@SP. Yes, we downloaded and then extracted the zip files. We did this twice, once for WAV and then for the OGG files. We thought (and the license appears to agree) that we do not need an internet connection.

However we are still receiving the message to "sign into the store" to access any individual files from the Soundpools from within Music Maker.

We can sidestep this by importing individual files from those Soundpools but that is a very cumbersome process. And the manual process does not allow us to use Music Maker to "create" any music using those files. The only Soundpool that works properly is "Feel Good."

Thank you for the response. Now we know that we've probably done everything correctly at least.

@D-C4557 What version number is shown in Music Maker if you click on the Help > About menu?

@SP. Version: 25.1.3.84

@D-C4557 Ok, I searched a little bit and it looks like version 25 was Music Maker 2018. I believe back then the in-app-store was already introduced. With these old versions you need to login, but after the login, you can disconnect the Internet connection and stay logged in. If I remember it correctly, you should even stay logged in if you close and reopen the program. And should be able to use WAV and OGG Soundpools without being online.

But subscription-mxcogg definitely need an online connection. Are there still some mxcogg files on your hard drive? I also believe that, when Magix introduced the mxcogg file format, they made it the standard file format for Music Maker. They later changed the file format back to WAV and OGG, maybe because of complaining from customers. I would guess that your version 25 is the version that came with mxcogg files. I suggest you remove all mxcogg files. Then re-scan all Soundpool folders.

@D-C4557
Silly question maybe, but what's stopping you from connecting temporarily to the Internet (on the Windows computer)?

@SP. Good idea -- we'll give that a try and will report back. The mxcogg files are definitely there.

@gjonny Unfortunately that's not an option. The Windows computer is solely for the few Windows-only apps we use (Synology NAS / Adobe CS6 / etc). It is outdated & unsafe and so we've removed all connectivity other than within our LAN. There are some products (Construct2 was one) that supported an offline use via software "patches" but MAGIX doesn't appear to offer this type of support.

We're a nonprofit and publish free prosocial video games. Although our system setup is not ideal it helps us, among other things, protect the source code for dozens of games while allowing us to keep using some of the legacy software that we've already purchased.

@SP. No luck. There are mxcogg files in all of the soundpool directories. Testing one of the soundpools by removing the mxcogg files while retaining ogg and wav files gave us a different error than before:

"*.mxcogg has been deleted or moved and cannot be used."

Adding the mxcogg files back to the directory gave the original error: "Please sign into the store to use any soundpools you have purchased."

A few other things of note:

In the directory for each soundpool there is a file: description.xml. That file includes a flag: enabledBySubscription. Each of our soundpools show that flag as set to: "false".

Also: on our system, the .mxcogg files were created on March 6, 2018. The .ogg files were created on July 10, 2017. The .wav files were created on June 6, 2018. It might be that the introduction of the .mxcogg files to our system was due to an "update" from MAGIX. If so, and if it limited the use of the software, that would arguably be a problem that MAGIX should have to resolve.

Last: after trying a variety of other things, to include creating a newly named soundpool using the existing files (with a slightly modified JSON file) as well as importing the raw .wav files, there are now .H0 files appearing in the soundpool directory. Our understanding is that these are used to indicate the waveform of a sound file. And so, it seems that even if the program is not allowing access to the audio files, it is still recognizing when those files have been "side-loaded" (via import) and then assigning .H0 files to them within that soundpool directory. It might be that .H0 files are created in the directory from which any audio file is imported so this might be meaningless.

Thank you for the suggestion, we hoped it would be a reasonable way to resolve this.

@D-C4557 if you want to search for those mxcoog files and make sure you searched the whole drive go to file explorer select your root drive most likely c: drive? while it is selected use this search query *.mxcoog the Asterix is a wild card that assumes any and every possible alphanumeric combination before .mxcoog do this before going to sleep at night and you should have your answer in the morning whether or not you have any .mxcoog files on your machine. Best of luck I hope you get it figured out.

If you find those *.mxcoog files have been or are on the machine and you the proper software version you want. Do a uninstall and then rebuild the older version, seems logical? Or you can do a uninstall the program and then do a search for possible remanences left behind and then do your reinstall. Better than troubleshooting forever

@David-Barselow Thank you for your input. However, our problem does not seem to be with missing *.mxcogg files. Instead the problem appears to be that MAGIX is not allowing us to access soundloops we have previously purchased. We do not have an internet connection and the Music Maker software is requiring us to re-connect to the store in order to access those files we have already purchased. We are able to connect to the store via another computer and have re-downloaded the WAV and OGG files but can only use them via import. The Music Maker software is not allowing us to use them programatically within the software.

The T&Cs for Music Maker claim that an internet is not required once the software has been activated but in our case it does not seem to be working properly. When we have a volunteer or intern who has the time to spend on this we will have them contact MAGIX tech support to find a resolution.

We posted the issue on here because we were hoping that there was an easy solution or something that we had overlooked. Instead this appears to be a problem with MAGIX's software and/or policies.