Reinstalling Logic X with Existing Sound Library

I had to downgrade my main Apple OS disk because of a graphics glitch and because of that I had to reinstall Logic. Logic keeps asking to download the audio content, but the audio content is already downloaded on a separate drive in the same machine. When I go to Relocate Sound Library it seems to see the library on HDData but it's greyed out and won't let me select it. Also when I select Sound Library Manager, it clearly can't "see" the sounds that are already on the other disk. What can I do about this except re-download the entire thing? See attached.

 

Thanks

 

Chris

The whole Sound Library Manager system is so obscure, I fear you have to reinstall your entire sound library.

Thank you David. Not the worst thing that could happen, but something they could easily fix.

You could try library installation receipt transplant technique. Details here: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8627088

 

Alternatively, you could rename the library folder on the external drive (temporarily) to some other name. After downloading the "Essential Sounds" (or some other small) library, relocate it to the external HD. This creates all necessary symbolic links in macOS system folders, pointing to the library on external. After that delete the newly relocated Library folder and rename the existing (fully downloaded) folder back to "Library" (or whatever it's normally called). Can't guarantee it will work, though, since Logic apparently registers the sound library components as installed through installation receipts. You might have to combine these two methods.

 

Please, report back on what worked and what didn't. That should help everyone understand the whole process better.

 

Note: I personally find the Sound Library Manager a total mess. In my experience, it's never worked properly, and the way it treats users' time is outrageous. For example, it cannot detect previously installed library content (say, after it had been moved to an external drive and after macOS has been freshly reinstalled, like in the OP's case), although Logic itself can load samples and presets just fine. And to add insult to injury, the installation status is defined through installation receipts which are stored in a separate system folder. It's as if Logic and Sound Library Manager are two totally different apps developed by separate dev teams. Could SLM's development have been outsourced? I don't know, but whoever came up with SLM in its present shape and form should probably look for another career.

I downloaded the essential sounds and it still shows the existing sounds grayed out. Thank you for this link. I have these sounds installed on my studio machine and I should be able to get the receipts file from there. I'll try it and report back

Chris, no worries, hope it works out for you.

 

As for the external drive being greyed out, have you renamed the folder on external to something other than "Library"? Logic's SLM obviously still detects that library files already exist on the drive. From my experience, once you rename that folder, the disk should become available for relocation. You might have to quit Logic, rename the folder, eject the disk and plug it in again, wait for it to mount, then launch Logic again.

The whole Sound Library Manager system is so obscure, I fear you have to reinstall your entire sound library.

 

David, yes it is quite obscure, so I can't agree more on that. Aren't you curious about how the Sound Library Manager works exactly, though? I'm still wondering how exactly it handles disk space when performing content download / installation

After re-naming "Library" I was able to get the application to move the essential sounds over to the Data Drive. Then I deleted the contents of the newly created "Library" folder and replaced it with the stuff that was in the renamed file. The Sound Library Manager still can't see the samples on the other drive, but I played around with it for a bit and opened Alchemy. Alchemy showed me a progress bar (see attached) which probably lasted less than a minute, then all the sounds were available in the program. Same with Drummer. So clearly it found them on the drive and didn't re-download all those massive files.

 

So I think it will grab what it needs when it needs it but at this point, you'd think it would update the Sound Library Manager, such that once it "knows" the sounds are there, it checks it off in SLM as already downloaded. I have the full library but I imagine this would be hell for someone who had meticulously downloaded only stuff they needed because of disk space or whatever.

 

I closed the file and re-opened it, just to see if it would re-open Alchemy again immediately or whether it would have to do that refresh. It didn't. Those sounds were right there in the plugin and still not checked off in the SLM.

 

I guess tomorrow I'll try the receipt trick to see if that shows everything downloaded.

 

Chris

 

 

 

 

You could try library installation receipt transplant technique. Details here: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8627088

 

Alternatively, you could rename the library folder on the external drive (temporarily) to some other name. After downloading the "Essential Sounds" (or some other small) library, relocate it to the external HD. This creates all necessary symbolic links in macOS system folders, pointing to the library on external. After that delete the newly relocated Library folder and rename the existing (fully downloaded) folder back to "Library" (or whatever it's normally called). Can't guarantee it will work, though, since Logic apparently registers the sound library components as installed through installation receipts. You might have to combine these two methods.

