Dorico 3.5 E-Licenser keeps deactivating

I still have Dorico 3.5 and the Elisencer keeps deactivating. It usually works when I use my computer, but since I’ve installed PreSonus Studio One 5, that’s when restarting the computer no longer works. What should I do to correct this? I’ve already done run as administrator and all that.

Basically, here’s what happens, I’ve tried this multiple times.
I restart my computer
Then, I go and try to load elisencer as an admin, perform maintenance tasks, yada yada yada
Lisence is fine.
I load PreSonus Studio One 5, and it works.
I try to load Dorico, it doesn’t load. I close Elisencer and PreSonus, then Dorico says “No Lisence Code found”.
What is causing that? I love Dorico, and I think it’s the best software, but this is ridiculous.

I really don’t know why running PreSonus Studio One would have any impact on the eLicenser, since it’s not a Steinberg product and doesn’t interact with the eLicenser at all. Just possibly I could imagine that a VST plug-in you have that uses eLicenser is being loaded by Studio One, but even so, that won’t have any impact on Dorico’s license.

Just so I can get this straight: you start your computer, you try to run Dorico, and you’re told “no license found”. You run eLicenser Control Center as administrator, let it perform its maintenance task, then you run Dorico, and it works as expected. Later on you run PreSonus Studio One, and thereafter Dorico doesn’t run until you repeat this whole dance again?

Thanks for responding. I appreciate it.
I was about to respond and say what happened, when Dorico suddenly deactivated again, without me loading Pre-Sonus.
Here’s what was shown when I clicked on the E-Lisencer without running as Admin


I tried to run this as Admin and this was what I saw:

Then, eventually this popped up:

What is LCC2? The only thing that I did that I do not think should’ve caused it was I plugged an External SSD into my machine.
Do you think Dorico 4’s licensing would have the same situations as this?

I tried running as an administrator again without my external SSD plugged in and it yielded the same results

Okay, I think it might be my external SSD or something. I have a Western Digital External SSD.
I restarted my computer, and checked the E-Licenser. It worked fine. As soon as I plugged my external SSD in the licenser immediately deactivated.
I do not see a reason why that should happen.

That’s interesting. I don’t know much about how the Soft-eLicenser works, but it could be that the presence or absence of your external hard drive is sufficient to make the eLicenser system think your computer has changed.

I hope you might be ready to move up to Dorico 4 relatively soon, as it uses a whole new licensing system that shouldn’t exhibit any of these problems on your system. There will be an opportunity over the summer to buy the update to Dorico 4 at a reduced price, so it might be worth keeping your eyes open for that.

Do you think there is a way to correct this until I get Dorico 4?

By the way, here is something to add.
If I run the e-lisencer as an administrator after restarting my computer, the lisencer works. I can load Dorico just fine. If I try to run e-Lisencer as an admin again, the bottom two pictures I shared in a previous post show up (The e-lisencer disapears, and I get that error message). I can still run Dorico 3.5 fine, though.
If I x’d out of Dorico or the steinberg hub and tried to reload, I get the “Audio Engine Process Died”.
What could be causing that?
By the way, I did uninstall Dorico 2 from my system (I currently just have Dorico 3 and Dorico 3.5), but I don’t see why that would cause Dorico 3.5 to behave that way.

This whole ordeal has been extremely frustrating since I lost pretty much a day’s worth of work. I even tried reinstalling the e-licenser control center, but that only yielded the same results.
I hope Dorico 4’s lisencing system sticks to the computer and not the internet wifi I activated it in.
Unfortunately, that was the case with Finale’s where I had to be connected to the wifi I activated the software in or else it would show “Software not activated”.

As things stand now, you only need an internet connection once, when you link your activation to your Steinberg account. This is what enables you to manage your three activated computers (yes, three!) After that, no « call home » necessary — that behavior was implemented by popular demand.

Hi @Elwin_Raffins , the eLicenserControlCenter is just a graphical front end, but the real work is done by a background process called Synsopos. When Dorico is working properly, you shall be able to spot that Synsopos process in the list of background processes in Task Manager. Please keep an eye on the Synsopos, I suspect that process is crashing somehow and thus also the eLicenserControlCenter can’t show your licenses any more.

I do not see “Synsopos” anywhere in Task Manager. Dorico 3.5 is currently working properly. What now?

@Elwin_Raffins , there must be a Synsopos, otherwise Dorico won’t run. But in the TaskManager do you have the simple view or the extended view? The simple view does not show background process. Take a look in the TaskManager menu, under the View item somewhere you should be able to switch.
You could instead also download the little utility program Process Explorer from here. It’s like TaskManager only more reliable.

Really weird. I am showing extended view, and no Synospos. After I x’d out Dorico, I checked E-Licenser, and I got the same results as the bottom two pictures I posted above. I tried opening Dorico again and it worked perfectly…
What in the world is going on?
At this point, as soon as the summer discount that Mr. Spreadbury mentioned happens, I’ll be buying Dorico 4. I just hope that the new licensing system is not affected by if I plug in an external SSD into the thunderbolt port or not and can be accessed if my computer is not connected to the internet.

Hi @Elwin_Raffins ,
definitely, Dorico (up to ver 3.5) won’t run without the Synsopos background process. Please get the Process Explorer (it’s really small and for free and all self contained, so it does not need an installer, just download and run). There must be a Synsopos process around as soon as Dorico is running or the eLicenser Control Center.

I did and I checked. I was able to find Synsopos in the Process Explorer. I plugged my USB portable SSD into the USBC-Port (as it is connected via USB C) and the license was deactivated, but Synsopos was still showing as running. What do I do now?

@Elwin_Raffins , your’s is a really difficult case.
Don’t really know, but I would try to go through the reactivation process and see if that helps.
Reactivation you usually only do when swapping to a new computer or installing a new OS, but in your case this could also help. During reactivation I’d make sure that no external harddrive is connected. Here is a link to a description of the whole procedure.

Well @Ulf
I guess my case just went from Difficult to extremely weird, I’m not sure if you’d still find helping me out worth it considering, I plan to get Dorico 4 soon.
Here’s what I did.
I re-downloaded the soft e-Licenser (since I had to have a new Licenser number), and it worked fine. I loaded Dorico, and it worked. Process explorer shows Synsopos, yada yada yada.
Then, I get my external SSD out, plug it into the Type A port (It has a Type-A adaptor), and Dorico works fine, then, I disconnect the portable SSD, take out the adaptor and try to see if the same result happens when I plug it into the Type-C/thunderbolt port, and Dorico worked fine. I checked the e-Licenser, but this time forgot to run it as Admin, and it showed a working License. I x’d out, and ran as Admin, and it gave me an error message. Then, I tried the SSD in the type-A port again, and it had the same results. Not running it as an admin shows a working license. Running it as an admin shows an error message. It was not like that prior to reactivation, as I only had hope in the A-port for it to work, but I do not know why it behaves that way. It’s really weird. What do you think?

By any chance is there a (backup) operating system on your SSD?

There is not a back-up operating system. All that there is on it are folders of sounds that I plan to use with Pre-Sonus Studio One.