Bug: Musescore 3.6.1 hanging up on startup
It says "initializing sequencer and audio driver," and it freezes. If I re-install it works and then later it happens again.
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Comments
Reboot, then reinstall.
In reply to Reboot, then reinstall. by Jojo-Schmitz
Thanks. Will try.
In reply to Reboot, then reinstall. by Jojo-Schmitz
Rebooting and then reinstalling seems to work. I've since started the program 5 or 6 times without problem. Thanks.
I had a similar issue happen with me. I saw that 3.6.1 came out and it fixed a few issues I was having with 3.6. Soooo, I installed it. I did get a message during install about some file still running. Don't remember full name of the file but it stated with "QT", which I know is the language Musescore is written in. It gave me the option of ignoring the message or ending the install and waiting until this "QT" file ended. I chose to ignore. Any who, when I start it, it gets to the UI screen for about 5 seconds then it does a CTD. Tried it several times and no go. Having read your post, I decided to reinstall and see what happens. IT DOESN'T LET YOU REINSTALL. Instead, it wants to do a "repair" or "uninstall". Those are the only two options. Sooo, I choose repair. It starts a progress bar. When it gets to about 90%, the installer froze up. I left and came back 2 hours later, it was still at 90%. So I used task manager to end it. That is when the trouble began.
I started the install for 3.6.1 again and this time I chose "uninstall". It uninstalled it fine. So, I tried reinstalling it and it would not reinstall. The installer kept freezing up. Task manager would not end it, so I had to do a hard reboot of my computer. Tried it 2-3 more times. Would not install. Sooo, I said "F it" and just reinstalled 3.6 again. However, the installer for 3.6 started doing the same thing 3.6.1 was doing - freezing up.
Finally, I turned my computer completely off, restarted and 3.6 finally reinstalled and it working fine.
There is sumtin wrong with 3.6.1.
In reply to I had a similar issue happen… by odelphi231
There is not "sumtin" wrong with 3.6.1, but with the installer.
That is why the advise given above was to reboot first, and only then repair/reinstall. The reason for the "lockup" is that the installer can't update files that are actively locked (that's why you got that warning first).
In reply to There is not "sumtin" wrong… by jeetee
Shouldn't the installer ask the user to reboot and stop the install process until the files are unlocked, instead of proposing to "ignore" and put the PC in a unusable state (well, not the PC, but at least MuseScore)?
In reply to Shouldn't the installer ask… by frfancha
It does, but as said, the installer is bugged in that respect.
In this case specifically, it remembered that it couldn't delete the old files, but doesn't remember that it also couldn't copy in the new files. Which is why upon reboot it only performs the delete of the old files, but not update the new files.. leaving the installation incomplete.
We're testing out a fix for that with 3.6.2, but can't guarantee we've worked around tis issue with the 3rd party installer package yet. (Will be tested in a small group before 3.6.2 is released)
In reply to It does, but as said, the… by jeetee
I can accept that there is nothing wrong with the program itself. Glad to hear the issue with the installer is being worked on. Having said that, my original issue was that 3.6.1 crashes within about 5 seconds after the UI comes up. Has anyone else identified this as a problem? BTW: when I was installing I mentioned getting a message about a "QT" file still being open. Why would that have still been open? I did not have Musescore running at the time of the install, though it was running before the install? Is that another install "glitch"?
As you know, more sophisticated installers don't care if the program is running. Most modern programs even have an in-line update utility that allows updating while the program is still running. Yes, you have to reboot if the program is running during install, but at least you don't get messages about open files and not being able to update then presented with a "Sophie's Choice" about whether to end the install or continue.
In reply to I can accept that there is… by odelphi231
Again.. you have gotten that option as well but the installer has a bug where that "reboot" option doesn't work out; specifically because the file that has to be removed and the file that should replace it are identical. There isn't a very much more sophisticated installer than the msi one from Windows for Windows (which is likely a reason why this bug exists, because sophisticated software is more prone to combinatory bugs).
So the installer tries to remove the old file: it fails and asks for that removal to happen upon reboot.
Then the installer tries to update the new file; it finds the old file already present (because it wasn't removed) and sees that it is identical; as such this part thinks it shouldn't update anything and also doesn't ask for that to happen upon reboot.
End result: the old (identical) file is left in place and MuseScore will work as long as you don't reboot the PC. Because when you reboot the scheduled "delete" part of the installer takes place. And those files are needed to show a part of the Start Center (which by default is indeed one of the first things opened upon launching the program).
As for why the QTWebEngineProcess is still running? Yes, it should've been shut down when MuseScore was closed, but for some reason it isn't. At this point unclear whether caused by a MuseScore bug or a Qt bug although it seems more likely to be a Qt bug and so far no developer can reproduce it reliably enough to be able to debug it.
