Hey there
 
Please welcome: terminal issue #1 for me. I have Steinberg Absolute VST Collection installed and it requires eLicenser. The eLicenser is not available. I installed some other VSTs and needed to run VST Scan for then to show up. Well... When it finds one of Steinberg plugins, it says, "Insert eLicenser or cancel". When I click Cancel, it asks me if I want to disable plugin, and if I say Disable, the VST Scan crashes. After it crashes, I open Sonar and it only shows like 10 VSTs, mostly Cakewalk out of my 900 plugins. This time it shows few more but still about half that was scanned before it crashed, even though it had all of them before I ran Scan. Any suggestions? Thank you. 

Move the Steinberg Absolute VST Collection out of the scan path and scan again. Usually a scan will not remove existing plug-ins unless running a reset. It is also a good idea to make sure the "Rescan Failed Plug-ins" and "Rescan Existing Plug-ins" options are not enabled. Use Preferences to run scans. Worst case run a Reset after moving the offending plug-ins.
 

I came accross this when I installed NI's christmas giveaway phaser last night - I don't use the Steinberg plugins or eLicenser.  On my PC the Steinberg VSTs are located at C:\Program Files\Common FIles\VST3\Steinberg. 
 
However C:\Program Files\Common FIles\VST3 is where Adaptive Limiter, CA2A, Melodyne, TH3, Rapture and LPEQ and LPMB live - so if you remove the C:\Program Files\Common FIles\VST3 path from the Plugin Manager (options button) - you'll lose those others.  So you'll definately want to move the steinberg files to another location out of the scan path - assuming that doesn't cause issues...
 
Having said all that when I push the (scan VST plug-ins) button, when the scan gets to the Steinberg plugins I get a dialogue box that asks me to retry or cancel - if I press cancel it carries on scanning without crashing - which I needed to do about 6 times for (6 Steinberg plug-ins) - so in fact I didn't need to do anything.

Thank you for the replies.
So you mean- to move .dll files or did you mean- uninstall completely? I was hoping to use eLicenser occasionally and not to uninstall, but I guess I have to? If I just move .dll, it will become unusable, so I may as well uninstall then... The Scan crashed after first couple of hundreds of plugins, but I have many more that use iLok or eLicenser. It did not crash with Air Music Riser- I click on Cancel and it went on scanning. 
When you saying, make sure the "Rescan Failed Plug-ins" and "Rescan Existing Plug-ins" options are not enabled. Use Preferences to run scans. Worst case run a Reset after moving the offending plug-ins.", ok- I did have both checked, so then I unchecked "Rescan Failed Plugins", but left "Rescan Existing Plugins" checked, because it was only showing 20% of plugins. What you mean by "Use Preferences to run scan"? I did not see Scan optuions there. I use Plugin Manager. And what is Reset? Thank you.
 
Richard, I guess I should not install NI's christmas giveaway phaser on this computer? It does not use eLicenser so there must be different reason for the Crash. 
 
So if you dont have eLicenser or iLok, how do you use Steinberg plugins? They require eLicenser. Also I noted them writing about soft eLicenser, so I sent support question to their tech support asking if there any way to run it on both computers, one with eLicenser dongle and another with soft licenser. Thank you. 

no need to uninstall, just move the dlls.
for the rest see http://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=SONAR&language=3&help=0x22B07
 

I use a Steinberg UR44 interface which came with a bunch of (steinberg/yamaha) effects for the Interface app (and cubase).  I coudn't be bothered with all the hassle of the eLicenser so I never use these effects. Apparently I have 131 plugins - many of which I don't use.
But as I said, on my PC these .dll files are located in the same directory as many of the Sonar .dll files.  Thus scook's advice seems sensible if you are having a problem with crashing. 
However I installed NI Phasis yesterday, and when I scanned for the new VST I just <cancelled> through the 6 or so "missing eLicenser" dialogues that came up - and my system did not crash.  So I have Phasis working fine.  Everytime I start Sonar it seems to ignore the Steinberg .dll files - only seems to recognise them when I perform a VST scan from wthin CW plugin manager - and even then it has not been a problem for me.  I use Sonar Platinum lifetime(!) on Windows 8 if that is relevent.

I have had Wave LAb and Cubase on my DAW along side Sonar since 2004. I originally used the software e licencer but bought a dongle so I could use wave lab on my laptop. I  found the dongle was a good investment as I always had issues with the e licence software. The dongle works without issue and I can install any Steinberg software on as many computers as I wish. 
So as a result I have always had the Steinberg VST folder which seems to be a default for a lot of other 3rd party and even Sonar dlls. 
 
I have never had an issue with any plug ins crashing Sonars scan. I work between 2 fully set up DAWs right now. Both have more or less the full mess of both Sonar as well as Wav LAb element 7 and Cubase Elements 7, so there's a lot of Steinberg stuff in there. 
 
I leave my dongle in the one computer because that's where I do most of my mastering and CD burning. 
The other computer doesn't have the dongle and I just installed a few missing things by installing a bare bones of 8.5. This involved running a plug in scan. I always have mine set to manual. Anyhow it certainly doesn't give a ratts arse about the elicencer or dongle because there isn't one.  
 
So my question is are these Steinberg plug ins you bought? Or is this because your perhaps trying the demo?  I was unaware that any of the Steinberg plugs required the elicencer.  Not that I've ever had a reason to use one in Sonar. 
 

I have Steinberg VST Collection. It includes Halion 5, Halion Sonic, Groove Agent 4, Dark Planet, Padshop, Retrolog- those are synths and samplers. I have full license but they are stored on dongle eLicenser which I moved to newer computer, but I want my old computer to still work because it has 15 years of music on it. (Yes, I did move most of it to the new computer but I only tried to open one song and it gave me hard time not being able to find its audio files even through all audio was stored on E drive and I created identical drives set up for the new computer.
 
So VST Collection is full license but registered to dongle that is not in place. I would like to know how to reactivate them again as soft eLicense.
 
Not sure if you remember- some time this summer there was Windows update and Cakewalk update that massed up VST Scan for many people. My old computer was affected. I dont remember what was the solution- something dumb like opening something and leaving it hanging. But at that time my VST scan started to fail without finishing the scan or was just scanning for hours, or crash. With few Cake updates, it got better but still is not the most stable part of the program. I predict Sonar death will come from the Plugin manager. 
 
So would be great to reactivate without dongle as soft eLinecser if I knew how. Thanks.

unless it has changed, you can only convert from soft to dongle, but not vice versa https://www.steinberg.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=85685