MuseScore Studio 4.4.4 is now available!
Hi everyone,
As work on MuseScore Studio 4.5 continues at full pace, we've prepared a small extra update in the meantime: MuseScore Studio 4.4.4.
This update brings stability improvements and bug fixes, as well as some smaller features that we felt were suitable to include in a patch.
Engraving
- All combinations of dynamics and expression text are now properly centred between staves (#25451)
- Offset applied to lyrics is now taken into account when positioning other elements around them (#25485)
Usability
- Pressing an arrow key while nothing is selected in the score will select the note or rest nearest your previous selection instead of jumping to the beginning or end of the score (#24157, #25371)
- After pressing Esc to exit fingering input, the fingering element stays selected, so that you can (for example) use the arrow keys to move it around if desired (#25413)
- Scroll wheel & scroll gestures are now solely used for scrolling, i.e. not for changing the values of sliders and knobs (e.g. in the Mixer) (#11128)
- Muse Sound libraries can have now have nested categories of sounds for easier navigation in the Mixer (#25546)
Import & export
- MusicXML: Certain score titles are no longer incorrectly identified as subtitles (#24553)
- MEI: Various fixes and minor improvements (#25557)
User interface
- Incorrect size calculations, resulting in the undo/redo buttons falling off the screen, were fixed. (#24344)
- Toolbar buttons no longer cut off after relaunch with small window size (#24344)
- Tab names (e.g. 'Home', 'Score', 'Publish', etc.) are no longer truncated when viewed in certain fonts (#25502)
- Lilypond Lyrics plugin dialog is fixed (#25482)
Miscellaneous
- Parts are now saved correctly for display on MuseScore.com
- Links to more sounds are displayed on the Home screen and Mixer
- Advanced users can now disable the creation of backup files when saving scores, via Preferences > Advanced (#14973)
Keyboard shortcuts on macOS
The following shortcuts are now working, which were broken for some users in 4.4.3:
- T shortcut for ties (#25321)
- Delete key (#25373)
- Shortcuts involving multiple modifier keys, such as Shift+Option (#25314, #24497)
Stability improvements
Crashes are fixed that used to occur when:
- Attempting to edit part scores immediately after creating a score from a custom template that contains part scores with measure numbers on every measure (#25169)
- Interacting with corrupted measures in certain very old scores imported from MuseScore 1 and 2 (#25031)
- Navigating around vertical frames using the arrow keys in horizontal continuous mode (where vertical frames are of course not visible) (#24234)
- Dragging a range selection containing guitar bends (#25424)
- Pasting notes after replacing an unpitched percussion instrument with a different instrument (#25657)
- Viewing a score after certain spanner elements have been added and then removed (#25708)
- Opening a MusicXML file that contains a
measure-layouttag in the first measure (#25710) - Changing the tempo of a score while the Pianoteq VST plugin was loaded (#25579)
Mitigation for score file corruption
Over the years, we've received a handful of reports from Windows users about corrupted score files that contain only binary zeros, or are zero bytes in length. This could be caused by any combination of factors, including:
- MuseScore Studio's code
- Qt or other software libraries
- Windows or its filesystem (usually NTFS or FAT)
- Specific hardware or drivers
- Other software on the computer (including viruses)
- User error (e.g. overwriting a file, or unplugging a flash drive without unmounting it first)
Unfortunately, we've never been able to reproduce the problem ourselves in order to understand and fix it.
While we can't stop the problem happening, community member @krasko78 came up with a clever idea that will help to mitigate it if it does occur. According to his implementation, every time you save a file, MuseScore Studio will perform a quick check to see whether the saved file is valid. If not, a warning dialog will appear with the option to "Try again" at the same location, or "Save as..." at a new location. If this is unsuccessful then the dialog will pop up again and again until the score is successfully saved, or you choose to "Cancel".
This means MuseScore Studio 4.4.4 does everything it possibly can to protect your data from corruption. However, corruption can still occur after the file is saved for reasons that are outside of MuseScore Studio's control. As always, we recommend that you keep a backup copy of all important files in the cloud, for example via the Save to Cloud feature in MuseScore Studio.
What's next
You can install this update via MuseHub today, or via MuseScore Studio's built-in update notification in a few day's time.
