Adjusting height of "Preferences" causes it to go off-screen on some monitors

I can't reproduce. But there was a bug with this dialog that had been fixed in 3.5.2, so please try that one

See also #306644: Preferences window doesn't match on a 15'' Laptop screen and height isn't resizeable Apparently this affects a small number of Windows systems, I'm not sure if the cause is understood yet. But from what I understand, the dialog is simply hidden behind the main window, and may still respond to Esc?

You're still only one...

(Edited after Mark's reply below)
This is to confirm that this bug is still present in 3.5.2 on Windows 10 running on a mainstream laptop (a Microsoft Surface Book). One can work around the problem as discussed below, though I have chosen to revert to 3.4, where Preferences is properly sized to begin with (for my screen) and where you can resize it if you like without causing it to vanish.

A couple of points:

1. This first point is just preliminary, to explain why I keep trying to make the Preferences window shorter (I now know it can't be done).

The Preferences window in 3.5 is taller than it was in earlier versions, and is now too tall for my screen, so that the OK/Cancel/Apply buttons aren't visible. The basic problem is that the whole dialog box is taller than it used to be because of some new settings on just one of the tabs, the Canvas tab. On relatively 'short' screens, there's not enough room any more. This issue is covered in "#306644: Preferences window doesn't match on a 15'' Laptop screen and height isn't resizable" (https://musescore.org/en/node/306644) but that title threw me off--I don't have a 15" screen and I had no way to tell that the height can't be resized, since trying to do so makes the entire window disappear. I had clicked through most of the tabs before posting but somehow must have missed the extra items on the Canvas tab. (Although layout changes might eliminate the problem for most people, the simplest solution would be to add scroll bars to the Preferences dialog.)

2. The problem I'm addressing here is that indeed, as the OP has been saying, attempting to resize the Preferences box causes it to jump out of the visible part of the (Windows) display canvas, and therefore to disappear from the screen. The visual effect is that it seems to very quickly descend down the screen until you can't see it any more.

This "falling-quickly-downward-till-it-disappears" behavior only happens when you try to resize the box vertically. Horizontal resizing does not cause Preferences to roll off the screen. But I don't need to horizontally resize the box--it's the vertical dimension that's the problem, since the the Ok and Cancel buttons are inaccessible.

3. As has already been said, pressing Enter confirms any changes and exits the window. Likewise, pressing Esc cancels your changes and takes you back to the main program. But: once the window has moved off of the visible part of the Windows display canvas, it stays there. The next time you go to Edit -> Preferences nothing seems to happen on screen, but now the user interface is unresponsive--you can't select music or commands--and every click produces an error beep. Gad.

4. When you calm down, if you calm down, and assuming you still have the need to change settings you can get actually get the Preferences box back: Do Edit->Preferences if you're not already "non-displaying" Preferences, then press Alt+spacebar to bring up the little window menu, select Move, and finally use the up arrow key to haul Preferences back up to the visible part of the canvas. You can't get it high enough to click Ok or Cancel (well I can't on my machine) so you still need Enter or Esc to dismiss the box.

Your point 1. is covered by #306644: Preferences window doesn't match on a 15'' Laptop screen and height isn't resizeable

Thank you for encouraging me to read that issue more closely -- the title didn't suggest the problem I'm having, and although the Canvas tab is mentioned early on, it isn't clear why until quite some ways down in the thread. I've edited my earlier post accordingly.

I just reported this problem in
#312119
"MuseScore Preferences" Screen- Can't see Save/Cancel Buttons
Gata_ • Oct 23, 2020 - 16:14

One of the issues is that the buttons are so far down the screen, they cannot be seen with smaller screen sizes, or if your monitor settings are set too large for viewing. But the other problem, regarding the screen scrolling off is a different problem, since it cannot do that.
I included a screen shot to with my posting.

#312119: "MuseScore Preferences" Screen- Can't see Save/Cancel Buttons is a duplicate of the above mentioned #306644: Preferences window doesn't match on a 15'' Laptop screen and height isn't resizeable

I can reproduce this bug on a Lenovo Thinkpad P40 Yoga, running an up-to-date Windows 10 installation, screen resolution 1920x1080, UI scaling 1.5x, MuseScore version 3.5.2.

What seems to be happening is that, when a mouse event is handled while resizing the "Preferences" dialog, the dialog is instantaneously moved downwards by 300 pixels or so. This happens once on mouse-down, once on mouse-up, and many times on mouse-move, which is why the dialog appears to suddenly disappear off the bottom of the screen.

I've experienced a similar bug in another Qt app: the main window of Intel Graphics Monitor, from the Intel Graphics Performance Analyzer suite. It's possible this is a Qt bug.

Reproduced by multiple users here:

#309065: Windows 10: MuseScore blocked by hidden dialog for preferences

I use v. 3.5OS: Windows 10 (10.0), Arch.: x86_64, MuseScore version (64-bit): 3.5.2.311459983, revision: 465e7b6.2.311459983.
Any change in the size of the PREFERENCES window causes it to move downwards without access. MuseScore loses its functionality, as if waiting for a response from the user, until the ESC key is pressed. Then, after the ESC key is pressed, the PREFERENCES option is permanently disabled, without access. The solution is to close the program and start over. I tested this on several computers (laptops and desktops) and the result is always the same.

Regression vs. what exatly?

So a duplicate of #309065: Windows 10: MuseScore blocked by hidden dialog for preferences, right?

Yes.