 

Please, report back on what worked and what didn't. That should help everyone understand the whole process better.

 

Note: I personally find the Sound Library Manager a total mess. In my experience, it's never worked properly, and the way it treats users' time is outrageous. For example, it cannot detect previously installed library content (say, after it had been moved to an external drive and after macOS has been freshly reinstalled, like in the OP's case), although Logic itself can load samples and presets just fine. And to add insult to injury, the installation status is defined through installation receipts which are stored in a separate system folder. It's as if Logic and Sound Library Manager are two totally different apps developed by separate dev teams. Could SLM's development have been outsourced? I don't know, but whoever came up with SLM in its present shape and form should probably look for another career.

You can take screenshots directly on your Mac: How to take a screenshot on your Mac

Chris, glad it worked for you (albeit partially). The receipt "transplant" should do the trick, then.

OK so I did the receipts trick and at first I thought it didn't work. The SLM showed "Installed" next to (most of) the sounds in the library but on the left there were no indicators in the check boxes that it could see the files. I had to come into my studio and open Logic here to realize that there are no checks in the boxes by default.

 

Interesting side note - on all but one of my computers I'm running macos in a hackintosh (PC hardware) and somehow pasting all the Receipts from my studio machine (Apple keyboard, PC hardware) screwed up the keyboard settings on my laptop (Windows keyboard pretending to be an Apple keyboard). I'll have to figure out how to undo that.

 

Thanks all for your help. What a great resource.

 

Chris

Chris, you have a mild case of "receipt transplant" rejection with that keyboard glitch, it seems lol

 

By any chance, when you were copying the receipts, did you copy the whole folder from your studio computer, or did you make sure these were only sound library-related receipts?

 

By the way, normally Sound Library Manager does not automatically tick the libraries tagged as "Installed".

 

Very glad this method works (and on a Hackintosh, to boot). This opens up a whole range of opportunities in Logic Sound Library receipt transplantology, I'd say.

Hey man I had the same problem and after reading this I found the solution. For this I join here to tell you as it's a bummer not finding it.

 

I putted a 3th drive on it and moved the basic new library to there with logic as the 3th don't show grey but white. So according Logic thats where the sounds are. Then I deleted the logic file of disk 3 (the basic one) and copied the big library to there from disk 2. After that I deleted the big library from disk 2. So the big one is now on the 3th where according Logic your sounds are. After that you can open Logic and from there switch all back to disk 2 as it don't show this grey anymore.

 

Best regards

 

Edu

Hey all, just wanted to chime in. I'm in the same boat: I have the full 60GB Library from the Application Support > Logic folder (meaning they were all installed previously), but when I go to paste them back to that location after an OS refresh, Logic doesn't see them.

 

What you can do though is when you first download the Logic samples -- and before you install them -- is find the pkg files on your hard drive and back those up. Then use a shell script to batch install all the pkg files. This is perhaps a cleaner way to go about it rather then disabling csrutil and implanting old receipts since it will install everything fresh again. It's essentially what the Sound Library Manager does, just without the headache of downloading 60GB from a slow server.

 

How to find and backup the pkg files: using Sound Library Manager, select the samples you want to download and start downloading them. After they've downloaded, macOS will prompt you to enter your password, but don't. Leave that dialogue box open and instead go into Finder and we'll find the pkg files that were just downloaded. From Finder hit CMD + Shift + G to open the "Go to the folder:" dialogue box and then type in "/private/var/folders/". You'll have to look through these subfolders since they are arbitrarily named until you find the folder path: com.apple.MusicApps > audiocontentdownload.apple.com > lp10_ms3_content_2016 (or 2013, etc). Then within here you will see the pkg files. There are other data files in here named .resumeData and.resumeDataMA, but you only need the pkg files (assuming the download has finished completely). Sort this finder window by kind to group all the pkg files together and then drag and drop them to your backup disk.

