The Dongle worked, it achieved what was required to make things work. I never understood the whining and complaining about it… unless you were trying to get around the limitations.
Somehow my license was “activated” three times… ON THE SAME COMPUTER. And for the life of me I have no idea how/why this happened. And, now because of a reinstall of Windows, and because I was unaware that I have to “deactivate” Cubase before committing such a sin, I am stuck unable to use my DAW.
So much for “zero downtime.”
I find it interesting that a lot of my software relies on “phone home” technology and I’ve yet to experience so much as a blip on the map.
SO THE QUESTION IS - HOW DO YOU “DEACTIVATE” CUBASE ON THE MACHINE THAT IT WAS SUPPOSEDLY ACTIVATED ON WITHOUT BEING ABLE TO GET INTO THE PROGRAM… TO… DEACTIVATE IT SO YOU CAN… [DAMN, I CAN’T BELIEVE I’M TYPING THIS…]. SO YOU CAN ACTIVATE IT!!!
Are you saying that it was installed/re-installed 3 times and in doing so it was activated three times, each with a different computer ID?
I would have thought the computerID would remain fixed provided you made no changes, so installing C12 many times would still only be one activation. This would allow you to install and de-activate before uninstalling.
Well after giving it a lot of thought I now realize that I could have been the one who caused the problem. Before loading Cubase 12 I installed a fresh copy of Windows 11 Pro, and after installing Cubase the first time I realized that I had made some mistakes in the Windows installation. So, I started over, and failed to “deactivate” Cubase before doing the refresh. When I re-installed Win11 I had made some hardware changes to the computer so it probably created a new computer ID. Cubase was installed with no issues, and I used it several times before I updated the BIOS, once again triggering a change in the computer ID. HOWEVER, re-installing Cubase should have been the THIRD installation, and therefore should have worked. Somehow Steinberg got the message that I had already installed it three times, not two. So, I’m now just waiting for Steinberg to respond to my email. Glad I don’t depend on this for a living!!
What would be nice is if the list of computers that is listed online as having been activated would have the computer name alongside it. Currently I see three 64-byte cryptograms, but have no way of associating these with any particular machine that the software is activated on.
I think a Steinberg employee posted that there was an intention to improve the identification of activated computers, possibly by adding their host names to the website (this is also mentioned as a possibility in the Licensing FAQ under Data Collection).
Best practice with the current system seems to be to always deactivate your licenses before making any hardware changes or firmware & OS updates.
Just out of interest - as I have not taken the plunge to C12 as yet.
I get that you have to de-activate a license whenever you make a change to the hardware or re-install the Windows OS. Then you reactivate it, using the same machine, right? A couple of questions:
How does this system work if Microsoft decide to do a big OS update like a feature update?
What happens if your hardware/motherboard breaks and is irreparable?
I had the, perhaps naive, idea that you could just login to your Steinberg account from any computer and de-activate any license.
Can anyone enlighten me?
You can only deactivate a license on the same computer it was activated on, as long as no changes have happened that have modified the identifier number.
So in the example case of motherboard breaking one will almost certainly have to ask for Steinberg support to deactivate the previous installation.
As for the Windows feature update I would personally deactivate my licenses before doing it, then activate again afterwards. Just in case…
The reason for this, as posted by Philipus earlier:
I was one of those who were very vocal with my wish to keep the possibility to use a kind of dongle, but alas…
Now my journey with steinberg came to an end. I keep using cubase 11 as long as possible and then look what alternatives are left. Bye bye wavelab as well and no new steinberg vstis for me likewise.
And the worst thing of this whole mess. The elicenser was secure until the end, Cubase 12 was downloadable all over the place on the day of release. Well done, steinberg.
That’s a bit tough if the OS vendor makes updates for you automagically…
They should only be using fixed components on the motherboard for ID, never anything that can be changed (like CPU, memory, drives, network cards GPU etc) as these are often changed/upgraded.
Why can’t they do it like Microsoft does it with Windows licensing? Tie it to the MotherBoard ID.
At least it won’t burn a license every time you install RAM or change a hard-drive.
This is a nightmare theres no way to deactivate licences in you online account .Win 11 crashed and I had to reinstall it now im stuck showing all licences used . so now i can only activate one system at a time might as well have a dongle .Surely steinberg you coulkd put some degree of activation ability in online accounts i am totally stuck now its infutruiating .
Plugin alliance gives you 3 activations and 7 deactivations (from their website). That is enough for some hardware troubles. I managed to loose one deactivation in my first day because of some usb stick issue though. What happens/is pssible after that 7 I don’t know. Seems like the way to go.
The Motherboard on my PC just died 2 days ago. I was able to have customer support deactivate that license through the CHAT feature in support. It literally took less than 5 minutes. If you are not getting any response through email, or opening a ticket give the chat a shot.
Yep, believe it or not they were initially planning to allow account-based deactivations for this reason. But the community complained about their computers having to “phone home” to maintain their licenses, so Steinberg dropped that ability. Once it’s activated on your PC you can only de-activate it on that PC- and this assumes the PC both works and you have physical access to it. Oh, plus: The activation manager can silently activate licenses for you without your knowledge, so you might actually lose an activation without even knowing it. (I’ve submitted a support ticket over this.)
If it is that freely available, they may as well just give us the ability to release a machine remotely, surely?
Got no issue with why the system is how it is, but when you hear of people waiting weeks to get a ticket answered, it’s a massive flaw in the licensing system for those who hit the 3rd activation and are at the mercy of staff.
how is it possible - that in 2022,
a product you buy - depends on the “mercy” of your shitty distributer and NO costumer service by steinberg what so ever?
thinking seriously changing DAW, this is an outrage.
if anyone in STEINBERG see this - contact me!
[EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED]
Not if your like me and use an eLicencer USB key. NO key no Cubase it was so simple for all these years. My key is 16 years old and all my purchase are on that key. Now Im ffff. It says I have Cubase installed on 3 computer. Hey I only have one computer ??? Ho yes 3 systems on the Mac Pro thats just dandee. I just erased all my drives to start fresh and now I have NO Cubase to work with at all. Great just great !