What is clear is that if I manually start that process it also fails to close normally when an installer asks for that; so that process in some conditions doesn't honor the close signal.
What we're hoping will "fix"/work around this is that we're now trying to force a reinstall of the file, even when an identical one is already present. Our hopes is that this will lead to the installer also failing on that step and as a consequence also schedule that for the next reboot; thus resulting in reinstalling the file after removing it upon reboot. As this can only be tested with an officially signed installer package (otherwise that force overwrite install option is ignored) we do have to wait on the 3.6.2 release to be able to test out whether this approach actually works or not..
In reply to Again.. you have gotten that… by jeetee
jeetee, you are talking way too technical for me. I will accept whatever you say about why this is happening. I am just glad you are aware of the issue and are actively trying to fix it. I will wait until 3.6.2 to install the latest version. For now 3.6 works (however, it does have some minor annoying bugs that 3.6.1 supposed to fix).
In reply to jeetee, you are talking way… by odelphi231
Fwiw I find the explanation of jeetee quite useful ;-)
To translate it in non tech terms:
1-MuseScore is using a third party installer package which comes with its qualities but also with its bugs
2-One of these bugs is causing the issue here but only in some special circumstances, otherwise MuseScore devs would have detected and solved it much sooner
3-They have now (still to be 100% proven but there is good hope) implemented a workaround in the way they use that third party installer to avoid that specific bug
Voilà ;-)
In reply to Fwiw I found the explanation… by frfancha
I can by now also state that (at least for the scenarios I could test) the installer for 3.6.2 indeed fixes this issue. You can expect the 3.6.2 update to be released somewhere next week.
In reply to Fwiw I found the explanation… by frfancha
Thanks for the non-techie explanation. I am going to install 3.6.2 to see if it fixing everything.
Update: I have installed the 3.6.2 version. It installed as smooth as glass and seems to work great. Thanks for the fixes.
In reply to I can accept that there is… by odelphi231
Let me try to summarize (!) here:
The crash on startup is due to the installer - this is one and the same issue. The installer fails to install the program properly, and that is why it crashes. And that is why running the installer again with the "repair" option fixes it.
The reason the installer fails is complicated and not entirely understood, and yes it has to do with that pesky QtWebEngineProcess that for some reason stayed open after a previous crash for reasons that are also not understood. And yes, in an ideal world, installers could work anyhow even when important files are still in use, and usually this is what happens with MuseScore too. It's just sometimes - maybe once every 1000 installs, hard to say - for some reason, something goes wrong. And with any luck, with the new installer for 3.6.2 this won't happen anymore, or at least, not as often.
In reply to Let me try to summarize (!)… by Marc Sabatella
I ran into the same problem when attempting to install MuseScore under Windows 7 Professional. In the off chance that was a 64/32 bit issue (which has corrupted other software I use), I tried installing the 32 bit version (in a separate directory, which meant changing the name offered near the start of installation -- I just added "_32" to the name, to prevent mixing up files). Viola -- the 32-bit version starts OK.
Hopefully this will help resolve the problem!
I have a screen image of the crash messages which I'm attaching in the off chance that it can help
![MuseScoreCrash.jpg]()
In reply to I ran into the same problem… by flyingspirit8
The problem only occurs when updating an existing installation that has been run during this boot cycle and in which the (unknown) bug that fails to shutdown the underlying QTWebEngineProcess has happened.
A new install (ie to a new directory), or one after a clean start of your pc is not affected by the bug.
But I'm glad to report that the first tests with the 3.6.2 installer (to be released early next week) seem to indicate we have indeed been able to circumvent this bug.
In reply to The problem only occurs when… by jeetee
I was attempting to install MuseScore on a machine where no versions of MuseScore had ever been installed. Rebooting the machine, even from a cold shutdown (full power off) did not help. Uninstalling and reinstalling did not help. The only way around it for me was to install the 32-bit version (which will probably be completely adequate for my needs).
In reply to I was attempting to install… by flyingspirit8
Then you did not experience the same bug.
But if the 32-bit one works and the 64-bit one doesn't, then maybe perhaps that old machine simply is a 32-bit machine?
In reply to Then you did not experience… by jeetee
My machine is running "Windows 7 Professional Service Pack 1 64-bit Operating System"
Processor is "Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4790 CPU"
Quotes are copied from Control Panel/System.
In reply to My machine is running … by flyingspirit8
64-bit MuseScore should work, and work better, then 32-bit, then. best to start a new thread with more information here so we can help resolve this unrelated issue. It might be limping along OK now as a 32-bit app, but it's possibly going to not be happy at some point.
EDIT: although, of course, Windows 7 is no longer supported by Microsoft, and thus you probably have some old unsupported drivers installed as well, and that could be why 64-bit MuseScore isn't working. At some point, undoubtedly, other software will stop working as well, the writing is on the wall for that system...
See https://musescore.org/en/faq#faq-312352