 

How to reinstall the pkg files: So now that you have all the pkg files, when it comes time to reinstall them, you can either shift+select all the pkg files you want, open them all at once, and work through installing each one manually like a normal program, or since there are lots of pkg files, you may want to use a terminal command to batch install them all. (Full disclosure: I haven't gotten to this step of using a script to batch install yet, but it should work in theory. Check out the discussion here on creating a while loop: https://www.jamf.com/jamf-nation/discussions/19560/script-to-install-multiple-pkgs. I do intend to give it a shot though and I'll report back here with an update.) Even if you choose to install them all manually, in the face of the loss of time with downloading the entire library again, you will come out ahead in saving time. Also, if like amitygardens mentioned, you only use a handful of your favorite Logic samples, installing them manually may be the way to go. Hopefully this turns the "hell" of it all into a more "heavenly" experience.

 

Also this method of backing up the pkg files before install works with other companies. Arturia's Software Center app for example downloads all the pkg files then prompts you for your password to install. Again, you can go into Finder and locate the pkg files and back them up before install. The largest bottleneck in refreshing your rig is the downloading process, so having the backup pkg files will save lots of time.

 

Hope that's helpful! I'll report back after I find a shell script that works

Ok great, happy to report that I found a batch install script that does indeed work!

 

Download and install a nice little script called installPKG from: https://github.com/henri/installpkg. During install it will ask you to install a font (for some reason?), but you can deny this request. After install, open up Terminal and type:

 

sudo installpkg LogicSamplesPKG/*

 

Where "LogicSamplesPKG" is the name of the folder that has your backup pkg files. You may be able to type the full path instead, ie: "sudo installpkg Desktop/LogicSamplesPKG/*" or alternatively, you can navigate to the enclosing folder with the change directories command "cd" before running the script. For example, if your samples folder is on the Desktop, use "cd Desktop" and then run "sudo installpkg LogicSamplesPKG/*". Eitherway, point to the folder with all the packages, making sure not to have a slash infront of the folder name and ending it with the slash and asterix. Terminal will prompt you for your password and then it will run an install for all the pkgs. You are now free to go do some pushups or eat some food! When it finishes running the script, it will suggest that you restart your computer, but you don't have to for these pkgs; just reopen Logic and they will be installed.

 

And just to confirm that this does indeed work, here's a screenshot showing that two previously uninstalled sound libraries are now recognized by Logic's Sound Library Manager by following this method:

 

So now, in order to keep up to date, any time Logic says there are new sounds to download, simply follow this method to backup the pkg files and hopefully you'll never have to download them all at once again!

 

--

Credit for this method goes to Richard "10 Points To Me!" Oaten for illuminating the pkg folder path in the Apple Support Forums:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5176488

...and to developers Henri "The Name Is Not Very Good" Shustak and Leif "The Software Is Not Very Well Tested" Keane for creating the installPKG script, on GitHub at:

https://github.com/henri/installpkg.

Alright! Just installed the entire sample library with the installpkg script and it took about 60 minutes, hands-free. Take that, 2 day download.

 

One final note: after the batch install and when you open up Logic, it will prompt you again to download the sound library and/or the essential sound collection. Allow it to by clicking "Resume", etc and then cancel it. The prompt will disappear the next time you start Logic.

 

Enjoy!

How to find and backup the pkg files: using Sound Library Manager, select the samples you want to download and start downloading them. After they've downloaded, macOS will prompt you to enter your password, but don't. Leave that dialogue box open and instead go into Finder and we'll find the pkg files that were just downloaded. From Finder hit CMD + Shift + G to open the "Go to the folder:" dialogue box and then type in "/private/var/folders/". You'll have to look through these subfolders since they are arbitrarily named until you find the folder path: com.apple.MusicApps > audiocontentdownload.apple.com > lp10_ms3_content_2016 (or 2013, etc). Then within here you will see the pkg files.

 

First of all, THANK YOU THANK YOU @jth4 for sharing this info!! The Sound Library Manager has been DRIVING ME CRAZY for several years. It was a lot easier when we "tricked" logic into using an external location by moving the library and creating symlinks. At least then logic wasn't trying to be stupidly helpful.

