Cannot Move Content with Sound Library Manager

[Hopetown]

Hi Folks, I apologize if this has been covered. I don’t see it in the “similar topics” list.

I’m trying to relocate content libraries such as Halion Symphonic and others that are large to an external drive and I keep getting the same error. I’ve tried not only quitting all other applications but I even went into the Mac task manager and turned off any audio related tasks. Nothing helped so far.

Thanks for any advice!

[Markus_Leuthel]

Hi @Hopetown,

sadly I don’t use a Mac. So I can only describe my first thoughts - if I had a similar error in Windows 10. So the following is really just being written from a Windows user’s context.

1. open the DETAILS of the “Rock Pop Toolbox” package, note the container file’s name(s) / file path
2. use the file manager in MacOS to find the *.vstsound container file(s)
3. manually copy the *.vstsound container files to the external disc / target folder
4. de-register (REMOVE) the *.vstsound container file(s) in Steinberg Library Manager
5. target folder: double click the first *.vstsound package and choose “register in place”
6. delete *.vstsound container files at their source (assuming you use an additional backup)

I never use external SSDs for library content (due to potential power management and USB controller latency issues), and almost never move anything by using the Library Manager (although it did work in the past) - but always use my simple (self-made) content file structure (same six categories like in Library Manager). I copy (!) the files manually to their respective sub folders (same package names as within Library Manager) and then use “register in place”.

Hope that helps. Please tell me if anything of what I wrote has helped, or not.

Cheers
Markus

[Hopetown]

Thank you Markus! I was hoping there might be a work around to getting the library to do it, but your system seems viable. Worst case the deregister/re-register fails and I have to re-install.

I don’t think Mac has register in place, although I’ll have to check. Apple doesn’t take ownership over software registration the way microsoft does.

As for the external drives - there’s no way I could ever keep all my libraries on the internal. My SSD is connected via thunderbolt which may have some controller latency but…AFAIK it’s a direct connection to the PCI bus. I’ve never noticed an issues. By contrast Logic makes moving your entire content library to an external so easy. I really hope they get this figured out and fixed soon.

Thanks again for your input! I’ll need to find a slot of time when I can afford for it to fail lol.

[Grant_S]

I have moved the libraries from internal to an external SSD by moving the .vstsound and then just going back into the library manger and it tells you that it can not find the library, then just relocate and it works. I don’t understand why about 3/4 of the libraries will work with the move button, but then the rest say they can’t be moved and you have to do it manually. There doesn’t seem to be a rhyme or reason to it.

[Markus_Leuthel]

Hi @Hopetown,

thank you for your response, many good points.

I guess you’re absolutely right, Thunderbolt shouldn’t add any significant latency. But perhaps in heavily encrypted file systems on an external SSDs this might still apply, at least to a certain extent (might actually be interesting to find out by really measuring the data transfer time, IF one had the necessary electronics lab resources).

After looking into the Steinberg help section (had never read that before myself, so until now I was clearly just speculating - please forgive me), I found this:

the whole process of registering / moving content libraries seems to be pretty much the same on both platforms:

Manually Installing Libraries

This was also the first time I actually looked up where Steinberg Library Manager stores its path data, registered content file names and IDs , and it’s not even a real database file like with the MediaBay, but just a slightly larger XML file named “ContentManager.xml”, which resides inside the same Cubase settings folder where all the other XML files reside. This is what a simple Library Manager entry looks like, in Windows 10 - the content package is called “Colliding Worlds”, categorized under “Groove Agent” (I’d just replicated the category tab names in Library Manager as separate folders):

So, when looking into the three relevant places inside the Windows registry, I found lots of empty key folders, so my conclusion is that Steinberg nowadays seem to rather put any presets inside XML files, which makes it much easier to search for possible errors (if they occur, that is).

Now I still don’t have any idea why you had that strange effect… something with the user rights perhaps? Maybe we’ll find out, once you’ve tried to register your copied content files.

Best wishes
Markus

[Hopetown]

Thank you. Yes that sounds right.
When installing a new loop library it was made very easy for me to install it on an external drive. It’s just a reality that almost no one is buy a mac with the room to store content libraries on their internal and it’s not very wise anyway to be tying up the system drive with these tasks. I hope Steinberg will give the issue more attention going forward.

[Hopetown]

Just following up. I did a clean install of N12 on a new Mac Studio and the library manager worked perfectly as it should.

[Markus_Leuthel]

Hi @Hopetown,

thanks for revisiting this thread.
Glad that things now seem to work out for you!

Best Regards,
Markus