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KONTAKT question: What's so dangerous with batch resave?

SimonViklund

SimonViklund

Active Member
Every time you click "batch resave" in KONTAKT, this warning message comes up (see the attached image). Among other things, it says "You should only do it if you know exactly what you're doing!!" complete with the double exclamation marks.

Now, in order to do a batch resave you just point KONTAKT to the main folder of a KONTAKT instrument and *boom* it performs a batch resave of that entire KONTAKT instrument, which makes it load faster in the future. Is there anything else to it?

What could go wrong when you do a batch resave? Why is this warning message so seriously worded? Have I missed something?
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This might be the wrong subforum for this questions. Maybe a mod could move this thread to the "Newbie Questions" subforum or something. Sorry for the hassle.
 
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Basically, if you don't know what you're doing, you could select a whole overarching folder containing LOTS of libraries... then the end result can be any or all of these:

* batch resave taking way too long to complete
* throwing random errors if some NKIs are of newer version than the version of Kontakt you're currently running
* if (unlikely, but not impossible) two libraries have some samples with identical filenames, the first one stumbled upon would be used for all instances of that filename - which screws up how some of those instruments will sound. There's an option to verify duplicate files, but that takes even longer to complete then. :)

If you're doing batch resave one by one library at a time, you don't have anything to worry about because in that case you know exactly what you're doing (and how it's supposed to be done). :)
 
EvilDragon said:
Basically, if you don't know what you're doing, you could select a whole overarching folder containing LOTS of libraries...
Click to expand...
Ok, but it feels like N-I should be able to program the batch resave function to determine whether the user has actually pointed to an instrument folder (by finding .nkc/.nkr files or something) or if the user has made a mistake and pointed to a parent folder containing several instrument subfolders. But thanks for the answer! Very informative.
 
That is an absolutely valid comment, except a library can have more than one NKR file so that's not a defining factor for what a library entails. They can only check for .nicnt (or previously _info.nkx) files to check if it's a valid Kontakt Player library... for non-KP stuff it is much less clear cut. Some old non-KP libraries don't even have an NKR... So you can see how this is not really something easy to do. Or even feasible.
 
Yeah it's just the way batch resave is implemented now, it feels like N-I kind of says "hey here's this function we haven't made entirely user friendly and can't really take full responsibility for, so here's a warning message and now you're on your own!" N-I should really have a standard for file/folder structure or there should be some index file in the root folder of each instrument that KONTAKT can use to determine exactly what instrument(s) it is, etc.

Is there a reason why libraries aren't batch resaved (or that the user is automatically offered to do so) when they're installed or the first time you open them in KONTAKT or something?

Is there a downside to batch resave?

Can't all libraries be batch resaved?

What happens if you batch resave the same library twice?
 
I also had (or imagine) an error, were if you batch resave and the samples missing dialog comes up, (and you were to ignore that) it resaves the patch with the samples missing. So It effectively deletes these samples from the .nki and will never ask again.

I also had libraries with samples named the same, so it could get screwed up if you select more then one library.

There are no downsides.

SimonViklund said:
Can't all libraries be batch resaved?
Click to expand...
Yes (but not at the same time, obviously)
SimonViklund said:
What happens if you batch resave the same library twice?
Click to expand...
Nothing, if you move a library to another drive or location, you should even batch resave it again, because they are now stored in a different place on your harddrive
 
MA-Simon said:
if you move a library to another drive or location, you should even batch resave it again, because they are now stored in a different place on your harddrive
Click to expand...

Nope. Batch resave has nothing to do with different hard drives, it only fixes relative paths between NKIs and samples. These relative paths don't change if you simply move the whole library folder to another drive (or even on another location on the same drive)!
 
EvilDragon said:
Nope. Batch resave has nothing to do with different hard drives, it only fixes relative paths between NKIs and samples. These relative paths don't change if you simply move the whole library folder to another drive (or even on another location on the same drive)!
Click to expand...
Well... you never stop learning, thanks!
 
EvilDragon said:
Basically, if you don't know what you're doing, you could select a whole overarching folder containing LOTS of libraries... then the end result can be any or all of these:

* batch resave taking way too long to complete
* throwing random errors if some NKIs are of newer version than the version of Kontakt you're currently running
* if (unlikely, but not impossible) two libraries have some samples with identical filenames, the first one stumbled upon would be used for all instances of that filename - which screws up how some of those instruments will sound. There's an option to verify duplicate files, but that takes even longer to complete then. :)
Click to expand...

Well, maybe the error message should say that instead! :scout:
 
I've found that it's not so much the danger of non-unique sample names, but the names of the resource container files.
Many developers (especially of free libraries) tend to give these generic, default or non-descriptive names.
Doing batch resave on many folders at once will then result in several libraries using the same resource files. Obviously resulting in corrupt graphcs and whatnot.

One folder at a time is the way to go. Or, even better, doing a batch resave on each new library the moment you copy/install it on your production system.
 
Great thread! Related question:

Is there any disadvantage to using batch re-save on a kontakt library on an external drive which is SHARED by two (or multiple) different systems?

Example: On my home studio computer I batch re-save the files in Kontakt. Then later I plug in the same external drive to my laptop, fire up Kontakt and batch re-save the same files on my laptop. Is this redundant? Recommended?
 
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