Cubase Fails to Register

Cubase
1

I bought cubase 6.05 from ADK with my computer retail.

I just recently created a mycubase account to buy the upgrade to 7.

I bought cubase 6 fromADK but I think they upgraded the license on the elicenser to 6.5
without telling me or installing the upgrade because 6.5 was out before they built the computer.

My cubase was still 6.05 and having never upgraded I didn’t think much of the 6.5 listed there, I was running 6
so thats the upgrade I bought.

So I bought the upgrade from 6 to 7, as a CD like an idiot. (great documentation!).

It won’t verify the registration code. This because it thinks I have 6.5 and not the 6.0 upgrade I bought.
Why wouldn’t install an overvalued upgrade anyway, overcharging me $50bux instead of the $200 I have ultimately
overpaid. (to get this done in a hurry that is)

In addition Cubase 7 32 bit crashed, after the initial windows it says program failed to operate.

Cubase 7 64 bit works quite well.

This dongle system is idiotic. Why did my elicenser change from 6 to 6.5? Now the only way to get to work tonight
is to actually see if the 6.5 upgrades install (all 4 or 5 of them) and then repurchase an online upgrade from 6.5 to 7.0

I would actually do this because I have clients waiting but I bought the soft license for the mp3 program and it fails to recognize the license, which I have in a printed receipt.

Steinberg, you don’t need this dongle, its hurting your users. Nobody who is serious pirate DAWs just kids. LIve, sonar, all get by without it.

You’ve cost me $100s in session work this weekend. Get over yourselves and drop the dongle or make sure it always works.

It wasn’t me who told the elicenser I had cubase 6.5 because I never bought that version, I bought 6.05. When I registered the dongle it upgraded that to 6.5. I didn’t notice, why would it do that?

So i bought an upgrade from 6.

And why would it refuse a more comprehensive upgrade???

You and your little dongle company get your act together please. This is no way to run a professional company. Treating your users like children.

No serious users pirate DAWs. Register my HD serial number if you are that paranoid, but this dongle BS is undignified.

Yah I’m upset, I feel I have every right to be. You have taken my money and wasted my time.

WHat are my options here at this time of night? I’m going to have to buy a 6.5 to 7 upgrade and hope that works.

But why would it when my mp3 purchase wouldn’t register? And when cubase 7 32 bit is crashing while the 64 bit version loads.

How do you users put up with this? Every upgrade? I really need a stable 64 bit app so I will put up with this but it doesn’t seem right or honorable business practice.

Pablo Rotter

2

As an update.

Since my elicenser reads cubase 6.5 I downloaded and upgraded my cubase to 6.5 and when I paste in the reg code elicenser crashes. I think its already regged.

This is a clean system, never had any problems. I didn’t ask to be upgrade to 6.5, but you put it in my elicenser.

I am going to buy a license from 6.5 to 7 so the elicensor gets what it expects. (when my upgrade was infact from 6 to 7, I thought I had bought 6 when in fact I bought 6.5 but ADK left the 6.05 installed).

Now I’ve lost all my cubase clients entirely for the weekend.

If support can quickly resolve this tomorrow I will update this post to reflect that, but as of now I’m at war and going to cancel all payments I’ve made unless you - steinberg can come through.

3

I think it goes like this, C6> $150/C6.5>$150/C7. So did I understand that you paid $300 to upgrade to C7 from C6? Or did you pay $150 to upgrade from C6 to the next level - which would be C6.5?

IF you dropped $300 and did not get C7, then yes, you were robbed and you need to crack some heads. If you paid $150 then you got what you paid for.

If you can’t open C6.5, then you need to try again. Do you have an activation code? Download the latest eLicenser and try again.

Lastly, you can have C7 for free for 30 days and this will probably get you through your studio needs for the weekend, eh? Open the MY Products page, everything you have paid for is there.

http://www.steinberg.net/en/mysteinberg/about_mysteinberg.html

4

I owned cubase 6.

My daw manufacturer upgraded the license on the dongle to 6.5 for me as that had shipped already and I had bought 6 from them.

So I bought a boxed upgrade from 6 to 7 not knowing what version I actually had registered but figured I would waste $50 if I did indeed own 6.5.

This would not install.

I’ve had to pay an additional $150 or so to download the 6.5 to 7 upgrade to get the software working tonight so I don’t loose my clients.

So yeah, I had to pay the upgrade from 6 to 7, which is what I owned, never upgraded to 6.5,
and I had to buy the upgrade from 6.5 to 7 when the first didn’t work.

I hope support can deal with them, if not VISA will. But I had no choice as I have clients tomorrow and all weekend and now I can provide them a full studio.

The only problem is I didn’t know about the seemingly universal upgrade bug on PCs where it crashed when you load a reg key, but it still acts like you have used the key.

