I have lost my dongle, e-licenser claims I have no licensed products

after 20 odd years the inevitable has happened. I have lost my dongle. I remember distinctly writing on this very forum when it first arrived the absolute dangers of a working composer and the fragile dongle.

My e-licenser claims falsely that I have no licensed products although I trace back to 2, 3, 4 11 and now 12.

There is a page offered to help through the lost damaged dongle experience and is useless. We don’t live in Steinbergs code and are immersed in procedures. If you don’t spoon feed us on your thought processes and procedure we can’t make the leap to expectations.

This is nothing new for Steinberg and it will continue. I am grateful that apparently 12 doesn’t require a dongle, except now I go to buy a version (updated from 11) and it asks me to sign into my account. I use the same user name and password I have been using for a decade or more and, BTW< the one to this very forum, and it tells me the sign in has failed.

And so, I’m afraid, Steinberg has. Once again.

2/10 as per usual Steinberg and a big 0/10 for your ability to convey procedures to the public, you know your customers who actually buy the products. Even Guy Michel had to call you guys to have his license fixed. Sad state of affairs.

If you have lost your USB-eLicenser the eLCC is obviously not going to see any of your licenses.

If you are referring to “Zero Downtime” …

Steinberg Zero Downtime – Steinberg Support

… I needed to use it one time. Although it is a “procedure”, I was successful in regaining ownership of my licenses from a lost dongle. You do, however, need to purchase a new empty USB-eLicenser. And, obviously, all your licenses need to be registered in your MySteinberg account.

If you are talking about purchasing from the Steinberg website shop, that can definitely be a different login. The shop and your MySteinberg details are handled through different channels.

The whole licensing system is just awful, confusing and you end up in the air with nothing. I am waiting for support because you need to be a rocket scientist to figure it all out, you need this and that and even when you spend a long time trying to get sorted, you still can’t even register, dongle or no dongle, the eLicensing is just as bad.

thank you for taking the time to validate each point I refereed to in my original post and what an absolute cock up this procedure is.

One can only wonder why, with so many good programmers to make an outstanding product, they fail time after time after time on their web site.

agree completely, thanks for the comment.

Maybe 10 years ago my elicenser was broken and I’ve no problem with the Zero-Downtime. I don’t know exactly the procedure, but it was easy.

And with the new licensing system I’ve also no trouble but you have, of course, the dongle inserted if you want to update the license. Once done it’s almost easy to authorize Cubase on another machine. The process to authorize the Activation Manager is easy, follow the hints, the browser will be open and you have to sign in to your Steinberg account. Some other companies are doing exactly this way.

But losing a dongle or a lost password isn’t Steinbergs problem.
If it’s urgent, call Steinberg via phone.

some how I feel you have not read or comprehended my post.

you are however quite correct. LOOSING the dongle is on me. The fact you NEED a dongle, in all its fragile absurdity of being broken or lost, is indeed on Steinberg. It was always a BAD idea. One designed for failure as you have pointed out with your own experience of damage.

And as you pointed out, one NEEDS the dongle to update a license to use the new version 12 so you don’t have to use a dongle.

It is a pathetic state of affairs.

In the mean time the posts about licensing on this very forum and the hundreds of folks with issues should be enough to tell Steinberg that something is amiss.

No pro composer can afford any down time nor screwing around with a deadline looming.

Shame you don’t see any of it. Not a helpful post.

As a pro, you should also be prepared for the worst. You had years to read and ask questions about what to do if you lost your dongle.

What you should prioritize right now is trying to find the login info for the MySteinberg account that contains your eLicenser registration. That will make it easier for Steinberg Support to help you.

You can try making a new MySteinberg account and attempt to register your Cubase Pro 11 (or older) activation code. That will register your lost eLicenser if it hasn’t been registered before.

Steinberg may also be able to help you recover your old account:
https://helpcenter.steinberg.de/hc/en-us/articles/115001851444-MySteinberg-access-issues-no-access-to-registered-email-address-

Once you sign-in, you can choose between going through the Zero Downtime procedure, or telling support about what happened and hoping that they can activate your Cubase Pro 12 license without the dongle. In either case, you should probably order a spare dongle in the meanwhile.

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Except you’re using Absolute 5 or any other Steinberg VST like Halion, Groove Agent and so on.

Maybe. But have you called the Steinberg Support? They will brink you back on the road again.

A post was split to a new topic: Upgraded from 6 last night it’s been nearly 24 hours since I submitted a ticket and still no reply

“As a pro, you should also be prepared for the worst. You had years to read and ask questions about what to do if you lost your dongle”

quiet true, but back in the day , 20 years ago I posted on this forum about that. The response: sorry you have to buy a new dongle, oh and BTW its another $800. And if you break or loose that one, well, you’re screwed again. That WAS policy. Obviously at $800 a pop not too many of us opted for that. It was a daft idea then and am amazed it is only now it is being looked at with version 12.

You can try making a new MySteinberg account and attempt to register your Cubase Pro 11 (or older) activation code. That will register your lost eLicenser if it hasn’t been registered before.

Tried that using the “maintenance” command of the e licenser. To no avail.

Thank you for your post

This is true.

in touch with Canadian Steinberg through email. Very inefficient. But thx for your comment