If you haven't seen it yet, you may be interested in our upcoming changes to the MuseScore Studio Handbook.
Soon, we will publish a blog post about our progress on version 4.5 and beyond.
Thank you for using MuseScore Studio!
Comments
"Community member Krasimir" - LOL :) Let me elaborate a bit on the mitigation of corrupted scores. As shoogle already mentioned, MSS 4.4.4+ will check the saved file for corruption. So in case of corruption, as soon as you save you will see the dialog below
Here is what you should do:
1. The very first step is finding the latest score backup created by MSS and making a copy of it!
2. Click the "Try again" button on the dialog once. If the dialog reappears, click this button a few more times.
3. If after clicking "Try again" one or more times the message does not reappear, this means your score was saved successfully and you can continue working normally.
4. If after clicking "Try again" several times, the dialog won't go away, try clicking the "Save as..." button and saving to a different location - a different folder or even a different drive if you have.
5. Again, if the dialog does not reappear, you can continue working in MuseScore Studio normally.
6. If the dialog keeps reappearing even when clicking the "Save as..." button, click the "Save as..." button again and follow the next steps.
7. On the Save As dialog, in "Save as type" select "Uncompressed MuseScore folder (experimental)".
8. In the "File name" text field, change ".mscz" at the end to ".mscx" and put the whole name in double quotes. For example, if it was populated with chopin.mscz, change it to "chopin.mscx" (note the double quotes and the z became x).
9. In the folder list section of the Save as dialog, create a new folder and name it anything you want.
10. Press the Save button.
11. In File Explorer go to the folder you created at step 9.
12. Select all files in the folder, right-click them and zip them to a .zip file (there are many zip programs that can do this like 7-Zip, IZarc, etc., even the OS will likely be able to do it).
13. Rename the zip file to the name of your score, e.g. chopin.mscz in our case.
14. Try to open the file from step 13 in MuseScore Studio. If it opens fine, you can continue working with it. You can also copy it over the original chopin.mscz file and open it from there.
Please keep us informed here in the forums about which step worked for you. For example, did clicking the "Try again" button fixed it for you? How many times did you have to click? Does it fix it every time a corruption happens? Any info will be helpful to us.
If you happen to have to go through all the steps and you don't mind sharing the score at step 13 with us, please do so so we can examine it. And finally, if the steps don't not work at all or do not work as described, please let us know. In the worst case, you should be able to open the backup file (see step 1) and continue with it.
Anything you can share with us if you encounter this new dialog, will be appreaciated. We'll be refining these instructions over time. :) Thank you all. :)
In reply to "Community member Krasimir" … by krasko78
Thanks! I've updated the post to clarify that the dialog will keep reappearing until the score is successfully saved or the user chooses to cancel.
@shoogle wrote > Pressing an arrow key while nothing is selected in the score will restore the previous selection instead of jumping to the beginning or end of the score (#24157, #25371)
Here on MacOS 13.5.2 in MuseScore Studio 4.4.4:
• With nothing selected, pressing up arrow does not jump to the start of the score, which is good.
• Regarding "previous selection restoration" I don't see the selection restored when pressing the up arrow. I tried with a single note List selection, a multi-note List selection, and a Range Selection.
Is the new functionality supposed to work with all of those selection types?
In reply to @shoogle wrote > Pressing an… by scorster
@scorster, technically it selects the nearest note or rest to whatever was previously selected, so really it recovers your position in the score rather than the exact selection. I've updated the post to clarify this. Thanks!
In reply to @scorster, technically what… by shoogle
@shoogle wrote > really it recovers your position in the score rather than the exact selection. I've updated the post to clarify this.
With the following score state:
• A prior selection has been made
• Then I click a blank area (or press escape) to dismiss the selection
on MacOS 13.5.2, MuseScore 4.4.4, I observe the following:
After pressing the up arrow the score doesn't scroll to the area of the prior selection. Nor do I see any selection in the score—not sure if there's suppose to be one. And with subsequent up/down arrows I don't hear any transposition, again "confirming" no selection.
Can you point me to the official documentation on this behavior? Perhaps I just need to better understand the feature.
BTW, a function that restores the previous selection would be a welcomed feature. I'd like to see that!