MuseScore 4.4.4 some hangs, some corruption, possibly related

• Jan 4, 2025 - 11:12

hi, I love MuseScore (!), but am having trouble today.

I have been working on a composition for a while (currently 78 bars, 5 parts).

Today I added a 6th part and started copying from one staff to another and making small adjustments.

After several hangs, where I'd see the rotating beach ball for a minute or two, after which focus returned (and a note played, which helped me notice), I also noticed some corruption.

I'm making minor adjustments to vocals, e.g. changing an eighth note at the beginning of a measure to a sixteenth. Visually this appears to work (the 1/8 turns to 1/16 followed by a 1/16 rest as I would expect. But saving before and after this change the second save reports corruption. I revert and repeat at will.

(I tried pulling just a few measures out into a brand new score but can't reproduce the problem there.)

Any ideas? I'd be grateful for advice.

Tim

p.s. I'd be happy to share the file, but it's an original composition in progress, so I'm kind of self-conscious and cautious ...

OS: macOS 14.6, Arch.: arm64, MuseScore Studio version (64-bit): 4.4.4-243461245, revision: 2232670

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• Jan 4, 2025 - 11:21

p.s. I tried putting more into the smaller debug file but couldn't reproduce. I eventually found a work-around: by first changing the 1/8 note to a rest, then changing to two 1/16ths, then changing these rests to notes I was able to continue without corrupting.

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• Jan 4, 2025 - 11:29

p.p.s. Maybe one more comment: I suspect the bug has to do with their being 16th notes in the same measure in another part; at least when I've tried another similar change just now it works fine in the reduced, debug file, but not in the score with 5 or 6 parts. I'll try adding the part I suspect to the debug file ...

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• Jan 4, 2025 - 11:37

p.p.p.s. With the work-around I've learned I can move on, but now, making a similar change, the program hangs again (Activity Monitor shows "MuseScore Studio (Not Responding)" in red). When it returns from the hang the first thing I attempted was saving and hit the "corrupted" catch again.

Maybe the hint helps that in this case I'm trying to change the first 16th note to a rest.

The measure's rhythm is
1/16 1/8 1/6 (tie) 1/8 1/8 1/16 1/8 1/6 (tie) 1/8 1/8

(Thinking it might help, I tried selecting this measure and "deleting" instead, which should empty it, I think; this also hangs.)

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• Jan 6, 2025 - 13:32

Thanks, Steve, as I wrote:
"p.s. I'd be happy to share the file, but it's an original composition in progress, so I'm kind of self-conscious and cautious ..."

Is there some way to get diagnostics from the program? A detailed error message, maybe, perhaps along the lines of "measure X contains notes and rest summing to the wrong number of beats" ?

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• Jan 6, 2025 - 13:45

It is difficult to diagnose when you can't look "under the hood" to see what is going on.

However, here is a thought based on guesswork. You say you have 5 parts and the problems started after adding a 6th. Have you actually opened the parts? I find it is safest to work exclusively on the full score and only open the parts when the score is complete. The linkage between score and parts can be fragile. You may find that resetting each of the parts helps.

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• Jan 6, 2025 - 17:01

Once you have created the parts, open them again and click on the three dots to the right of the name to find the reset command.

If you do not want to publish the score, make a copy, delete many measures for a section, but in such a way that the problem remains. Then you can attach it.

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• Jan 6, 2025 - 17:21

many thanks. i'll include a small excerpt which works fine in this score but crashes in my larger one. i'll see if I can reduce the larger one significantly but retain the brittleness.
the critical change involves changing a 1/16 to an 1/8 in the middle of the measure. (in this small example, changing measure 1 to measure 2.)

Attachment Size
debug2.mscz 19.52 KB

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• Mar 30, 2025 - 17:27

Finally found a small score with an apparently analogous problem.

To reproduce the crash:
- open the score (I'm in MuseScore Studio 4.5.1.250800846 on a MacBook Pro...)
- click on the whole rest in measure 5 of the Acoustic Guitar
- type the digit 5 to change the whole rest to two quarter rests and a half
- try to save

(I repeatedly get: "This score has been corrupted and contains errors..."; I revert to the previously saved version.)

Attachment Size
Youd_be_so_nice_to_come_home_to.mscz 84.31 KB

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• Mar 30, 2025 - 18:05

In case it helps: I was able to get around this at some point, I think, but having the second half of the measure non-empty before I tried to convert the whole rest to 1/4 1/4 1/2.
I'm running into a similar crash a bit later: again trying to divide a hole rest, I think in this case into 1/8 1/8 ....

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• Mar 31, 2025 - 01:52

In short: To fix the error, open Parts, click the three dots next to Acoustig guitar and click Reset.

Now for the investigation.
I am not a developer, so my thoughts are based only on the file you provided.
This file contains generated parts, which means you opened them (if not, correct me).
At the same time, all Rests in parts and main score do not contain a synchronization element, as if you did not open the parts.
The absence of these elements leads to the corruption you encountered.
Why they are missing is a mystery to me.
Perhaps at some point Musescore could not link the main score and parts due to an error.
Possible causes of corruption:
1. I found that you swapped instruments. The original order was: Acoustic Guitar, Drum Kit, Acoustic Bass, Euphonium, Voice (correct me if I'm wrong. If you don't remember, just say you did swap them)
The parts were opened in the following order: Euphonium, Acoustic guitar, voice.
2. Did you delete the measures, especially the very first one?
3. Did you export to pdf or another format?
4. Did you change clef/key signature/time signature?
I don't know if the corruption is related to these operations, but they might give you an idea of ​​what could theoretically cause it.

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• Apr 1, 2025 - 09:40

Thanks, Mercuree. Just so you know: my "fix" is to revert to last saved and try to find another, non-corrupting order of operations.
Is there some way to bring this score to the attention of a developer? (I am a retired developer myself and know that having a small example which reliably leads to a failure is often an ideal way to find a bug.)

Yes, I opened parts.
(1) It's very possible I swapped the order of parts at some point. (I started this score from a template I have.)

(2) I don't recall deleting any measures in this case.

(3) I haven't exported this yet to PDF -- was just getting started.

(4) I have added a key signature, but I suspect that was after I uploaded this very early version; you can answer this: if the guitar in my upload has 3 flats, then "yes", if it is in C, then "no".

Thanks for your questions and hints. Are you implying I should try to avoid some set of (ostensibly legal) operations when using MuseScore? Based on previous discussions it sounds as though one should perhaps avoid opening parts until / unless one needs them (?).

My hope would be that a developer is able to reproduce the bug using this very small example and then fix it.

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