Musescore 4 ready for everyday use?
Hi,
MuseScore 3.6 having updated itself automagically to 4.0 on my Linux Mint 21 machine, I was excited to use the new version. There really seems to be a lot of work, new features and improvements in MS4.0.
Unfortunately, I have encountered problems making me wonder if MS4.0 can already be used for everyday tasks, or if it is just not compatible with my system.
* Save file: When saving locally, I cannot use all existing directories on my system. The save dialog only shows me a selection. So I have to save to a location which I have access to and move the file to the desired directory by hand (which is a directory located on a NAS and is mounted under /nfs). Very annoying.
* Loading a previously saved file (from my local /home, not from the NAS) takes many seconds.
* Playback seems to work only once, then it is stuck.
Are those known problems?
I will reinstall MS3.6 now and wait a bit before trying MS4.0 next time.
Comments
I will reinstall MS3.6 now and wait a bit before trying MS4.0 next time.
Good call!
Just browse through all the posts in these forums regarding MS4.0 :-(
Done via flatpak downgrade. The file format seems to have changed so much that MS3.6 cannot load a score saved with MS4.0 at all, it just gets a blank page. This was different e.g. between MS 3.2 and 3.6. So fortunately I did not change too much before discovering that I should not use MS4.0 (yet)...
In reply to Done via flatpak downgrade… by mzenker
Version 3 and version 4 can coexist on your PC quite happily. Just ensure that you have .mscz files associated with the version you wish to use as default so that clicking on a score file launches the version you prefer.
In reply to Version 3 and version 4 can… by SteveBlower
Thanks, I have seen this info in the forum. I just did not figure out yet how to do that with flatpak. Of course I could use a different package format (AppImage or Snap) for one version. But given the seemingly complete incompatibility of the file format, I fear that once started with MS4.0, there is no way back. So I will stay with 3.6 (which is also not bad!) until MS4.0 has had some time to settle...
For now I will use MU4 rather as a tool to export audio, maybe also to finally export PDFs.
For the future - maybe end of this new year - I hope that MU4 will defeat the long list of regression and become a piece of software,
which runs as solid as MU3.6.
@mzenker... You wrote:
The file format seems to have changed so much that MS3.6 cannot load a score saved with MS4.0 at all, it just gets a blank page.
MusicXML conversion is not necessary to open a MS4 score in MS3.
While it's true that opening a MS4 .mscz file in MS3 will display a blank page, be aware that the uncompressed .mscx file embedded in the MS4 .mscz file will open in MS3.
The MuseScore ".mscz" file extension denotes a compressed file. Use a software like 7-Zip to decompress. (Depending on which software you use, you may need to re-name the ".mscz" file suffix to ".zip")
In the newly decompressed folder look for ".mscx" - notice the .mscx file extension. Open this ".mscx" in MuseScore3, which will protest (about a newer version), but press 'Ignore'. You should now have your score opened in MuseScore 3. Save this as a MuseScore 3 file (.mscz). This save operation brands the score as from MuseScore 3. You can now re-open this MuseScore 3 file in MuseScore 3 without the need to 'Ignore" the complaint about a newer version. Not needing to press "Ignore" will allow you to take advantage of MS3's corruption enumeration feature if any corruptions exist in the score.
See more info. from this post:
https://musescore.org/en/node/341420#comment-1163408
Again, when opening the MS4 .mscx file in MS3, you must press "Ignore" because MS3 "sees" a MS4 score. Pressing "ignore" opens the MS4 .mscx file in MS3 (and not a blank page). Then you save the file in MS3 (instead of actually opening the MS4 .mscx in a text editor and manually changing the version). This "saved" .mscz score is now branded as a MS3 .mscz score which can be opened in MS3 sans the 'newer version' protest. Furthermore, the corruption enumerator feature (i.e., 'Show Details') of MS3 will now function.
In reply to @mzenker... You wrote: The… by Jm6stringer
Thanx, good to know that it is possible. I might try it when I reinstall MS4.
In reply to @mzenker... You wrote: The… by Jm6stringer
thanks for this, just uninstalled MS4, MS3 is way better
Are you perhaps using a third-party build of 4.0, rather than the officially supported AppImage? Those third party builds are often problematic, and that might explain some of the issues you are seeing - especially the one with not being able to see all folders, and with playback not working.
In reply to Are you perhaps using a… by Marc Sabatella
Thanks for clarifying that only the AppImage build is officially supported for Linux. I have used the flatpak build which is also listed on the official download page. I might try the 4.0 AppImage one of these days. But since I have no strong necessity of using 4.0 at the moment, and given that it has apparently still quite some problems as can be seen in many posts in this forum, I will stay with 3.6 (flatpak) for productive work for the time being. BTW if I did not miss anything, there is no link to MS 3.6 for Linux on the download page.
In reply to Thanks for clarifying that… by mzenker
FWIW, every time there is change, there is also confusion, and lots of posts from people who are thus confused. That doesn't mean there are "quite some problems", it just means change is sometimes hard :-).
Of course, there are bugs, but there are bugs in every version. The plethora of forum posts is more about the flood of new users, and the fact that there are changes, than about any difference in the number of bugs compared to other releases. The worst current bug is one that can cause corruption, and an update 4.0.1 that will fix this and some other issues is currently in testing. So you might just wait for that if you're on the fence about trying 4.0 right now.
BTW, third party builds weren't really supported for MuseScore 3 either and also have known problems. But if you've learned to live with those, no reason to change at this point.
I've gone back to 3.6 for right now (Windows), but am not uninstalling 4.0 just yet. I noticed a couple of things that I'm not calling bugs until I can consistently reproduce them to the point that I can describe the steps. But in my case some of it is just that some things 4.0 does differently are "muscle memory" from 3.6.
I'm psyched about some of the changes, though, and I'm sure the dev team earned a breather after that release, so I'm confident there are point releases in the near future.
Can't use 4.x right now because for what I'm doing, there is extra work Idon't really care to do, that I didn't have to do with 3.6.2. Will wait and see.
BTW, I'm on Linux, and I keey reading "vst,vst." Not going to happen here as far as I can tell, but there's always hope.
Can't contribute because my time is short and my system is too old.