 

Anyway, in following your instructions, I came across a snafu and maybe I can help those who are in my predicament, or who did things in my particular order:

1- Install fresh OS

2- Install Logic fresh

3- Install Essential Sounds > Move Library > Replace external library with large Sound Library in use with my previous OS/Logic

4- Decide to follow your instructions to download and backup .pkg files to solve the Sound Library Manager problem of not showing sounds installed

 

So, in this order, the pkg files were nowhere to be found at the "/private/var/folders/" location. After much searching, I finally found them on my external drive in the Sound Library folder in:

/Volumes/ExternalDrive/Library/Caches/com.apple.MusicApps/audiocontentdownload.apple.com/lp10_ms3_content_2013

And

/Volumes/ExternalDrive/Library/Caches/com.apple.MusicApps/audiocontentdownload.apple.com/lp10_ms3_content_2016

 

...I'm now backing up all the .pkg files for the next time I need to reinstall or move my Library.

 

Thanks again for the posts!!

Nice! Glad it's helping and thanks for adding your solution to the recipe! Much better than the long downloads, yeah? That was always a huge bottle neck in my OS-refreshes, so I'm pumped for this solution as well :D . Happy music making!

Hi, @ jth4 thanks for your valuable help!

I wanted to know if anyone had tried using this procedure in OS Mojave 10.14.6?

In my case from Finder I pressed CMD + Shift + G to open the "Go to the folder:" dialogue box and then type in "/ private / var / folders /".

I arrive at folders and inside there are 4 folders (see attachment).

Looking in the 4 folders I can't find "com.apple.MusicApps".

I find this folder in the Library / Caches user area (see attachment) but inside there is no folder "audiocontentdownload.apple.com> lp10_ms3_content_2016 (or 2013, etc)".

I have seen that jth4 uses 10.13.4, so can it depend on the OS version and has something changed?

Ah, I don't have that version of OSX, so can't say if it's dependent or not. My guess is that it wouldn't be, but who knows? If you've downloaded the pkg files, you should be able to search in Finder by file type for "pkg" to discover their location. Also, as tootone mentioned, they might be located on an external device if you've configured it that way. So double check that you've downloaded them (and that they haven't installed already) and search for them. They'll be there somewhere!

 

Here's a screenshot of how to search by kind in Finder. Basically, open up a Finder window, type "pkg" into the top-right search field, click the plus icon that comes up right below the search field, set the parameters to "Kind" is "Other" and type in "pkg" again. (Make sure you're in a larger scope too or it will just search one subfolder instead of a larger one). Also, you may want to activate the File Visibility and Systems Files parameters to be sure all locations are showing up in the search. In the first drop down menu where "Kind" is, click it and then click "Other". Search through the list until you see "File Visibility" and "System Files" and check each one to show up in the menu. Then click the plus sign again and select these options in your search and adjust their values to "Visible or Invisible" and "are included".

 

Hope that helps! Let us know if you find them!

Hi jth4,

and thanks for your help!

I solved another way and I think it can be of help to many.

Below is what I found looking on the net, clearly, this is fine for me as I want to download all the pkgs and save them on another HD.

It is not important what you downloaded from Logic.

 

Just go to this site: https://github.com/davidteren/lpx_links and copy the command indicated under Usage and paste it in Terminal.

In this you will download a folder with all the links up to the last pkg.

There are all the explanations and the whole thing is very simple.

 

Anyway, thanks for the help.

Renato

Awesome, nice solution! Glad you got it working!

There are all the explanations and the whole thing is very simple.

 

Anyway, thanks for the help.

Renato

Hey Renato, thanks a lot for posting this, it will definitely help others. I wish the whole Apple Sound Library Content linking system was more transparent. Glad to hear you found a solution.

Hi David,

happy to know that this will help someone, as you have been of help to me!

Renato

Dont know if this will help. but I had an issue where I used the new feature in logic to relocate the sound library. I moved it to an external drive and all was well. for some unknown reason this happened to me too. the whole "LPX need to reinstall the sound library" nonsense. well what I did was drag the entire sound library from my external, back over to my main hard drive.. just copied everything and it fixed it. I guess their "relocation" tool is broken. weird that it worked for 6 months then suddenly started this nonsense..

I stumbled upon this problem recently, but I think I found a very good solution.

I needed to do an OS refresh and I had already downloaded everything for Logic's Library. Like most of you I didn't want to download the 60GB+ all over again.

