Musescore audio device not working for remote teaching

• Feb 10, 2021 - 15:28
Reported version
3.6
Type
Functional
Frequency
Few
Severity
S4 - Minor
Reproducibility
Always
Status
active
Regression
No
Workaround
No
Project

Musescore does not have an option to use "system default" sound device on mac.
In a practical instance, this impacts using Musescore while teaching remotely via Zoom - it is not possible to both listen to what is played back from musescore and send it to the remote participants.
Musescore is the only program that I have this issue with, which is why I have posted this as a musescore bug, rather than a Zoom bug.

steps to reproduce
- open musescore, navigate to settings > I/O and select any local audio device e.g. macbook speakers
- restart musescore - you should now be in a known state.
- open Zoom, start a zoom call with another device you can monitor (i use my phone)
- in Zoom share computer sound by pressing "share screen" navigating to "advanced" and choosing "computer Audio". Confirm by pressing "Share"
a green and red bar appears to let you know you are sharing computer audio. you could confirm this by playing back any audio except musescore audio on the host system and monitoring it on your secondary device.
- in musescore open any score and play it back - you should hear the audio through the device chosen in step 1.
- navigate to settings > I/O and select "Zoom audio device", confirm with ok and close musescore.
- reopen musescore, to a score and play it back. The audio will now play through zoom to your seconday device, but will not play back locally.

expected behaviour
when choosing an audio device i would expect to also be able to choose 'system standard' which would follow whichever output device is set in the system sound preferences. I believe that the fact that musescore doesn't send music this way is the reason it doesnt transmit through Zoom.
Musescore is the only program that I have this issue with, which is why I have posted this as a musescore bug, rather than a Zoom bug.

OS and version
OS: macOS 10.15, Arch.: x86_64, MuseScore version (64-bit): 3.6.1.515739048, revision: d0fc8e9

Attachment Size
Skærmbillede 2021-02-10 kl. 15.48.59.png 353.64 KB

Comments

As far as I know - based on what I see reported on social media - most other notation and professional audio programs have the same issue, at least on macOS. See for instance https://www.scoringnotes.com/tips/share-video-and-audio-of-music-notati….

Perhaps there is some way to program around this in MuseScore, so I'm leaving this open as a reminder to look into in the future, but for now, it's not really a bug but more standard behavior on macOS for whatever reason.