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No more dongles!

If they allow license activation/deactivation via a tool, that is easy peasy right? Login, deactivate license for a machine, and activate it for another. just as fast a inserting a dongle, imho.
Or indeed they now allow more activations, like several others do with software protection tools (arturia e.g.).

So it's still good news, no more dongle breaking/loosing risks...
I've no desire to actively managing licenses. Everything should simply work in the background once set up. That is/was the case with eLicenser.

Besides eLicenser is more or less working offline most of the time. You only need an internet connection to redeem activation codes once per license after that it's self sufficient.

Let's see what they come up with.
 
It actually did occur to me a couple days ago that one of my DAWs will likely never need an update or new content from Steinberg or any other company that uses the eLicenser. I could keep the dongle in that DAW, order a new dongle for my other DAW, and transfer the licenses to it. The DAW with the old dongle would continue running Cubase on a deactivated license.

I would normally never promote breaking a EULA, but when it's only to make things easier for the sole use of the licensed user, I see no harm in it.
I don't think that would work. How would Cubase continue to run with a missing license on the "old" dongle? Cubase checks the license at start up and occasionally when running irc.
 
I don't think that would work. How would Cubase continue to run with a missing license on the "old" dongle? Cubase checks the license at start up and occasionally when running irc.
My original dongle wouldn't be missing a license. It would still have the old license on it. The old license would be invalidated by Steinberg, but the invalidation process would not reach the old dongle since the old dongle would remain offline.

The only problem I'd see is if I did go online and Steinberg checked the dongle without my knowledge. I might have to set up firewall rules ahead of time to prevent that from happening.
 
My original dongle wouldn't be missing a license. It would still have the old license on it. The old license would be invalidated by Steinberg, but the invalidation process would not reach the old dongle since the old dongle would remain offline.

The only problem I'd see is if I did go online and Steinberg checked the dongle without my knowledge. I might have to set up firewall rules ahead of time to prevent that from happening.
Interesting, i never saw such a pending state. I always thought swapping the license can only be done online by the eLicenser server and a license can only be at one place at a time. I may be wrong of course.
 
Interesting, i never saw such a pending state. I always thought swapping the license can only be done online by the eLicenser server and a license can only be at one place at a time. I may be wrong of course.
You are correct, but my strategy would be to buy a new dongle and get a new license for it to run Cubase on one DAW. But my other DAW would continue to run Cubase using the old dongle and old license. Since that DAW and dongle never connects to the internet, Cubase would have no way of knowing the license on that dongle was deactivated.
 
Subscription only!
This is the next step.

The options for dongle-less license control usually require some kind of machine licensing. What if you can't be online on your studio computer? I've recently had a problem with the soft license that was attached to my computer. I upgraded the nvme drive but didn't realize Steinberg installed something, probably Padshop Pro, as a soft license. I now get error messages every time I load a DAW that the soft license is missing.

This could be they are cutting costs of supporting the elicenser, but if you have to be online to use it, hey, why not make it subscription also? Not good.
 
You are correct, but my strategy would be to buy a new dongle and get a new license for it to run Cubase on one DAW. But my other DAW would continue to run Cubase using the old dongle and old license. Since that DAW and dongle never connects to the internet, Cubase would have no way of knowing the license on that dongle was deactivated.
I'm slowly getting a better picture of what you want to do, but not quite there yet. ;) How do you deactivate a license on a dongle and why would you want to do it? What do gain by doing that? I also don't get the part about staying offline. Maybe im stupid or something ;)

If you have two dongles and each has a unique license everything would be fine for using them with two computers (without the need to carry a dongle around).
 
This is the next step.

The options for dongle-less license control usually require some kind of machine licensing. What if you can't be online on your studio computer? I've recently had a problem with the soft license that was attached to my computer. I upgraded the nvme drive but didn't realize Steinberg installed something, probably Padshop Pro, as a soft license. I now get error messages every time I load a DAW that the soft license is missing.

