Just when Dorico was "kind of working", now e-licenser won´t let Cubase open

The “beauty of e-licenser.” To add to my misery, Steinberg says the e-licenser is into “maintenance”.
I should log the number of hours wasted of my precious life with these issues. :face_vomiting:
-Any suggestions?
-Dorico can only be booted as admin. at the moment.
-Starting e-licenser (as admin.) shows all my licenses correctly.
-Last week Dorico kept on asking for activation, which was impossible to do. I can only have it running as admin.
-But now Cubase is completely gone, won´t start either as admin.
My plan was to delete the e-licenser and reinstall. Wonder if I should uninstall all 3 and start from scratch.
(can´t help to be tempted to uninstall all 3 for good lol :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:)

I’m on Windows, and I’m working regularly both with Dorico and Cubase (and various other Steinberg products that use eLC).

But I noticed that I have a new eLC version installed: 6.12.7.1294. I don’t know if this may have some importance, but it was installed by Steinberg Download Assistant (SDA) and its updates even if the standard download site is under maintenance…

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I m going to be a bit cruel here, sorry.
Found that Overture 5, actually offers a Notation/DAW software. Downloaded a demo, imported an XML file.
The first surprise, the import (unlike Dorico´s endless crashes importing), was instant and flawless. The second surprise, it has a Loop function integrated into the notation. (Did not look a the DAW yet.) Decided to buy the software, they even recognized my Sibelius upgrade.
Third surprise: the installation took 1 minute, no e-licenser, just one serial number. (simplicity works).
Fourth surprise, I get sound right away, even having Dorico running at the same time. :grinning:
Don´t get me wrong here, Dorico is still my notation software, but already avoiding the Cubase/Dorico, XML import nightmares is a huge time-saver.

If you want to use Dorico on Windows without sacrificing the audio utilization of other running processes, you can try FL Studio ASIO Driver instead:
SunbossRS/FLStudioASIO: FL Studio ASIO source file extracted from FL Studio. (github.com)

P.S.: Its playback audio quality sounds better (to my ears) than the GLL driver shipped by Dorico and Cubase.

Thanks ShishiSuen, but Overture seems to be an easier solution for now.

Overture’s engraving is pretty poor. The slurs are abysmal, from what I remember.

But you do seem to have had an unusually terrible experience with Dorico.

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@Concha hello,
Well, a former Overture 5 user here. I’ve spent more than 2 years using Overture 5 before moving to Dorico 3.1… So, I can say many positive and negative things about this piece of software.
Positive:

  • The workflow design is probably the best on the market. You don’t need wasting time on reading the manual, or watching tutorials in order to achieve some good results in a very short amount of time.
  • It is well designed as Hybrid-DAW, the Expression Maps, the internal playback of every articulation are also very well thought.
  • Loop function
  • Pretty nice playback
  • Good Humanization tools.

Negative:

  • Very fragile code, which makes the software very unstable. Probably the most unstable software I’ve ever used. I always used to feel as beta tester… just a nightmare.
  • Weak Engraving side. The software can’t meet the needs for the publishing business.
  • The rude behavior of Overture’s developer - Don Williams. I had a lot of terrible experience with him while trying to help the improvement of Overture (still my profile on Overtures forum is blocked). Also very often he completely abandons his users for months without any notification.
    The last time he disappeared for around 4 months without warning his users… Very unprofessional behavior towards people who paid for his software.

Investing in Overture will worth only if Don sells it to a bigger company which can afford to dedicate a team to develop the product. Don could only be a head of that team, in case if it’s possible for him to work in a team environment, which I strongly doubt.
You could find other people here who have bittersweet experience with Overture and Don Williams.
I really miss some of the Overture’s workflow aspects in Dorico, and I hope the team will add some of them in the future. But for now I wouldn’t count on Overture for serious things!

Best wishes,
Thurisaz

Thanks for the heads up, for the moment I am not investing a penny on updates, or a minute of my time “reinstalling, faulty e-licensers”.The same goes for Cubase.
Enough is enough. I will let Dorico run as far as it goes, will save all my files as XML in case it dies.
Dorico is brilliant, but also over complicated, and it just does not justify the hassles.

@Concha if you have any issues with the newest e-Licenser application, then you can always could install an older one:
https://download.steinberg.net/downloads/Archive/eLC_6.11.10.272/eLicenserControlSetup.exe

Just you have to be careful when installing Steinberg software updates, because they will try to upgrade the e-licenser, too. But you can abort this process, of course.
I have issues with all 6.12… versions of the e-licenser, so I’m using version 6.11.10.272, and it works fine for me. :slight_smile:

Best wishes,
Thurisaz

like @Thurisaz (and one or two others here), I am an Overture escapee. I did try the demo of 5 after using 4 for a time until Sibelius became functional with VST’s but found it infuriatingly buggy. If you look at the Overture forum, you will see an endless line of bug fixes which are often just to fix new bugs introduced after quashing others. v. 5 has never been stable as far as I can gather which is a shame as the software has some nice design ideas and is in places refreshingly simple as regards the way playback is organised. Engraving and intelligent automatic layout is still miles behind Dorico or even the other two “biggies” as far as I know.

The vast majority of Dorico users have nothing like your number of problems but I’d be surprised if Overture is the answer to them.

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I´ll take anything that has no e-licenser. Have you seen Steinberg´s explanation (“official”), on youtube on how to reactivate? I mean, just read the comments of people below that video. “The vast majority” agree with me. And I frankly don´t understand the explanation either.

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That’s why I use the USB only.
(If I remember well it was the only way st the beginning…)

What response have you had from the Steinberg team? Surely someone there can help you fix this?

The official download site is on and working…

Too little, too late…no more e-licenser for me.

His rest option for Dorico is the iPad version.
I am pretty sure he has incurable elicenserphobia.
That’s why I stated that it is important to make the iPad Dorico available on the Mac App Store.

It’s previously been established that @Concha is a Windows 10 user. I can’t see how the Mac App Store would benefit him/her/them.

He can switch to a mac or iPad.
Considering his incurable elicenserphobia, the Mac App Store at this moment is his only option for using Dorico if Steinberg wants.

“At this moment”, no it isn’t, because Steinbetg haven’t placed Dorico on the Mac App Store. I have my suspicions that Dorico 4 won’t land until the new licensing solution is in place (perhaps debuting the new licensing solution), at which point the whole debate will be moot.

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@Concha are you using software eLicenser, or using a dongle? Just an idea - if the software eLicenser, it is possible that some other software is interfering, such as third party anti-virus software. It is possible that your anti-virus could decide to scan the license file on disk and prevent Dorico and Cubase from being able to open it. Your issues are so extreme and so frequent that I think there has to be something else on the system causing this.

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