MuseScore 3.6.0 AppImage in Ubuntu Studio 18.04 with KXStudio is very slow to open and does respond with enormous delays (like 30 seconds or so)

• Jan 17, 2021 - 14:43
Reported version
3.6
Type
Performance
Frequency
Few
Severity
S2 - Critical
Reproducibility
Always
Status
active
Regression
Yes
Workaround
Yes
Project

I'm using the AppImage on Ubuntu Studio 18.0.4.
When opening only the Pallette at the left shows and then it takes 30 seconds or longer to completely open MS.
Then, when hitting play for example, and trying to stop playing again, the software hangs again and one has to wait yet another 30 seconds or so.
Also with closing and opening the navigator pane. Saving and trying to keep on working in MS. One still has to wait. I'm not sure what in musescore causes even more delay. Also the problem appears when changing notes. It plays the notes and keeps playing it for so long (30s). Completely unworkable this way.

It does not make any difference if I remove the old Musescore installations. It keeps having this problems.


Comments

Status active needs info

Not the case here, so we'd need to understand the unique properties of your system that are leading to this. Probably an interaction with some other process or shared library on your system, but I wouldn't actually know where to begin looking.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

'Not the case here'. Do you mean you tested it on Ubuntu 18.04? It should not be that hard to test that, although it requires an install. Of course, I cannot test reproducibility on my own system (even though the problem is consistent on my own system). It should at least be tested on Ubuntu and preferably the same version 18.04. If that gives the same problem, that should say enough. If not, one may conclude that it is something special/extra that I have. But, the only special thing I have is that I use Ubuntu Studio 18.04 with KXStudio on top (the latter is not standard); maybe that causes it, I don't know, and it may indeed be something that not everyone uses, but everything else works perfectly fine with me, and, to be honest, I can hardly imagine that that causes it (but one never knows). I need KXStudio, because Ubuntu and also Ubuntu Studio are moving away from Jack, including support of fire wire sound cards (they don't support it any more).

In reply to by Jojo-Schmitz

@ 'Jojo'. Meaning? Happened only once? You don't know yet. Seems an assumption based on many Linux users who have not yet said, and I'm the only one who mentions this (yet). Of course I'm using Ubuntu Studio 18.04 and the App Image MS 3.6.0 is not out for such a long time. And many, like myself, tend to use the old one, if something is not working properly. Also, saying that I'm the only one and no-one else is having the problem (and saying there are many) is not very encouraging to even mention a problem (if that's the attitude). Anyway, I hope it can be solved on my system. I need Ubuntu Studio 18.04 with KXStudio on top. Can't switch. I tried many distributions and solutions; this is the only one that works flawlessly with my home-studio and virtual pipe organ setup (everything based on Jack and Firewire).

Reported only once, only by one person, you. That's that the field "Frequency" is about.
Nobody else so far reported this. If and when that happens we set it to Few, and once there are more than 5 independant reports, we set it to Many.

Maybe updating it a later Ubuntu would help?

Title MuseScore 3.6.0 AppImage is very slow to open and does respond with enormous delays (like 30 seconds or so) MuseScore 3.6.0 AppImage in Ubuntu 18.04 is very slow to open and does respond with enormous delays (like 30 seconds or so)

Do you mean you tested it on Ubuntu 18.04? It should not be that hard to test that, although it requires an install.
I guess you're overestimating (by far) the time and equipment the devoplers have at hand to test all possible combinations of hardware, operating system and software...

Title MuseScore 3.6.0 AppImage in Ubuntu 18.04 is very slow to open and does respond with enormous delays (like 30 seconds or so) MuseScore 3.6.0 AppImage in Ubuntu Studio 18.04 is very slow to open and does respond with enormous delays (like 30 seconds or so)
Title MuseScore 3.6.0 AppImage in Ubuntu Studio 18.04 is very slow to open and does respond with enormous delays (like 30 seconds or so) MuseScore 3.6.0 AppImage in Ubuntu Studio 18.04 with KXStudio is very slow to open and does respond with enormous delays (like 30 seconds or so)

May or may not be relevant, futur might tell.
But might explain why there are no other reports yet?

