual experiences.