Musescore 3 Didn't Save File

• Aug 11, 2020 - 13:49

Yesterday (8/10/20), I worked hours on a transcription in Musescore3. I clicked Save, closed program and turned off computer. This morning, I reopened Musescore to continue working and it opened my previous version. IT DID NOT SAVE YESTERDAY'S WORK. The most recent Musescore mcsz file on my computer was modified 8/4/20.

This is really bad. Not only did I loose hours of work, but now I can't trust Musescore to save properly.

Prior to posting this message, I googled and tried all different suggestions I could to try and find some type of misplaced Musescore file or backup file, but with no success. Musescore just didn't save yesterday's file.

In Internet searching, I found this was not an uncommon problem. Certainly is can be fixed.

HELP!


Comments

To be clear: if you hit save, MuseScore absolutely saved it, so if you look in the right place, you will find it - no need to settle for n older backup.

The most likely explanation is that you saved in a different folder than the one you are looking in It's not uncommon for people to get confused about what folders their scores are in, and end up having two different copies of the same score in two different places.

So the first thing to check is, what is the exact pathname (folder name and file name) that you believe you saved to, and what is the exact pathname you are looking at now? If you're not sure where you actually saved it, that is where a full system search can help.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

I fixed the problem. It was quite a saga. In summary, I moved my OneDrive folder from my C Drive (SSD) to my E Drive (older style HD) and Musescore quit providing error messages and erratic behavior. It seems the problem was somehow related to folder permissions.

I do want to document the behavior which led to me thinking the file had saved, but had not been saved, in case it could happen to others. Other users could think a file is updated and saved when it is not. Here’s how I was able to reproduce error. I have screenshots of each step.

I searched entire computer and did not find the mscz file from yesterday. Respectfully, Musescore did NOT save my file from yesterday. These sequence below replicates the non-saving behavior. The key glitch happened when I clicked "Yes" to replacing file, but it was not replaced and there was not error message. No version existed of my work from yesterday.

(1.png) About 2 weeks ago, Musescore updated to Version 3.5.0.13199, Revision 43c5553.

(2.png) Opened score “I Had The Craziest Dream.mscz” from location C:\Users\wesst\OneDrive\01 - Music\00 - Transcription\

(3.png) Made some changes in order test Saving.

(4.png) Hit “Save” Icon, but received error “Open Temp File failed: Bad file descriptor”

Tried “File > Save” and received same error

(5.png) Selected “File > Save As…” and received dialog box. The modified date for my file was 8/4/20 in screen shot.

(6.png) Received “Do You Want To Replace File?” dialog box since the file name was the same and I wanted to replace old file with new file.

Selected “Yes”.

At this point, I believed the file was saved and I closed program. Musescore closed without asking any questions about unsaved changes.

(7.png) When I go to the directory containing the file, I see the modified date has not changed to today and the file was not saved. It is still listed 8/4/20, though Musescore actions (in not throwing up a warning) would indicate I had just saved a later version on 8/11/20.

(8.png and 9.png) I reopened Musescore and the old file loaded.

For troubleshooting, I made some more changes and tried to save the changed score as a new name “test.mscz”. I received a new error “You don’t have permission to save in this folder. Would you like to save in the wesst folder instead?” (10.png).

I clicked “Yes” and it saved there, but that was not satisfactory as I had been working out of my data file folders before the update.

So I started to hunt down the answer to this error message to see if fixing the Windows error message would fix the problem of Musescore not notifying you your evidently saved file was not saved.

Before I dug too deep, I realized I had meant to move my OneDrive folder off my solid state hard drive C and onto my data hard drive E (spinning standard HD).

Once I did this, all errors went away, so I didn’t dig any deeper into folder permissions.

I hope this never happens again! Next, I’ll go back into Musescore and transcribe Kenny Dorham’s solo again…. But check that the file “Modified Date” actually changes before closing Musescore!

It’s a great program, but all those hours……

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In reply to by stephen3410

Glad you seem to have largely figured it out, but I thing there are still some missing pieces here. The fact that you got the errors on save at first does indeed likely point to a permissions problem. A normal save uses a temp file it then renames, and unexpected errors during this process will trigger the dialog. But save as goes through a different path. Here, I think what happened is that Windows saw the permission problem and did what it sometimes does when trying to save to a protected folder - it silently saved a copy for you in something called the "virtual store". It's a very strange thing and I don't understand the details of it all, but I'm now guessing that is where the file went.

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