In reply to by Jojo-Schmitz

Title MuseScore 3.6.0 AppImage in Ubuntu Studio 18.04 with KXStudio is very slow to open and does respond with enormous delays (like 30 seconds or so) MuseScore 3.6.0 AppImage is very slow to open and does respond with enormous delays (like 30 seconds or so)

I can't do that. I really need Ubuntu Studio 18.04 (long term stable release). I tried upgrading before, including a fresh install, but then I don't have a sufficient working combination with KXStudio, because the latest version of Ubuntu moves too far away of the things I need (even KXStudio cannot make up for that then). So, it does not give me a stable complete working studio at the very least. So, I went back to the trusted Ubuntu Studio 18.04. I spend a lot of time in that and I'm therefore not willing to install my system to the latest version (it would mess up my studio). I did not try the latest version of Ubuntu with this App Image. But, I remind you that under the downloadable App Image (https://musescore.org/en/download) it says: "Suitable for all Linux distributions'. I don't make the claim. Musescore does. Has it been tested on Ubuntu Studio 18.04? Or does this assume 'all latest versions of Linux distributions?' Then it should say so.

Title MuseScore 3.6.0 AppImage is very slow to open and does respond with enormous delays (like 30 seconds or so) MuseScore 3.6.0 AppImage in Ubuntu Studio 18.04 with KXStudio is very slow to open and does respond with enormous delays (like 30 seconds or so)

See https://ubuntustudio.org/2020/04/ubuntu-studio-20-04-lts-released/
Another LTS, and 2 years newer

It runs on any Linux distro, including your's. That's what it says, not that it has been tested on all.
It has been tested on those the participating developers, development build, Beta and RC testers are using. Your particular combination apparently was not among this

In reply to by Jojo-Schmitz

Title MuseScore 3.6.0 AppImage in Ubuntu Studio 18.04 with KXStudio is very slow to open and does respond with enormous delays (like 30 seconds or so) MuseScore 3.6.0 AppImage is very slow to open and does respond with enormous delays (like 30 seconds or so)

It might. I might also go to great lengths to try it on my other PC, a Thinkpad laptop (I would then try the AppImage with Ubuntu Studio 18.04, without and with KXStudio ). But then again, if I can reproduce it there, I would still be the only one at the time being. Would you believe me then? Would that be enough? The only difference is that it would not be exactly comparable even, with my OS on the PC (where I have the problem), because on my PC I have ran many updates already (no upgrades) and I'm not sure the laptop will have that updates then already (probably not all of them). But I would suppose that this App Image should work well, independently from updates on the Linux distribution (if not it would be very hard to claim it would work on any distribution; then one should name versions).

Title MuseScore 3.6.0 AppImage is very slow to open and does respond with enormous delays (like 30 seconds or so) MuseScore 3.6.0 AppImage in Ubuntu Studio 18.04 with KXStudio is very slow to open and does respond with enormous delays (like 30 seconds or so)

Of course we believe you. I've even seen it in the video you provided.

In reply to by Jojo-Schmitz

Title MuseScore 3.6.0 AppImage in Ubuntu Studio 18.04 with KXStudio is very slow to open and does respond with enormous delays (like 30 seconds or so) MuseScore 3.6.0 AppImage is very slow to open and does respond with enormous delays (like 30 seconds or so)

I know that distribution (of course). Like I said, I upgraded to it and also freshly installed it already once, but returned to a freshly 18.04 install, for reasons I mentioned. Took me a lot of time (to try to get it work with my studio; it didn't).

Title MuseScore 3.6.0 AppImage is very slow to open and does respond with enormous delays (like 30 seconds or so) MuseScore 3.6.0 AppImage in Ubuntu Studio 18.04 with KXStudio is very slow to open and does respond with enormous delays (like 30 seconds or so)

In reply to by [DELETED] 36738910

That's such a shame, because I really need it and desperately want to use it, but it prevents me from being able to use it now. It would keep me waiting most of the time; to the extend that it really is unworkable. I will try to do some more testing, but, if you are not willing to make chances to it, unless there are more (how many?), what's the use of it?

