Playback buttons greyed out

• Apr 6, 2017 - 20:58

There is no sound generated when notes are placed. The play, rewind, and loop buttons are all greyed out and unclickable. View>Synthesizer is greyed out and unclickable. I/O Preferences show blank spaces for API, MIDI Input, and Device, and there is no dropdown list for them. Soundfonts are in their proper locations. I've tried a Factory Reset, multiple times. I've tried completely uninstalling and reinstalling the program. I've tried restarting my computer (both hard and soft restarts). I've tried running MuseScore in compatibility mode, since I saw a recommendation for that elsewhere. I can't think of anything else to try. HELP PLEASE!


Comments

What version of MuseScore, and what OS? Have you checked the Handbook under "Known incompatibilities"? Anything unusual about your hardware - the CPU or the sound?

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

I'm using 2.0.3 revision 3c7a69d with Windows 10. There's nothing unusual about my hardware- it's just a midline off-the-shelf Dell laptop. Also, nothing in "known incompatibilities" is installed on my computer.

The strange thing is that everything has been working just fine for nearly six months, and seemed to stop working spontaneously. And no, there were no updates installed recently, so it can't be that.

In reply to by Jojo-Schmitz

You probably have a midi device. The Microsoft Sound Mapper emulates the midi driver and is not standard in Windows 10, at least that is my understanding from what I read. It has worked for others and I have a vague memory of having to do something when I upgraded to windows 10.

In reply to by mike320

I've tried that stuff because someone else had a similar problem and it was recommended. It doesn't work, since it focuses more on display and the program in question as a whole crashing/ showing errors. The only thing that's wrong is the playback function. Everything else is working fine.

In reply to by Jojo-Schmitz

Unfortunately not. I already tried that list. Since the only option given for View>Synthesizer being disabled is to restore factory settings, which I've already tried, with no result, it doesn't help. I also tried installing other soundfonts already, but again, since View>Synthesizer is greyed out/disabled, I can't tell if they're registering properly other than the fact that MuseScore told me the installations were successful.

So I finally figured out what was wrong. It seems that the driver for my sound card had a ten-month-old update that I hadn't installed yet and MuseScore spontaneously decided it wasn't compatible with the old driver anymore. So I updated the sound driver and everything works fine now. I hate technology sometimes...

Yeah it does not work for me either, my computer does not have an internal speaker, so I have to use headphones, this may be the problem. I have tried every single I/O input and none work, except for one, though the play button is greyed out.

I just had this happened to me for a couple of days. I turned the computer and Roland organ both off and then on again, I reset MuseScore to factory setting, un-install and re-install the program. Still, I have greyed out Playback buttons. I was just about to restore the disk image backup for the hard disk when MuseScore was working. Just in case, I went to Edit > Preference > I/O and take a look, the MIDI input and output was empty! The drop-down menu did not show anything. I then went to the PC computer's Device Manager to see if the MIDI adapter somehow became defective but it looked OK. I right click on the MIDI adapter and have Windows to update the driver and the latest driver was indeed installed. I turn the computer and organ back on. I start MuseScore and loaded a score. The Play Back button is back up normal! I check the Preference > I/O the MIDI devise is Back! The score plays normally.
My conclusion is the MIDI adapter and driver has something to do with it.

What helped me was this specific part of https://musescore.org/en/node/96811:

> In case of interference with other programs, esp. on Windows, go into your soundcard configuration from Control Panel and ensure that the "Allow applications to take exclusive control of this device" in the Advanced tab of both Playback and Recording is unticked.

Then I restarted MuseScore3 and reset to factory settings (but maybe the very last step was not needed).

This just happened:
The play back button is grayed out so I go to Edit>Preferences>I/O and click on "Midi input" and nothing happens. I uninstall and reinstall Musescore 3 and it's still gray. Just to check, I try to go to my USB - MIDI device in the Windows control panel and every thing seems to work. So before I reinstall Musescore again, I go to Edit>Preferences>I/O again and click "Restart audio and MIDI devices" very fast, click apply and OK, and it magically works! The playback is working perfect and it is working again. I think it just needed to be rebooted.

I have a very niche solution, but if someone has the same problem, hopefully, it will help. Sometimes, headphones like my Razer ones will have an alternate audio option. For example, my headphones can play sound out of "Speakers (Razer USB Sound Card)" as well as "Speakers (THX Spatial Audio)." They're both for the same headset but work slightly different. When using Musescore in the past, I must have had my output set to "Speakers (THX Spatial Audio)." I switched my computer's sound back to the alternate option sometime between uses, and it stopped working. Eventually, I went to Settings -> Sound -> Sound Control Panel -> Playback and set "Speakers THX Spatial Audio" as my default device. Doing this restored everything to working order, and now I can pick and choose which audio device I want in the preferences tab. So if you are having the blank space problem, try swapping your default audio device to ones you've used in the past. If you can get them ungreyed, you should be able to switch them to your desired output. I hope this helps!

In reply to by RTMeagle1983

Similar, I was using my Bluetooth Airpods. I could get sound from the PC, but not from Musescore. I disabled the Airpods, restarted Musescore, and problem solved. ...at least for this application. If I reload the Airpods with Musescore open, sound comes through the PC speakers. If I restart Musesore, the play buttons are grayed out again. Obviously a glitch. Either in the Airpod driver, or Musescore.

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