Full list of 1.300 sounds missing from SampleTank 4 MAX

[DarkStar]

@ ghavet3,
That is a very good experiment to have done. And I can understand your frustration with this problem not being resolved.

Please reply to Support with that exact information - that the installer is NOT installing everything from that .zip file. Attach screenshots if you can.

Maybe other ST4 Max users can check their own folders too.

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I'll guess that the IKPM marks a file as Installed after the install program has run.

If you wish to escalate your Support Ticket, please have a look at the Forum Guidelines thread.

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Given that the installers(?) are not working for you, one thing that you might try (back thing up first) and at your own risk: Extract the contents from the .zip file, then look at the folders and files in the contents and MOVE them into the appropriate folders in the ST4 library.

This FAQ shows the folder hierarchy:
https://www.ikmultimedia.com/faq/index.php?id=1239

[ghavet3]

Dear Darkstar,

Thank you very much! I will do try to escalate. I didn't kwow this existed. I feel I am entitled to it since one month has passed since I claimed that the solution didn't help. I've been forgotten by the team.

I've had also made limited attempts to move different extracted files into the appropriate folders in the ST4 library before your wrote to me but it had given no results. The attempts were limited and the folder's structure is rather complex so I rapidly erased the files that I had added to the structures after it failed to bring the hoped success.

Best regards.

[Peter_IK]

Again, IK Multimedia support team let me down with irrelevant answers and nether replied when I asked again for help.

They are the ones who can provide an official answer and any appropriate fix. Please see the guidelines at viewtopic.php?f=10&t=19505 with regard to support tickets that you feel have not been handled to your satisfaction.

[ghavet3]

They are the ones who can provide an official answer and any appropriate fix. Please see the guidelines at viewtopic.php?f=10&t=19505" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; with regard to support tickets that you feel have not been handled to your satisfaction.

Dear Peter,

I indeed sent yesterday a PM to Huddy on Thu Mar 03, 2022 4:42 pm, following your advice to escalate my support ticket but my message does not put away itself in the "sent messages" box and remains bolded in the outbox? Is it normal?
Best regards.

[limestone]

I cannot start this post without making CERTAIN that EVERYONE on this forum, (yes, both users and admins) realizes how much I love this company's software, quality of sounds, and design flow. I will gladly post the receipts of how much money I have spent with this company. I DO NOT regret one penny of it. I use IK software EVERY time I turn on the computer in my studio.

But, check the history of this section of the forum. I raised this very issue many months ago. I went through the prescribed solution process. My ticket was never resolved. I have the HIGHEST respect for this company and wish it NO harm. I do wish they could solve this issue for the op and for me. I will be following these posts closely, and I wish success for all involved.

[ghavet3]

Dear limestone,

Your approach to love/hate IK multimedia management is similar to mine. I've bought the entire software catalog of Ik multimedia products and spent a high price to get the latest issues. Up to now, I've got everything from them (excepted Resonator + Amplitube Mesa Boogie 2). I've made my choice while many high-tech critics were sometimes negative about them and the quality of their products, and especially about SampleTank.

I do not know what happened wrong with my installation: is it the way I did, or is it the crosssgrade version which is corrupted? I've got helpful answers from users who testified that they had no problems. But up to now the team is still absent:
- one irrelevant answser (they did not read carefully my problem)
- no answer since one month to my reply, although I avoided to re-open a ticket, following their guidelines
- no answer to my escalation request through a PM to the relevant IK moderator, which PM stays in the outbox for a reason that I do not understand, while it should be in the sent box; is it normal? I don't kwow;
- no answer from Peter about this; should I send him a PM and clutter up his PM box?

Would I have purchased a 2.000 $ broken-down fridge in a mall, I would have been better treated by the seller.

[ghavet3]

FINAL UPDATE
Dear all. This is an update. I finally got trough a full reinstallation process of Sampletank 4 MAX and all its derivatives (Syntronik, Sampletron, Mirosplav Philharmonik). IK Multimedia team had made a belated but kind proposal to me (I do not want to enter into the details) but I refused because I really wanted to understand how it works in depth. So I managed to check all the zip files I had kept in store and I tried a full step by step customed installation.

The reason is that I wanted to avoid the bad experience I have had with the IK Product Manager. The manager is a black box where you hardly understand what it is doing; things are sometimes unclear where the files are put, where they are decompressed, where they are installed, and where the process has stopped for all sorts of reasons. It may be of help for a few files but when things go the wrong way with connection errors and installation errors, the more than one hundred files and hundreds of Gigas of data let you stay in the fog, not to say that your disarray lasts for days and days of downloading.

Nethertheless, my customed installation encountered also many problems. I had to face some "Could not install the library" or "Could not install some files samples" issues. I know now for sure that this problem comes from a specific difficulty with the lenghth of the paths when installing or dezipping. So everyone making a customed installation SHOULD put the zip files at the root of a hard drive and make the unzipping and proceed to the installation from here, thus reducing the lenghth of the paths during those processes, and those problems will be avoided. It's not clearly stated anywhere but it will really avoid you much trouble!

I also noticed that previous choices concerning the installation path (Sampletank 3 or Sampletank 4 locations) has an influence on following installation paths. So it may happen that the installer proposes you to install the files at the wrong place; and guess what?...when it has finished, it claims that the installation succeeded, although in fact, nothing was installed! Moreover, the label of the zip files does not always properly states which type is it, ST3 or ST4. For example, how do you know where to install Pedal_Steel_Guitar_Sound_Content.zip ? So check the answer by inspecting the inside of the zip files and you will (sometimes) have the answer. ST4 files are *.st4i files while ST3 files are *.st3i files. For the .pak, files, use your thumb to guess: the name of the Folder "Sampletank 3" or "Sampletank 4" also helps.

