After installing updates all my Halion 7 content is GONE (Empty Media Bay, 2025 edition)

Virtual instruments HALion
1

Why would installing UPDATES from Steinberg Download tool cause ALL my previous content to disappear from Halion Media Bay?

How do I get it to rediscover or reindex?

I had this issue 2 years ago, and this thread was about same thing:

Bug #1: Nothing at all in media bay, no matter if USER or FACTORY are selected or both, or neither. This happens sometimes after UPDATES are installed. To work around it you must wipe out THREE different folders under your user profile Preferences with Steinberg in the folder name.

Bug #2: Halion won’t show you factory libraries in the media bay when USER is selected in the media bay, along with FACTORY, which should show both. It’s like it wants there to be content in both before it will show either one. An AND where an OR should be in some crappy code in halion’s crappy Halion 7 media bay… And I think this bug has been here since Halion 7 shipped. What’s extra horrible is that Halion itself TURNS THE USER BUTTON ON again whenever you reset the filter, and the broken/awful boolean filtering logic hides all your content/libraries until you turn USER BUTTON off again.

I paid full price for Halion and the whole bundle of stuff, Absolute was that the name? It’s really a shame, that the quality here is so bad.

1 Like
2

Hi wpostma,

I am sorry to hear about you having problems with the content. Please try the following:

Windows:

Please follow these steps to reset the MediaBay preferences:

• Close all programs.

• Open the “Run” command by pressing the Windows logo key + R.

• In the “Run” window, type the following path: AppData.

• Navigate to the folder: Local\Steinberg.

• Locate the folders: “MediaServices,” “Steinberg MediaLib,” and “Steinberg MediaBay Server.”

• Rename all these folders (e.g., to “x_Steinberg MediaBay Server”) to hide them.

The next time you start the program, new folders with fresh preference files will be created, which often resolves the issue.

macOS:

Please recreate the preferences of the MediaBay. To do this, click on “Go” in the Finder menu. Press the “Option” key on your keyboard while the menu is open. This adds the “Library” entry, which can now be selected. In the Library, open the “Preferences” folder.

Now rename the folders “Steinberg MediaBay Server” and “Steinberg MediaLib” under “/Users//Library/Preferences/” as follows:

“x_Steinberg MediaLib”

“x_Steinberg MediaBay Server”

Upon the next program start, these folders will be recreated, which often resolves the issue.

Cheers,
Jan

3

That partially worked, but it’s frustrating that I keep seeing the pattern of (a) install an update from Steinberg’s own software download tools, and (b) now my media bay information is corrupt, and the thumbnails for installed Packages are all gone. After the above, half of of my problem is solved; I can see media bay thumbnails for the installed things like Eagle, Dark Planet, etc, until I click (or the app itself re-sets the view so that) the USER presets folder. Then everything is gone. So the other half of the issue persists and the above is not a real fix, because I think there’s a software BUG here, or a design inconsistency, that leads to a frustrating and stupid behaviour in Halion’s media bay.

It seems to me if USER and FACTORY are BOTH selected I would want to see both the factory items, and the user items. Especially if BOTH selected is the default view, why would the default view be less than everything. A clear filter state should show everything not almost nothing.

4

You’re right, having both selected should show the content of both. Unfortunately, I can’t really assist further here. Please get in contact with our support department. They will be able to help you.

Cheers,
Jan