Cubase Pro minor-update, starting from full latest Cubase 11 pro:
Run Steinberg Download assistant
Says it needs to update. OK
Sends you to browser to sign in
Sign in
Accept terms and conditions
Asks to launch app
Click Ok to launch app
Updating elicense. spinning animation with no progress indicator. slow.
Asks for Download Access Code to get activation code. Uh?
Cancel
Navigate through tree menu to Cubase Pro 11 Update
Review the install items. many gigabytes. Wonder what you need to update your current install.
download installation instructions
click open
says you need a different installer depending on what version of cubase you have. No other instructions
download Read me. only contains very generic link to Steinberg website help top level.
Install 7 application and instrument updates. marked recommended. Individually. Lots of clicks and waiting. Cubase application install has no progress bar or report - just a looping animation - and it takes over a minute.
Retrologue install fails. “Check the download directory specified for this product or download again”. Specified by whom? where? Download again. Works 2nd time … or did it?
wonder if you need licenses for the content sets marked optional. Don’t get excited then realise you have to pay to use them, and then have to figure out where they are and how to unsintall, like last time. The downloader seems to have downloaded them without being told to, but not installed them? Is that wasting drive space in a hidden directory somehwere? Probably.
quit downloader
Launch cubase
be thankful they haven’t wasted time changing the splash screen this time
Check if long-term known bugs. have been squished. Nope, they’re still there.
Logic Pro , any version update, starting from any version.
Self-updates silently, in the background, while you are not using the application.
that’s it.
I understand this is a discussion forum for people to share their experiences of installing and using music software. I say the licensing and update process is a poorly designed user experience . you say it’s better than starving to death in the Third World.
No it’s more just a perspective type thing – meaning I think there are bigger problems in the world than clicking a mouse a few times. No disrespect is intended though.
I read that Steinberg is working seriously on simplifying the licensing and updating methods which may be implemented later in this year, may be within a few months.
@wildschwein if Steinberg are going to design a thing and charge $600 for it, why not design it to work well? aspire to German standards of engineering. not use the third world as a benchmark as you suggest.
The time and dissatisfaction of each user multiplied by many users is significant. I was using number of clicks as a proxy for design inefficiency and time wasted
There are many candidates for the title “epitome of first world problems” but I do not agree that steinberg customers frustration with expensive malfunctioning poorly designed software, expressed in the appropriate forum, is the epitome.
if I sound disappointed it’s because my last paid update wasted a whole day of admin and non-productivity during which I thought I’d lost my license forever and I discovered that the support team for the whole of Canada is one guy’s email inbox (and he couldn’t help). Cubase pro still has well documented reproducible bugs that impact my workflow on a daily basis, and freezes and crashes that lose data on an entirely healthy system with no issues in any other applications. every project I have to save as incrementally numbered files (cubase even has a keyboard shortcut for it) because of the frequency of Projects getting corrupted and I need to roll back. probably the number one advice on this forum is about is deleting application preferences from an obscure directory because Cubase cannot parse preferences from version to version without becoming unusable? It is just an embarrassment.
