Standalone project loading as empty when in controller mode

I have a project with some keygroups and samples - nothing crazy, no plugins, and memory is at about 27% when loaded. It works and loads totally fine in standalone and in controller mode when the MPC 2 software is on it's own. However, when I try to load that same project in controller mode with the MPC 2 software running as a *VST*, it loads all the samples, but all sequence and track data is completely missing.

I'm seeing random posts throughout the years about this issue with no solutions. I tried renaming the project and reverting back to a previous firmware. Nothing. Other projects load fine. What gives? Anyone else have this issue? Currently on 2.14.0

Something of an update - I deleted three keygroups and now it's loading. These keygroups are not corrupt or large in size, but there were over 300 samples among them, so now I'm wondering if this is some sort of bug or an arbitrary limit on how many samples can be used in a project when loading MPC 2 as a VST. This was never an issue before.

In case anyone sees this in the future: I spoke with a level 2 tech at Akai and it seems as though there is some "overloading" when opening projects directly from the MPC2 software when running as a VST. The workaround is to find the project file on your computer and drag/drop onto the VST window in your DAW. Projects load properly this way.

Good luck.

Hello must install the same expansions, samples , and what you need on your computer and on MPC think about the internal storage MPC to got on your computer too. After that in standalone active the 32 in/out on the internal soundcard . You can directly launch your projets from MPC standalone and launch it in controller mode all must be sweet now!
And the most important add nothing on the internal storage MPC in standalone projets\ presets \ Drumrack \Fx save all this on your external storage you use in standalone .

Thanks for the additional info. As noted, dragging/dropping a project file from Windows into the MPC VST worked, whereas using the MPC VST to load the project directly did not. I assume this is not a common issue anyway, but it's more or less posted for future visitors.