musescore freezes

running dual processor amd with tons of ram
fresh install of lucid and tried both 0.9.6 and 0.9.7 musescore
no sound issue.
BUT...
if in trying to troubleshoot i change any setting on the preferences I/O pages musescore freezes and i have to force quit.
thereby cancelling any changes made to preferences.
have done the revert command
have tried running as admin
have done complete removal and re-installation
have rebooted in between each of these procedures
have tried every combination of removals, reboots, revert-to-factory, deleting the .ini file and reinstallations
still the same problem
was running a fully working version with jaunty on same machine
wiped drive before switching to lucid for fresh install.
every other program that uses jack works fine
all other sound works fine too.
usually musescore will not play anything. the odd messing around with the .ini has made it so it will 'play' but still no sound, when i try to restart the close button doesn't work and i have to force quit and then on restart will not play again.
have been using musescore since i believe dapper and have on previous distros had to research and adjust sound issues, but has always worked and been repairable...until now.
musescore should not freeze on changing a preference unless there is a bug in it.
imagine the uselessness of a program that you cannot adjust preferences.
no sound is one thing, but not being able to change preferences ?
that is just plain broken.