I had also some minor difficulties. My previous copies of the sound folders showed that the final new result is a bit different from the previous result.

For example, no "ST4 imported" folder was created while it was present before. Creating this folder manually makes something curious happen: hence the folder is empty, when clicking on the library "ST4 imported" inside the ST4 software makes the "Piano Felt Pedal" instrument appear, which instrument is absent from the "Fractured piano" Library where it shoud be located! Probably are the data of the libray info wrong. And if you look at the dedicated picture on the relevant IK multimedia page here https://www.ikmultimedia.com/products/stfracturedpiano/ you see that the very same instrument is missing from the list in the software screen picture: it should be located inbetween "Piano Felt Bass Pluck 4th" and "Piano Howlings B" and it isn't. IK multimedia teams, check your files on your own computers, ah, ah !

My new installation also showed a lock upon a "Syntronik-CS-Free" library; and digging among all zip files couldn't locate any relevant file to this "Syntronik Free" instruments. But, since I kept a copy of my previous installation, I could locate the existence of previous "52 Syntronik Free" folders in the Sampletank 3 samples folder and in the Sampletank 3 instruments folders, as well as a Syntronik Free.pak file inside the ST3 Libray info. And putting those files manually at the appropriate place in my new folders could resurrect a few previous instruments that came, I think, from a many years free old Syntronik version, and which are not available anymore (at least with a custom installation made through files downloaded from the "My Products" page). These sounds are named "FM Tubular Bell Light" and "Classic EP 3 Velos" [99 synthetizer] or "Glisten Light" [Blau synthetizer] to name as a few.

I would also like to point that explanations about processses to follow when making a custom installation differ widely depending of the date of the PDF files or the web page that you follow. Some explanations are dated of the old "Custom shop" system; and schemes of the folders are also sometimes old dated and do not reflect the up-to-date structure of the software.

Despite all those problems, I urge IK multimedia to preserve the ability to set a customed installation: it helped me to understand how ST4 works, how to change things manually and properly, how to make my installation evolve smoothly from one location to another, how to stay versatile when allocating space for ST4 derivatives, that I may put on different hard drives, depending of my everyday use of them; and it solved my installation problems much more better than being stucked with automated installation problems.

[Steve-xyz]

Thanks for taking the time to write up all the details! I have bookmarked your excellent post in my browser for future reference.

[Guilhermelima1989]

Any updates on the issue?

[procyon98]

I have the exact same issue, I plan on trying the manual install

[Promidi]

I have the exact same issue, I plan on trying the manual install

I have only ever done the the manual installs.

I only use the IKM Product manager to authorise.

[ghavet3]

Dear procyon98 and Promidi,

As I already mentionned when I updated this thread 8 months ago, I have succeeded a full manual installation of Sampletank Max, and up to now, I ALWAYS install everything manually, after simlpy authorizing the product through IKM Product manager, like Promidi does. I never download automatically after having authorized the product. I go to my account on the website and download the files from there.

You should READ THROUGH CAREFULLY my final update on this subject; I insist on the fact that on PC computers, you should always dezip your files at the root or near the root of the hard drive (on the desktop is fine for me) and install them where you want from there because otherwise, there is a specific difficulty with the lenghth of the paths which makes Windows reject the installation of certain files with too long names/paths, which may explain why some sounds do not install properly.

I now often install manually and I have gained such a knowledge on this matter that I even debug files myself. Recently I bought a new sound library and some of the multis did not work because the installation files directed them at the wrong place. I've correct it manually by cutting and pasting the appropriate files at the right place on my computer and, then everything worked fine. I've posted my solution on the forum. But my post was erased by IK multimedia because they denied me the right to say that the product was faulty. I did not insist, because now, I do not care , since I'm able to configurate all Sample Tank installations by myself without waiting an inevitable update.

Also some product superimpose each other. For example Sampletank shares some libraries and locations with Syntronik software; so when you try to launch them both at the same time, some sounds are already opened elsewhere and may not respond to your solicitations, and that is why I've duplicated some sound libraries and managed some sound paths by myself.

Hope these explanations will be of help.

[procyon98]

Work smarter, not harder. I realized that I knew where the Ik manager downloaded stuff to. So I downloaded the sounds from the web site. I was missing 3 zip files in the IK manager folder. I looked in the zip files that were missing. The Humbuckers and all of my missing files were in those 3 zips so I just had to install those 3, not the whole 100 files.

[Guilhermelima1989]

I solved most of the problems by manually installing sampletank 3's contents into a separate folder, and all the missing instruments mentioned by @ghavet3 came back. however, three specific instruments (Chekerè, Afochè 100bpm and Bembè 120bpm [names with accents]) do not appear, and the solution I found was renaming them to (Chekere, Afoche 100bpm and Bembe 120bpm [names without accents]) and they appeared, but there was an error with finding the samples folder, because has a different name. Even if I change the name of the samples folder, the error occurs. All sampletank instruments do not have accents in their lyrics, characteristic of other countries.

[DarkStar]

^^^^
Tread carefully. The sample file names are hard-coded into the instrument files. And instrument with accents should be displayed in the ST4 browser. So I suggest renaming the instruments back to their original names and reporting the problem to Support.

The instrument lists here https://www.ikmultimedia.com/products/st4/index.php?p=versions show them with their accented names.