So the upshot is I have 7 working, I’ve finally install the 6.5 upgrades which I guess I owned a key to this whole time.

You would think the upgrade from 6.0 to 7.0 wouldn’t be rejected because the elicenser read 6.5.

But it did and I’ve bought two upgrades to get 7 to run. Lets see if the 32 bit version is still crashing now.

Thanks for replying!!!

5

Actually upgrade from 6 to 7 is $199
6.5 to 7 $150.

I bought 6 when I ordered my ADK box by the time it got here 6.5 had arrived and I think they arranged a free upgrade. So I was a 6.5 licensed customer but didn’t know it, and was running 6.05.

I wouldn’t have minded wasting $50bux but I thought I would get a nice manual WRONG, you just get a CD with the buggy version on it.

But seeing as I was a 6.5 registered user, whether I knew it or not, I should have bought the $150 upgrade.

Thus I’ve spend $350 to get to 7.0 when from 6.5 I should have paid $150.

Part of this is due to my not understanding the layers of login on the web page ( didn’t know about the my steinberg info, never set it up), but I figured at worst I’d loose $50 and get a nice manual. (WRONG!).

But steinbergs entire reg setup is ridiculous, and if I didn’t have clients who needed stable 64 bit I wouldn’t even bother.

Its really insulting that they are the only major DAW to treat faithful clients like criminals. For that reason I will leave Cubase at the next upgrade when I’m sure all DAWs will have great 64 bit version without a dongle that could fail in the middle of a session or, heaven forbid, recording a live show.

I can’t believe the user base has let them get away with this for so long.

I am pretty famililar with cubase but had only been running 6.05, now I am famililar with the upgrade process and I can’t believe how awful it is.

USB cables get very worn over time, I’m constantly replacing them, what if the one running my hub with the dongle slips out in session. Hosed.

I did make some mistakes, I never new I had to log onto their website and ran 6.05 for a year, secondly buying a “boxed copy”. with an outdated buggy version and 3 pages of manual in english.

Not realizing the 6.5 upgrade had been give to me because I believe the short time frame in which I purchased 6.0 befire 6.5 was released. (that was nice, would have been great to get the memo).

But they provide no mechanism besides one on one support to resolve these issues. My studio needs to be up 99.9% of the time. I can’t be waiting for Joe Schmoe at steinberg to get on the issue and resolve it.

Who pirates DAWs anyway? Script kiddies who want a virus? Its possible on a MAC…possible that the script kiddy will become talented and need legit software. Steinberg is major paranoid about protecting their product, without reason and with harm due to the user.

6

Alright, I understand. And you have to know that when you deal with computers and software - and you do - that every major piece of the audio puzzle requires registration and some password hoop. You can’t avoid it. Waves has a Cloud setup now which avoids the dongle and USB hub but its still got a registration process and a password protected entry. You can’t avoid it.

So don’t waste your time complaining about this kind of thing, it’s not going away. It might go to the Cloud, but it’s not going away.

As to being careful with your dongle, yes, it’s true, you have to be careful with it. …Are you dancing around the room as you record and mix? C’mon. I’ve had the same dongle since SX3 and it still works. For that matter, I have never ruined a flash drive device. Have you? If you have, and it was an important flash drive, then you need to put a higher value on these types of things.

In regards to the My Products page on Steinberg’s website, well, now you know. And yeah, you should have known about this the first day you loaded an authorized version of Cubase on your computer. Your computer company wasn’t very helpful, that’s clear. But whatever blame you want to place on them, these are your products that you paid for and you need to register and keep track of them. I can’t blame Steinberg for any of this, and maybe in time you will feel the same. God forbid you lose your C drive, but if you do, all the Steinberg info will be there on their site waiting for you to load up the latest eLicenser and any products you purchased from them. This is a good thing, believe me.

Anyway, get things worked out with ADK. If you have overpaid for your Steinberg product - overpaid Steinberg directly - then Steinberg will resolve this for you, I’m sure. And there will be a record of it within your My Products page.

7

Thanks for the welcome into the cubase world.

I’m not blaming anybody, I’m explaining how I made a super stupid mistake. Opening myself up and being honest.

I honestly thought I owned Cubase 6, it was the version I had used.

I would have not had a problem if the 6 to 7 upgrade would have recognized I had 6.5 registered on my elock
instead of saying I had no items that were upgradable.

I have never used a piece of software where a similar upgrade would not have worked.

Yah I should have understood more about cubase when making the purchases, I had a last minute client who requested I have 7 ready for him to use.

I have never installed Cubase, never upgraded it, just “ignorantly” I suppose used 6.05 which my elocker upgrade to 6.5
and as I had 6.05 running but 6.5 on the elocker, I didn’t know if the 6.5 to 7 upgrade would work so I thought I would hedge my bets and pay an extra $50 to buy the 6.0 to 7 uprade, figuring that would work in both cases. There was nothing in any of the FAQs I read the indicated an “overupgrade” would not work. I did do research before this purchase.
As I was running 6.05 I wasn’t sure the online 6.5 to 7 would work.