This could be they are cutting costs of supporting the elicenser, but if you have to be online to use it, hey, why not make it subscription also? Not good.
They already stated there are not going subscription. I think it would be too risky for them to do that knowing most people refuse it with a passion. Offering subscription in parallel may be ok, but i think i'd get uncomfortable by the mere presence of such a thing at Steinberg.
 
This is good news. I recently went to a studio early morning just to realize that I forgot my dongle to run Cubase...

Thank goodness for Reaper's omnipresence though.
 
If you have two dongles and each has a unique license everything would be fine for using them with two computers (without the need to carry a dongle around).
Yes, but the proper way to have two Cubase licenses on two dongles is to buy Cubase twice. That is very expensive. $580.00 x 2 = $1,160.00

Instead of paying $580 for a second license, I'd buy a second dongle for $28 and tell Steinberg my original dongle was stolen. They'd issue me a new license for the new dongle. I'd use the new dongle and new license on one DAW, but continue to use the old dongle and old license on the other DAW. The catch is that I would never again be able to connect that DAW to Steinberg via the internet because if they accessed the old dongle, they'd discover the old license and deactivate it, rendering the old dongle useless.
 
You are correct, but my strategy would be to buy a new dongle and get a new license for it to run Cubase on one DAW. But my other DAW would continue to run Cubase using the old dongle and old license. Since that DAW and dongle never connects to the internet, Cubase would have no way of knowing the license on that dongle was deactivated.
Go for it. But the rest of us loyal users who still
believe in god, Steinberg should offer an option to take the
Dongles back and give a small reward in return, like a second
license.

What else are they thinking we could do with obsolete Dongles?
Sticking them into the ground too see if they grow a forest?

I hate the idea that someday an indian trash collector will dig
my Dongle up and melts it, to recycle it into a new kind of
Cat Litter Scraper. Then i would buy the Dongle again, and
thats just not cool.
 
Steinberg should offer an option to take the
Dongles back and give a small reward in return, like a second
license.
That might be a bit much, because a Cubase license is worth $580, whereas as new dongle is about $30.

We don't know what system Steinberg is going to use in place of the dongle, but my guess is that it will allow for a single license to be activated on multiple DAWs. Maybe they're coming up with a soft licensing system where you can activate a single license on up to three DAWs at a time -- full price for the first activation, and a nominal fee for additional activations. Internet access would only be required during the activation/deactivation process, but not while using the software.

The main downside is that if your DAW got stolen or destroyed, or your SSD fried, Steinberg wouldn't be able to deactivate anything on it, and you could burn through your allotment of activations. They would need some kind of system in place to handle these scenarios.
 
Nothing that requires access to any kind of remote service is ever acceptable.
This is good news. I recently went to a studio early morning just to realize that I forgot my dongle to run Cubase...

Thank goodness for Reaper's omnipresence though.
Yes, Reaper, at least, does it right.
 
That might be a bit much, because a Cubase license is worth $580, whereas as new dongle is about $30.

We don't know what system Steinberg is going to use in place of the dongle, but my guess is that it will allow for a single license to be activated on multiple DAWs. Maybe they're coming up with a soft licensing system where you can activate a single license on up to three DAWs at a time -- full price for the first activation, and a nominal fee for additional activations. Internet access would only be required during the activation/deactivation process, but not while using the software.

The main downside is that if your DAW got stolen or destroyed, or your SSD fried, Steinberg wouldn't be able to deactivate anything on it, and you could burn through your allotment of activations. They would need some kind of system in place to handle these scenarios.
Other companies have methods that allow you to easily delete an activation if your system fails and you don’t have access to it.
iLok are not one as you will need to contact every vendor individually to ask them to remove their iLok activations if you don’t have access to the machine.
 
I'd personally like to see Steinberg go iLok, for convenience, but I doubt they will. They'll come up with their own machine or cloud authorization license system. Either way, laptop users rejoice.
 
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