I just tried it on my other 'machine', my laptop, which has the Linux distribution Xubuntu running, VERSION="20.04.1 LTS (Focal Fossa)" .
Same problems with slowness (even though I use Alsa now instead of Jack; I have an USB soundcard connected to my laptop; no firewire). So, the sound the sound system used makes no difference, nor does the distribution, so it seems. Seems like a repetition to me.

Who? Me or you? All I can tell is that on my PC it uses Linux 4.15.0-132-lowlatency x86_64 and on the laptop Linux 5.4.0-58-generic x86 64. Both are kernels used by Ubuntu, which the latter is originally derived from Debian (I think). That's the branch the distributions are from (Ubuntu). I suspect now that it is a problem on all Ubuntu distributions, but I haven tested any further yet. I have to make USB boot drives with the distributions installed on it. Later.

Hi
How are your setup. Are you using jack2. In that case is it bridged via pulseaudio or directly to alsa. There are currently problems with recent Qt versions and alsa without pulseaudio. So your delay may be beacuse of pulseaudio starting and stopping. Try the different options for i/o (pulseaudio, alsa, jack). I am on gentoo. I do not have 3.6 yet. But there are alsa bugs in qt currently. That is probably why debian and derivatives are still at version MS ver 3.2.3.

In reply to by larshenrikoern

@larshenrikoern. Read from page 6. https://www.gertim.com/Ubuntu_Studio_with_KXstudio.odt
I use Ubuntu Studio, with KXStudio on top. The reason why I did that is that it routes everything through and to Jack and works superior (for my firewire studio setup with virtual pipe organ). Without it, it is almost impossible to get everything working (I also use Ardour, Audacity, MuseScore, GrandOrgue with my studio and they all have to be able to work together). I don't use JackQt to setup jack. I use Cadence (by KXStudio; they cut Qt out). I use Jackd2 indeed. It is not bridged like you said; KXStudio does that differently and offers more possibilities.
With KXStudio everything is bridged to Jack and there are several options to do that. See also: https://www.gertim.com/Cadence_Jack.mkv

Maybe. But there are currently serious issues with Qt and alsa, and the qt developers are not dealing with it. So this might be the reason why it is not updated. It will introduce new bugs.
On gentoo I had problem with MS when i did disable pulseaudio with MS 3.5.2. QT does not work with sound then. Enabling pulseaudio did solve the problem.
I am a professional musician myself. My setup is Gentoo, jack2 with cadence as well ;-). But be sure pulseaudio is running. It might be your problem.

In reply to by larshenrikoern

Thank you very much for the hint. I will test further on this. I always have pulseaudio running as a bridge to Jack, but to be sure... Do you mean this (pulseaudio running as a bridge) or do you mean that one should use Pulseaudio in Musescore also, as a MS setting as well (that I haven't; I use Jack there in the I/O settings in MS, because I need it to connect to GrandOrgue to be able to make recordings from Musescore playback).
The problem appeared while pulseaudio was running (that is; pulseaudio bridged to Jack). I always have pulseaudio running, because I use YouTube a lot, and without Pulseaudio you have no internet sound, from the browser (Firefox).

In reply to by Jojo-Schmitz

@Jojo-Schmitz. It would be nice to know what causes it exactly, so it can be addressed well by the developers, either of the Debian derivatives or MS developers. Do you have a clue what the problem is? Is it the sound system. Is it about dependencies? About libraries? Right now, it could be anything, right? Any idea?

In reply to by larshenrikoern

@Larshenrikoern. By the way. I just tested it and I have exactly the same problems with Pulseaudio turned off alltogether in Cadence and having the settings in MuseScore fully on Jack (the three checkboxes checked in the MuseScore Jack settings); exactly the same problem of great delay. It does not seem to make any difference (on my system). Maybe I'll try Gentoo on my laptop once and see how that works. I never used it.

Hi

My suggetion is to have pulseaudio turned ON, and bridging through jack. You may try with pajackconnect. https://github.com/brummer10/pajackconnect. It routes all pa requests to jack. It works quite well and so do bridging through Cadence. In my experience this is not adding latency to the sound.

