Steinberg activation manager doesn't want to open and cubase 13 pro cannot find the license

Cubase
,
1

Hi there,

as said in the title, activation manager is not responding at all. It doesn’t even open and my new cubase 13 pro license cannot be used. To make it worse, my old license, cubase 12 artist also doesn’t open anymore so I can’t use cubase at all. Can please someone share a solution. I’m on win11. cheers!

2

Hi. I’ve had the same issue. Initially the Download Manager showed an error, but I managed to get the Activation Manager to show my Cubase 13 licence was registered, but then after trying to run C13 it said it couldn’t find a valid licence. I tried re-installing all Steinberg software and now the Activation Manager won’t open and C13 is stuck on ‘Checking Licences’. On Windows 10.

3

Hi, yeah, seems like we have the same or a similar issue. C13 is also by me stuck on checking Licences, I’m on win11 tho. For now, sadly still haven’t found the solution…

4

You can restart the services, or simpler method, reboot the computer, then launch the Activation Manager, see if it loads.

5

Thanks for the advice. I’ve tried restarts, re-installs, clearing the AppData\Roaming\Steinberg\Activation Manager folder, running as admin. Just a bit strange that it did open earlier (although Cubase couldn’t find my licence), but then after updating all the Steinberg software it now won’t open and Cubase hangs whilst searching for the licence. I’ve put in a Support request but I thought maybe someone here had a solution

6

I am on Win 10, not had this issue, sounds serious.
Might be worth checking your anti virus, exclude Cubase folders, sometimes they can cause these problems.

7

C13 on Win 10… the same issue tonight.

I had to update the Download Assistant and Activation Manager.

PS. It would been a nightmare if I were offline tonight

8

Hi,
we are currently investigating this.
Please try the workaround I posted here: Steinberg Activation Manager won't open - #9 by SKnapp

9

Hey! Thanks so much. That did the trick! I thought I’d tried it yesterday but perhaps I only emptied the AppData folder, not Program Files. Cubase 13 works now :slight_smile:

1 Like
10

I hope this is a useful addition to this thread, but if not perhaps someone could point me in the direction of a more relevant thread?

I have a new laptop and have installed Cubase 13 Pro on it. It was previously installed on my old laptop, where all my past projects are stored.

When I tried to run Steinberg Activation Manager, I was getting a series of error flags saying that it couldn’t run because of missing dll files, the first of which was MSVCP140.dll

When I googled that, a number of solutions were proposed, including making sure I had all Windows 11 updates (which I had). The solution which worked was to Reinstall Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributables, from a trusted source. I did that and restarted the laptop, then successfully opened the Activation Manager and was able to activate the licence for Cubase on my new laptop. Hooray!

The reinstallation of that C++ stuff obviously included the other missing dll files.

Hope this helps.