As an experienced computer user I should have read the elocker FAQs, which I did, but its not the elocker itself but the way that cubases uses it that cause my initial problem, not allowing a 6 to 7 upgrade license to go through because the elocker had 6.5 registered, not 6.0

I don’t like the elocker, thats a valid complaint, I believe it harms a company more than it helps in terms of total loss.

If I could refer you to someones opinion you might respect, check out Ethan Winer’s take in his book “everything you need to know about audio”. Or just search for his many online posts.

So in your opinion, steinberg would be within their rights to advantage of a new user and keep all of my money?

How ethical and welcoming. Yah I know it looks to experienced users like I shot myself in the foot and want money back for the bullet, but I have a lot of software to upgrade and maintain and made a human error. In the words of Bob Marley, “judge not”

btw, I am all in favor of tough software protection, hard drive specific, etc. I just feel that cubase could safely take the approach of ableton live, sonar, and others who have successful challenge response systems that would prevent people from putting the software up on a torrent or any mass piracy. I don’t believe software manufacturers should even have the right to attach a dongle, the entire concept of buying a “license” that the company dictates how you use it is completely flawed, but I see its necessary to keep a small industry like DAW software thriving. This can be accomplished in many other ways and I know nobody will listen or care but I believe they should because its the opinion of the core users of every other DAW that doesn’t use an elocker. Thats a lot of potential clients.

8

No more criticism from me. :slight_smile:

The eLicenser can ONLY sense the software that is ACTIVATED. So here it wouldn’t matter if you had paid for Cubase10. If all you had was C6 loaded on the dongle, that’s all it would know. Understand? ACTIVATION is the key word.

But here it seems that FINALLY you have paid for too many instances of C7 and maybe even C6.5. Your Cubase dongle is important in this process, as is your REGISTRED PRODUCTS from Steinberg. So contact Steinberg about this directly. Do not post your complaint here because it will not be dealt with - this is a public forum. Steinberg is a good company and if you have paid for something twice they will figure it out and refund you the difference. They’re not crooks.

So contact them: http://www.steinberg.net/en/mysteinberg/about_mysteinberg.html .Sign in and send them an email. Tell them that basically you didnt understand the registration process, that a company built your DAW and even though you had paid for C6.5, you hadn’t loaded it and when you went to upgrade to C7 you paid more money than you should have because your eLicenser only showed C6. Tell them you should have paid $149US and instead you paid $3XX (whatever it was). They will track it down and sort it out. Like I said, they are not crooks.

9

Thanks for your reply. I posted here because I wasn’t sure how the support process would take. Its looking like it will take well into next week and at best I expect they will refund the cheaper product, because they did in the end ship something to me. (I thought it would be like my other vendors and I would get a big printed manual). If they refund either purchase I would be happy.

You have been much more helpful and understanding of what happened than their support, and I appreciate you breaking it down. I’m sure they will do right by me but now I have the tools to explain to them what happened, and of course the receipts will speak for themselves, they aren’t crooks and I doubt they want to charge me for two products, but I imagine they will refund the $150, which will be fine with me. If they go above and beyond and refund the product that did not work (the $199 6 to 7 boxed) I will be pleasantly surprised but happy either way.

They still haven’t sorted out why I’ve made a support request, so I really appreciate you being the single person to reply to me in this public forum. I have no problem admitting I was hasty and ignorant of the process.

While the exchange got testy at times, overall you have helped me a great deal and have given me the tools I need to explain to steinberg why they should refund one of my purchases.

Thank you a lot for your time. I am actually quite competent in these matters typically, but made some very bad assumptions leading to bad decisions.

You have been very mature and not gone all fanboy on me, and I really appreciate the overall respect and the fact that you have even replied. Yes Stenberg support should be able to handle this but your explanations will allow me to state my case in the appropriate terminology.

I really love composing in 64 bit because I can run all my inspiring VSTs. I learned to sequence midi by hand coding right after I learned to splice tape and fell in love right away; thats why I use Cubase in addition to my regular DAWs, it is the most comprehensive DAW for MIDI work, as well as providing great floating point precision for a final mix.

Thanks for helping me to understand the practical matters involved with keeping Cubase up to date. And I apologize if I came across upset, I was initially quite frustrated and thank you for replying to my posts regardless. You must love Cubase to be so helpful.

Thanks again, I do hope support comes through, but without this exchange I would still be in the dark and I doubt I would have the knowledge to get the refund and support I need.

Sincerely, with Respect,

-Pablo Rotter, musician, composer, producer, lead triangle player. Humboldt County, Ca