New installed and activated Cubase 10.5 LE can not find e-license to upgrade from Cubase 9 Elements

Hi,

Just downloaded Cubase 10.5 LE (from link of Steinberg email - FREE upgrade). Installed ok. When I go to activate the program - activation code from email is ok, but then it can not find ‘valid e-license’ to upgrade from.

Now I can not use Cubase Elements 8 or 9, as it CRASHES when initializing ‘Halion SE’.

I have a valid e-license (on HDD) for Cubase Elements 9.

All Cubase 8, 9 and 10 (elements) are installed on the same C: HDD.

Please help!

Kindest Regards,
Ron

I don’t think you can upgrade from Elements to LE (it’s actually a downgrade). Exactly what license do you have and exactly what upgrade did you buy?

I have the e-license for Cubase Elements 9 - upgrading to 10.5 from an FREE offer from Steinberg (via email link).
Tried to install the Elements 10.5 from the Download Assistant.
Had to uninstall both NEW installed Halion SE 3 and Groove Agent to be able to run my Cubase 8 Elements again. Need to re-install my Elements 9.
What a mess!!!

To be honest, your posts are kind of a mess. I don’t really understand what you have and what you are trying to install or buy…
I hope you get it sorted out.

I got an e-mail today from Steinberg to upgrade my Cubase AI to 10.5 for free. I got a version of Cubase AI with my audio interface. Is this what you are referring to? If you have Cubase Elements, that is not the same as Cubase AI. AI is a version that comes free with some other products.

I got the same email that offered a free upgrade to LE. I downloaded it and installed it fine until it asked for the license. I put the license in and it recognizes it as LE. However, it also says there are no licenses to upgrade. I plugged in the USB dongle with my other Steinberg licenses but it still says there is nothing to upgrade.

The confusion for me is the email says there is a free version waiting and has an option to do a full install. It sounds like the original poster has a similar licensing issue and it makes me wonder - if we don’t actually have licenses to upgrade, then why did we get the email?

I don’t think it is an upgrade TO LE because that is the “lowest” versions (LE/AI). Are you sure you read that correctly?
The other possibility is that, you used to have an LE or AI license that was included with some hardware and then you subsequently upgraded that to Elements via some discounted offer. So now, perhaps, you have an Elements license (which the free update is not for, according to MY e-mail) and no longer have an AI/LE license to update from.

At any rate, the only way to know is to post EXACTLY what the e-mail says and EXACTLY what license you have.
Otherwise, it is all just guessing.

Those are fair points @Jaslan, see below:

Here is the text part of what I got:
Update to the latest version of Cubase LE for free
Are you using Cubase LE 4 or higher? That’s great, because we have good news for you: You are eligible for the free update to Cubase LE 10.5. Get started with Cubase LE 10.5 and check out all of the latest features and improvements.

All you have to do is enter the activation code from this email in your eLicenser Control Center, download Cubase LE 10.5 in the Steinberg Download Assistant and install it.

Download and install Steinberg Download Assistant

Run Steinberg Download Assistant, and choose Cubase LE from the list of products on the left-hand side.

NOTE: They also sent me a legitimate license key as well, not posted here for fairly obvious reasons


I did all of those things and everything has been fine until license activation. It could be that way back when I had LE on some long dead machine that I wiped and forgot about years ago.

Yes, that is the same one I received, except mine was for AI. It is an UPDATE to an existing license so you need to have an existing license (LE 4 or newer) to update FROM. If you look in your “My Steinberg” and you registered the license when you first activated it, you should see a link to “reactivate” the license. After you go through that procedure and have an actual license on the eLicenser, you can enter the update activation code and it should update it to LE 10.5. It worked for me (I also had to reactivate the AI license because I actually use Pro and didn’t reactivate the AI license last time I wiped and refreshed my PC).

Thank you @Jaslan - that helps. I can’t for the life of me remember which machine I had put LE on and it doesn’t appear that I registered the original license way back when. Oh well, I know I have registered every license since then. :sunglasses: Thanks again for your help!