[solved] eLicenser has lost my licenses!

Dorico
#1

tried to run Dorico 3 with my eLicenser dongle attached. Dorico 2 and 1 also fail. i get the notification that no valid licenses were found (it was working yesterday on this laptop).
ran eLicenser maintenance which was successful but noticed that no licenses were associated. see attached image.

what now?

i’ve never had eLicenser problems before so count me in with that group of people who’ve now found the eLicenser system problematic.

Screen Shot 2019-09-19 at 11.56.39.jpg
Screen Shot 2019-09-19 at 11.56.39.jpg1652×1140 126 KB

solution: remove USB eLicenser, restart computer, re-insert USB eLicenser, run eLicenser maintenance. launch Dorico (any flavor). earlier failures (i’m guessing here) are because i didn’t remove the USB-eLicenser before restarting the computer.

#2

Your computer is only detecting the soft elicenser (which doesn’t have any licenses in it), not the hardware dongle. If your dongle was properly connected you should see the dongle appearing in the eLicensers list on the left and it is not. Make sure it is connected securely, and try connecting it to a different USB port if it still doesn’t show up. Either the USB connection is loose or the USB port has stopped working or is flaky or it is possible (though very unlikely) that the dongle itself has failed. Try rebooting as well.

#3

hmm. the dongle is plugged into the USB port and the red light within the dongle is on. is there something else i’m missing? i’ve tried other USB ports… same problem - rebooting was no help.

#4

Maybe try updating the eLicenser software, although it might be the same version that comes with Dorico, it is worth a shot (it won’t hurt anything): https://www.steinberg.net/en/company/technologies/elicenser.html

If that fails, try the dongle in a different computer (with the eLicenser installed). If it doesn’t work there there might be a problem with the dongle.

I’ve also encountered flaky USB hubs that stop all USB from working properly on MacOS (nothing gets detected), and I had to reboot without the hub connected to fix it in those cases. Have you connected any new USB hubs or other USB devices recently that might not be working properly and might be causing this issue?

#5

Please see this troubleshooting guide as well: https://helpcenter.steinberg.de/hc/en-us/articles/115001649984-USB-eLicenser-is-not-recognized-license-missing-dongle-key-