After using vouchers on Triebwerk, Hypnotic Dance, Dark Planet, Halion Symphonic Orchestra and others to switch them from eLicenser to new licensing system, all is working perfectly except Halion Symphonic Orchestra. Yes, dongle was in USB slot when I redeem vouchers.
It’s dedicated HSO plugin we used before everything goes to Halion only. But other dedicated plugins are loading okay and working good with new licensing system.
Next nuance. If I load Halion Sonic SE and load Halion Symphonic Orchestra, it loads okay, but dedicated plugin still dark. Okay, I save the project and reopen it. Now dedicated plugin works okay and has loaded default preset (its violoncelli). Of course the browser don’t show anything since everything is switched to use Halion Sonic (SE), not dedicated plugins. But we still need dedicated plugins if we open old projects where dedicated plugins were used.
In eLicenser I see all licenses are with prefix “Deleted”, but the license for Halion Symphonic Orchestra is gone.
It was there before all manipulations.
I didn’t redeem voucher because I did not have chance to select license to upgrade. By the way Activation Manager says:
But MySteinberg still offers the voucher:
Background:
I have second HSO license that came with Dorico and it were automatically upgraded when Dorico turned to Steinberg Licensing system. But that’s the inner license to use with Dorico and cannot be used from Cubase.
I understand that new Halion Sonic 7 can load old presets (loaded with dedicated plugins) in the multichannel plugin, but is this the only way? If so it’s a pressure to install new software without knowing is it capable to run on current environment.
Since MySteinberg don’t have support for my country, I’m asking for help here.
Additionally…
- I start new project
- load Halion Symphonic Orchestra (dark GUI, because license missing)
- I save this empty project with only HSO loaded
- I plug in USB dongle and reload Cubase
- open saved project - HSO shows normal GUI and default Violoncelli A Combi is loaded
So old projects can be loaded…
Please take this in count - if dongle is plugged in, library is licensed. So the license for HSO is still in dongle, but not shown by eLicenser and not available to upgrade.
But!
- What will happen after 2023-05-26 mentioned in Activation Manager (spee pic. above). Is it a deadline for Steinberg support for this issue or what?
- Where is my HSO license if it’s not in eLicenser (and not Deleted) and a voucher still available, and what is upgraded shown in Activation Manager which will be expired?
Please run the Steinberg Download Assistant to automatically update all licensing software, then run the eLicenser Control Center and click the Maintenance button to the top right. Does your HSO license reappear? Does the Steinberg Activation Manager no longer show “verification pending”?
Before you wrote this I did everything many times.
I have HSO license number. So I redeem voucher and have download code, I add it to Download Assistant and it says - okay, here is your license, click to send (upgrade) to eLicenser. In the eLC message box it shows that all is okay - this is activation code for “Deleted Halion Symphony Orchestra (Upgraded from eLicenser)”. I click and don’t have anything in a list to upgrade. But in message box there was correct name.
In old MySteinberg site I see:
“HALion Symphonic Orchestra (Upgrade from eLicenser)”
and have Download Access Code, Activation Code and red text: Not yet activated.
Maybe I should add activation code to the eLicenser? It’s the only place or somewhere else I can apply it?
Half of the problem now is fixed. I found missing license on second dongle. When I bought two VEPro servers I needed second dongle. And of course I put the license of HSO on second dongle too to have it on server.
Now everything upgraded, activated but…
While testing this issue, I installed Halion Sonic 7, which removed HSSE3 and all individual plugins (Triebwerk, Hypnotic Dance, Dark Planet and HSO) from the list of instruments to add to project. So for now I cannot test anymore.
But the fact was that individual HSO didn’t load library while the same library didn’t loaded with HSSE3 in another track. I assume that if I open any old project where there are only individual HSO plugins, they won’t load library. But who knows!?
Sorry for that stupid mistake with second dongle, but cannot say that problem is fixed for 100%.
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Hi @ArthurNeeman , thanks for updating and sorry for the trouble.
A few facts regarding the old player plugins (as you already observed):
- The HSO plugin has been discontinued a few years ago and we stopped supporting it.
- HSO runs as VSTSound in HALion Sonic 3 or 7 now.
- HALion Sonic 7.x installation does replace HALion Sonic 3.x
Did I understand correctly, that you now have projects which do not load correctly?
Yes, now I’m worrying of updating studio computer. All this I wrote above was testing on laptop. And if I see old projects are loading differently after current updates (redeemed vouchers and everything updated for Halion Sonic 7 which replaces HSSE3).
To be sure and answer you if projects don’t load correctly, I need to update studio computer, but I don’t need to update studio computer while I’m not sure that projects will load correctly. So it’s a round circle.
Problem is there - if I update studio computer and work with old sketches let’s say in June, until that I will produce new sketches and projects and, if I reach problems while working with old projects and if I step back to previous versions, there will be new problems loading projects made with updated system. Huh! Nightmare 
I have some 300 sketches over past 5 years and I take some 20-30 from all them and combine for every new album. So I need that these sketches are loaded the same way they were saved. While we were on dongle, everything worked relatively brilliant.
Ok thanks, now I understand better. Tricky situation.
The player plugins will always ask for the dongle. You could try the following:
The last version of HALion Sonic SE 3 can run most libraries and does not require a dongle, it is also compatible with the old player plugins:
- Install HALion Sonic SE 3
- With dongle connected, replace the HSO (Dark Planet etc.) player plugins with HALion Sonic SE 3 and load the same preset/copy automation.
Make sure to use the VST3 version, as VSE can load both if I remember correctly. VST2 is dead.
Now the path should be open for update to HALion Sonic 7. HS7 installer will NOT replace HSSE3.x versions. So you can run them in parallel. If no HALion Sonic SE is found, HS7 can take over the pluginID.
In any case, you may still have to keep the dongle connected for a while.
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It’ll work in all hosts, if Dorico is activated on the system.
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The problems starts if the presets of HSO or Dark Planet were modified, not saved as preset, but just leaved as active preset in loaded plugin. So now I should save all active presets of ten/twenty/thirty instances just to load them in HS7.
And again (sorry), this happens in 21st century when any technology should help but not make inconveniences.
I’m working on 5 year old orchestral sketches. And I have hundreds of sketches. There was used only HSO. Now I’m exporting MusicXML and importing them into Dorico. It’s a nightmare to prepare tracks for clean export not hearing what’s on the track.
Four years I didn’t worried about old sketches and I thought when the time will come there won’t be problems to use old sketches.
F**k! I was wrong. Too much trust leads to great disappointment.
So even now we will have fully dongle-free system, I will need to plug in dongle to use old sketches.
Is it serious?
Current situation:
Dongle plugged in. Project loaded and all tracks that uses HSO, are dedicated plugins of HSO, not multitrack HSSE3. In a dedicated plugin we cannot switch p/e button to show or hide tracks.
But it seems that dedicated HSO plugin is not a problem at all, because if dongle plugged in, HS7 nicely replaces dedicated plugin and stands as the same dedicated plugin (without 16 channels and without p/e button). So everything works perfectly as it should, but with dongle plugged. Once I remove it, my HSO is unlicensed even everything is up to date and Activation Manager shows that there is HSO licensed.
Please explain step by step what I should do to avoid this.
