Then future of Steinberg protection seems promising

This is the first time I post on the Steinberg site, and most likely the last one although I’m the long time user of Cubase, Dorico (from year zero), Wavelab, Spectral Layers, Halion, Groove Agent and many other stuff. The most than evident decline in the past few years of Steinberg is unfortunately omnipresent. Without any intention to go into details - the list would be hellishly long - let me drop my few cents inspired with my latest experience.
I thought to download and try the Dorico SE before I update to the pro version (after all, that will never happen for sure). Before I was able to install anything, I had to install a download manager as I wasn’t on my main “music” computer. The installation went so “smoothly” that finally I had to reinitialize my password (although I gave the valid one). This all procedure took me quite a long. Finally, I installed everything and was sure that the software will ask me for another verification. Of course that happened. And of course it didn’t work at all. Every time they sent me a verification code (that I fully entered) the software informed me that it was a wrong one. Finally, everything stacked, I lost my password as again everything was reinitialized…and the problems seems to be looped for eternity.
Seriously, could anyone imagine to work under these conditions ? Do you guys get the picture: you are in the middle of your work, and you should finish it (as it happens some of us are professionals, sorry about that) and all of sudden, just out of blue, when it is the worst moment (yes, these things happens always then) the Steinberg Geheim Control pops-up, controls you, you loose your password, and it accuses you that you aren’t even registered. You are desperate, but try to register as you have to continue with your work and you don’t have much choices, but then it says that you are already registered. You contact them - no answers for at least a week (far behind the deadline for your work). It isn’t only Orwell but Orwell and Huxley and all the dystopian writers together power of 12. Nope, not for me. Time to replace everything (and that’s a hell of work, I was already forced few times - anybody here remembers the Studio Vision, Emagic Logic Audio stories, then you know what I am referring to).
Sorry for being so exhaustive, in any way it was the first and last time.
Good luck for all the users, seriously you shall need a lot of it.

Steven, sorry to hear you’ve had a difficult time.

Just to show another side, I have had Dorico since version 1 and have been using it full time as my main source of income since 2018. I have never experienced any licensing issue, including now after the transition to Steinberg licensing. I use it on two devices along with Cubase. This is a stark contrast to Avid, whom I’ve had to call several times to fix licensing issues on their end. I also recommend Dorico to all my composition students. There have been a couple instances of licensing troubles with them, but I’ve always been able to figure out the problem, and it’s always been user error.

In my experience, every type of software licensing comes with a degree of frustration/inconvenience, but taking this into account, Steinberg licensing has been consistently reliable.

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Stevan,
have you used Dorico from year zero, just like me? I don’t remember, version SE had been around from the beginning - otherwise I would have loved to use it. Additionally, if you never got the initial registration working, how could the not working application interrupt you in the middle of a work project? Sorry Stevan, I probably misread some of your comment :thinking:
Having said this, you had a very good instinct to register this forum, because you will meet a lot (a lot) of very helpful people here.
With best wishes

So, from here, its downhill - what went wrong at this point I wonder, to make you have to re-set your password.? This is extraordinary… In order to learn and to improve from this experience, can you say was it a Steinberg error, maybe user error, or a bit of both perhaps…?

And then we have this…

Sorry. I’m feeling frustrated for you reading this… can’t fathom what would cause that…

My experience less than 12 hours ago may be related. I attempted to login to this forum and was told the system didn’t recognize me and asked for a new password. I re-entered my password but this didn’t help. Rather than make changes, I closed my computer overnight and signed in moments ago without changing my password. Everything went fine this time. I have no idea why it wouldn’t work last night but this was a very unusual occurrence and hopefully something that won’t become more regular.

There was an issue at our identity management provider this morning, which was resolved within three hours of us being advised about it. The problem affected account creation and sign-in. I guess it’s possible that Stevan fell foul of this issue, which is to my knowledge the only such issue that has occurred with the identity provider since we switched to it (quite a long time ago now, though I can’t recall exactly when).

The crucial thing is that the nightmare scenario Stevan imagines where you have activated your software and you are working happily when suddenly you are informed that you need to sign in again and your software becomes deactivated cannot happen. Once you have activated your software product, it does not need to phone home or check that you are signed in in order to run. The activation data is saved on your computer and it does not require a check against the identity provider once activation has been successfully completed.

Stevan, if you would like to let me know the ticket number you have received from our support team, I can follow up with them to find out the status of your enquiry.

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(Deleted by the posting party)

I will say that after I had been running dorico 4 for about a week on my home computer, one day it randomly wouldn’t start and gave me a license error, but I restarted my computer and dorico opened right up without issue, so I just assumed it was a corrupted background process. Perhaps there was something to this effect at play as well.

Currently Dorico/Steinberg Licensing does call home if it’s connected to the internet. It can be tripped up by a Wi-Fi network that uses a portal, e.g. airports/coffee shops etc. where the computer is connected to the wifi network but not actually to the wider internet.

Could this be the explanation, @Romanos?

Nope. It’s my trusty (and dusty) imac in my home office, that [should have] had a perfectly normal internet connection.

On the 2nd attempt I was able to activate D4 on a brand new laptop running Windows 11 on day one. No issues …

However, when logging in to mySteinberg account, the D4 license is listed, but with the comment “not used on any computers”

Not exactly reassuring… What if (GF) something should happen to my laptop tomorrow… I fear I would be without D4 access. (Support is sorry and promised to fix the issue by Friday this week…?!?)

A number of users are finding that when they visit the online self-service portal at https://account.steinberg.net, it shows no computers activated, but I am assured by my colleagues that this is not indicative of a serious problem, and that it will be addressed in due course. There’s no reason to fear that you would have any problems re-activating on the same computer or activating on a new computer if you need to.

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