As always, Daniel’s advice is spot on. I just wanted to add a reminder to register your new eLicenser with Steinberg and, after an hour or so, check it shows in your My Steinberg account. Registration protects the licenses on the eLicenser and allows you to take advantage of Steinberg’s “Zero Downtime” scheme if the eLicenser is lost or stolen.
I have the same problem every time I try and open Dorico. I often have to restart multiple times (four today) to get Dorico to open. I have two USB eLicensor dongles, one new one (with Dorico on it), and one that’s about ten years old with all of my VSL Licenses. I never have problems opening VSL apps, but I always have trouble opening Dorico, why the difference? Could it be that running two USB dongles is a problem for Dorico? Or could the existence of the old dongle be an issue? (even though Dorico is on the new one?). Would it help if I replace the old dongle (running only VSL) with a new one?
One major annoyance here is that you have to drag the licenses one at a time. Why is there no option to multi select?
I don’t know. I suspect it’s because it’s safer that way, and presumably it’s an uncommon enough thing for people to do that it hasn’t been a high priority to change. But that’s speculation on my part.
I have 63 licenses, so it’s quite a chore!
It´s a terribly irrritating problem. I have the same. The fault must be in the Dorico programming since both Cubase and Wavelab works without this problem at least on my system.
Wow, you are certainly an outlier, Bill.
These dongles remind me of Autocad when I used to use it back in 1990.
Lots of problems tying the right to use some software to a physical token that can be lost, stolen or broken. Especially when the use of the software is required to make a livelihood.
How much pain should software companies inflict on loyal paying customers in order to make life a little more difficult for those who want to use software for free. It’s really hard to justify hardware locks for this, and I hope Steinberg changes their stance. If a person wants to use notation software, and refuses to pay, it’s better for them to use your software for free than use your competitor’s software for free.
We have said many times that a project is ongoing to introduce a new license management system for our products. This is a long-term project and will take time to complete.
must have missed those! That’s great news, do you know if it will also apply to other Steinberg products? I’d Love to lose the Cubase dongle if I could.
Yes, it will be company-wide. It’s not imminent, but that’s where we’re headed.
Although that’s welcome news, the upgrade to Dorico 3 was surprisingly painless for me — only took about 20 minutes. I suppose that I should be knocking on wood…
I too am having trouble with eLicenser. I’m trying to run the demo for Dorico 3 Pro on my office computer to consider switching our shop from Finale to Dorico 3. I had previously tried a demo of version 1.x that expired. In between then and now I got a new Mac and used migration assistant to set it up. I’ve reinstalled eLicenser several times, but it keeps telling me that I already have a license of the same time on this soft eLicenser. I cannot find the old license either in my online account or via eLicenser control. I’ve tried reactivating, etc. with no luck because it can’t find the offending license.
I have had no problem demoing Dorico at my home/studio Mac (separate activation number) but I really want to demo it at the office for my team. I’m about to buy it anyway, but I fear that these licensing issues on my office Mac will prevent me from running the app even if I pay for it. Any ideas?
Welcome to the forum, Brett. Sorry you’re having problems with the Dorico trial. If you really are about to buy a license, hold fire until tomorrow as that will be a better day to buy the software (he says without trying to give anything away).
The Soft-eLicenser is a file, which you’ll find at /Library/Application Support/Syncrosoft Soft-eLicenser, called SeLicenser.sel. Try moving this out of the way, though you’ll then need to run the tool provided here to recreate an empty Soft-eLicenser to allow you to activate your new trial license.
Don’t do this if your Soft-eLicenser contains other existing licenses, however! Removing that file will also remove those licenses too.
You do have to buy a new key, I’m afraid. You can purchase a new one either from the Steinberg online shop, or from your favourite music shop.
Dorico is an amazing product, but this is highly disappointing, since I spent hundreds on a full version of Dorico. I’m presuming that if I were to order the boxed version a key would be included? Sorry if this seems bitter, but it comes across as a way to punish long-time Steinberg customers. I’m really not trying to be unduly cheap or anything, but there should be some kind of option to have Steinberg send us a key at no cost, even if it’s just upon request.
Now that I’ve got that off my chest, I’ll end up buying a new key, because launching Dorico is becoming unstable with the old one, it seems.
The difference between the download price and the boxed price for Dorico is basically the cost of an eLicenser (which you get “free” with the boxed version). If you’ve been depending on a dongle since Cubase 4, that’s presumably about 12 years. If it makes you feel any better, I’m on my second eLicenser in three years - the previous one bent after a while.
I’ve done this. A bit daunting but I figured it out without too much pain twice: once when I upgraded to v.2 and again when I got my new Mac.
Daniel,
You are the best! Thank you so much! Yeah! I’ll wait until tomorrow to purchase. 
So I started looking around for a new USB key. $40 + shipping (I’m in Canada). Not at all what I expected. On the Steinberg online shop, there is only one shipping option. They key itself is $39.99. The shipping is…
$43.56
No, that’s not a typo.
That the key is so much is bad enough. That the shipping is more than the key is simply outrageous. Daniel, I plead with you to talk to your team and ask them to lower this price. especially when Steinberg recognizes this isn’t a good system and you’re already planning to move away from it.
Michael - you might want to try Amazon Canada. The shipping cost for a key is $15 CAD.