 

Turns out if you just copy the stuff to the right folders, it won't work as far as the Sound Library Manager is concerned. You still need some files "telling" your Sound Library Manager that you got them installed, otherwise it will always show as incomplete. These additional files are the in the Receipts folder (go to Computer > MAC HD > System > Library > Receipts).

 

I was fortunate to know all this beforehand, so I backed my whole Receipts folder before formatting, along with the Sound Library itself.

So, all the steps I took were:

1) Copied my Receipts folder (over 1300 files in there) to an external HD

2) Opened Logic and used its own feature "Relocate Sound Library", choosing the external HD as destination. It created a folder simply called "Library" in there (which contained most of the stuff).

3) For good measure, I also backed up the whole Audio folder under Computer > MAC HD > Library > Audio (which had folders like Apple Loops, Apple Loops Index, Impulse Responses and other folders). I backed up this whole "Audio" folder just in case because, quite frankly, I don't know whether Logic's relocation process included all that.

4) Renamed the Library folder created by Logic in my external HD to something else like "_Library" (I'll explain this later)

 

After formatting my MAC HD, reinstalling the OS, and reinstalling Logic Pro X, I let Logic download and install the most basic pack of essential sounds and quit the application shortly after. Then I did the following:

 

5) Copied my whole backed up "Audio" folder to Computer > MAC HD > Library > Audio

6) Opened Logic and clicked on Relocate Sound Library and, once again, chose my external HD (because the newly installed Logic had its Library in the MAC HD once again). Logic created a "Library" folder in my external HD again, but nothing was rewritten because I had previously renamed my full Library.

6) Quit Logic.

7) Deleted the "Library" folder it just created and renamed my full library back to "Library", which is the name Logic expects to find.

8) Opened Logic again.

9) Clicked on Relocate Sound Library and had my complete Library copied from my external HD back to the MAC HD (that takes care of all the stuff that's in the Library/Application Support/Logic). The whole process takes much longer, because well... it's the full library.

10) Upon completion, I quickly checked the Sound Library Manager and, sure enough, nothing was installed (despite them being all there for me to use).

 

Now, for the part were we "tell" Logic's Sound Library Manager we do have all those sounds. I had to copy the backed up Receipts folder to its right place in my computer. However, this folder is protected by "system integrity protection", so it can't be changed by default. To disable this:

 

11) Restart the computer and hold down Command-R to boot into Recovery Mode. In the top menu click on Utilities > Terminal. Type "csrutil disable" and press enter.

12) Close Terminal and Restart the computer.

13) Now, with that protection lifted, copy all backed up Receipt files into the Mac's Receipt folder (Mac HD/System/Library/Receipts). Make sure to get this right and leave all other folders alone.

 

Now, with everything copied, it's time to turn that System Integrity Protection back on:

 

14) Restart the computer and hold down Command-R to boot into Recovery Mode. In the top menu click on Utilities > Terminal. Type "csrutil enable" and press enter.

15) Close Terminal and Restart the computer.

 

That's it. Open Logic and the Sound Library Manager should recognize all the sounds now.

 

I found this Receipts solution and the Terminal commands in the Apple forum: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8627088

 

So, shout out to the guys who figured it out over there (SaiNarasimha and JotaGi)

 

EDIT: Now I see JotaGi had already mentioned this "Receipt Transplant" technique in this very thread as well. Anyway, all I can add is that it worked really well for me, and for someone in the same position (reinstalling the same OS) this is a great solution. You will be thanking yourself for backing up your own Receipts folder. But I would exercise caution doing that when upgrading to a newer OS, or even taking someone else's Receipt folder (as the guys in the Apple forums did). I'm no expert in this, so I really don't know what consequences those other 2 scenarios would bring.

 

Hope this helps some of you.

Just upgraded to Logic 10.5, and again Logic seems to be wanting to install more content to the Sound Library. This time I think it's different. It's asking to install a helper tool whereas before I think it asked for password just to install sounds... Does anyone remember if I'm correct? Anyway, I haven't been able to locate any new sound packages in the above referenced locations. Has anyone encountered this with Logic 10.5, and do you know where the new sounds are downloaded to so we can copy and archive them for future re-installation?

 

UPDATE: After authorizing the helper tool, I got the more familiar Logic wants to install download of sounds:

 

And the packages showed up in the standard location for externally located Library:

/Volumes/External Drive/Library/Caches/com.apple.MusicApps/audiocontentdownload.apple.com/lp10_ms3_content_2016

 

I was able to save and archive these new packages with all the previous packages BEFORE I installed them (they are deleted after Logic installs them)

Edited May 23, 2020 by tootone

Just registered to say that this worked for me.

 

You could try library installation receipt transplant technique. Details here: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8627088

 

Alternatively, you could rename the library folder on the external drive (temporarily) to some other name. After downloading the "Essential Sounds" (or some other small) library, relocate it to the external HD. This creates all necessary symbolic links in macOS system folders, pointing to the library on external. After that delete the newly relocated Library folder and rename the existing (fully downloaded) folder back to "Library" (or whatever it's normally called). Can't guarantee it will work, though, since Logic apparently registers the sound library components as installed through installation receipts. You might have to combine these two methods.

 

Please, report back on what worked and what didn't. That should help everyone understand the whole process better.

 

Note: I personally find the Sound Library Manager a total mess. In my experience, it's never worked properly, and the way it treats users' time is outrageous. For example, it cannot detect previously installed library content (say, after it had been moved to an external drive and after macOS has been freshly reinstalled, like in the OP's case), although Logic itself can load samples and presets just fine. And to add insult to injury, the installation status is defined through installation receipts which are stored in a separate system folder. It's as if Logic and Sound Library Manager are two totally different apps developed by separate dev teams. Could SLM's development have been outsourced? I don't know, but whoever came up with SLM in its present shape and form should probably look for another career.

Oh man i love you !!! i had the pkg's but no script !!!

 

 

Ok great, happy to report that I found a batch install script that does indeed work!

 

Download and install a nice little script called installPKG from: https://github.com/henri/installpkg. During install it will ask you to install a font (for some reason?), but you can deny this request. After install, open up Terminal and type:

 

sudo installpkg LogicSamplesPKG/*

 

Where "LogicSamplesPKG" is the name of the folder that has your backup pkg files. You may be able to type the full path instead, ie: "sudo installpkg Desktop/LogicSamplesPKG/*" or alternatively, you can navigate to the enclosing folder with the change directories command "cd" before running the script. For example, if your samples folder is on the Desktop, use "cd Desktop" and then run "sudo installpkg LogicSamplesPKG/*". Eitherway, point to the folder with all the packages, making sure not to have a slash infront of the folder name and ending it with the slash and asterix. Terminal will prompt you for your password and then it will run an install for all the pkgs. You are now free to go do some pushups or eat some food! When it finishes running the script, it will suggest that you restart your computer, but you don't have to for these pkgs; just reopen Logic and they will be installed.

 

And just to confirm that this does indeed work, here's a screenshot showing that two previously uninstalled sound libraries are now recognized by Logic's Sound Library Manager by following this method:

SamplesInstalledOK.png

 

So now, in order to keep up to date, any time Logic says there are new sounds to download, simply follow this method to backup the pkg files and hopefully you'll never have to download them all at once again!

 

--

Credit for this method goes to Richard "10 Points To Me!" Oaten for illuminating the pkg folder path in the Apple Support Forums:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5176488

...and to developers Henri "The Name Is Not Very Good" Shustak and Leif "The Software Is Not Very Well Tested" Keane for creating the installPKG script, on GitHub at:

https://github.com/henri/installpkg.

Hi everyone,

hope someone has a solution for me.
I've switched from an old MBPro some days ago to a new M1 with Monterey 12.5 running.
Installed Logic Pro 10.7.9.
In the older MB I had sound library stored on an external drive and everything worked straight forward. Never had any problem with Sound Library Manager, downloaded every new sound from time to time with no problems.
When I switched to the new system, it's ok that Logic Pro couldn't recognize the "old" library, it was a different machine, so ok...
But now, with the new macbook, I've tried literally everything in this topic and in others found on the net. Seems like my Logic Pro doesn't want to recognize its Sound Library...
In the settings menu, under the Sound Library entry, everything is greyed out. Tried several times to Reinstall Sound Library command inside the program, but nothing changes.
Maybe someone has my same situation and has figured out a solution. Thank you in advance.