And I have not said your problem is PA. It might as well be other things. Not having Musescore as a native program on your system, might cause bugs to show up. Gentoo requires some knowledge to get up and running. It is do it yourself. So you learn a lot over time. I have being using debian as well for a long period.

Try starting musescore from commandline and look the output. It might give you a clue what is going on.

@larshenrikoern. Thanks for the suggestions. I'm not going to try pajackconnect right now. I'm afraid to mess up the KXStudio settings with that and that is working fine (I have no problems with routing PA to Jack; works fine all the time). I also have 'MS 3.2.3+dfsg1-4~ppa1804+1' native on my system (through a repository, PPA, by Mirabilos, I believe). That version works fine, but i need the plugins of BSG, which don't work on that version. I may try another development version again, but I recall they had comparable problems. I combined both and used the buggy versions (on my system) to add the cut backs and the tempo changes and go back and forth; quite a pain to use it that way (with all the delays). What you describe about Gentoo. I'm not ready to build/compile an operating system from scratch. It is enough trouble already. I'm having quite a stable system, which outperforms Mac/Windows now and has extremely low latency settings and is rock stable right now. I went through a lot of trouble to get there already and to keep it that way. Maybe on a separate machine. Thanks for your great response. Very useful. Highly appreciated as well.

In reply to by [DELETED] 36738910

Hi again

The most important thing when you are doing serious work is stability. And ubuntu (and debian) provides just that. I am myself using musescore for arranging music. For serious printing I am using lilypond. But I can see Musescore is getting closer to being good for layout (and soon spacing) as well. So this might change in the future.

Nice to have a chat with you. I am from Denmark. So a kind of neighbour as well ;-)

BTW, to answer a question directed at me - "'Not the case here'. Do you mean you tested it on Ubuntu 18.04?" - no, I mean the AppImage runs fine on my Linux systems. And we have many thousands upon thousands of Linux users, a great many on Ubuntu, doubtless quite a few still on 18.04 for whatever release. So it can't possibly be common to all Ubuntu distributions, or we'd have heard at least one other report beyond this thread - indeed we'd have heard hundreds.

So it's not likely an inherent issue with the AppImage or its ability to run on Ubuntu, but some issue with your particular system. More likely, as I said, some specific piece of software or hardware that is unique to your systems. Not sure why our saying this should be discouraging, Quite the contrary, it should encourage you that this is almost certainly solvable at your end by doing some more experimentation. The fact that you see it on two different systems whereas no one else sees it at all is a great clue - really just a matter of you tracing your steps to figure out exactly what you customized similarly on both systems.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Thank you for your response, but I more and more think it indeed has to do with what was mentioned earlier, because that seems to make sense with my recent test results so far. I mean, what was mentioned earlier; that Debian variants/forks, like Ubuntu based distributions, haven't updated something crucial yet and so those distributions still use, or are forced to use MS 3.2. There is a problem with it.
For example: I just tested the latest version of AVLinux (AVL-MXE-2020.12.03-xfce4) on my laptop and it has exactly the same problems as I mentioned earlier. The AV Linux also has the 3.2 version standardly installed in the distribution and that version works totally fine. AVLinux is also a Debian 'fork'/derivative, so it confirms what was mentioned before. It is yet very well possible that I'm the first, to mention it. I just test and ran into this. What you say, may sounds likely, but one simply does not know it for sure (it is an assumption). And, with this, we cannot assume. When I test, however, then I know it for sure and can exclude things. There may be a dozens of reasons why it has not been noticed or reported by others. I did it this time (for numerous reason that also may not apply to any one else). But, it can be significantly reproduced, so it seems, and that's all what matters. Because, the problem appeared not only on my PC, but also on my laptop, 2 times on 2 different OS's, with a totally different sound system as on my PC (but both are forks from Ubuntu). So, the common factor till now is that they (the 3 OS's on which the problem appears) are all Ubuntu based. So, I think it will be highly likely that others with Ubuntu fork distributions may also encounter the same problems, but not everyone may notice it or really use it, or think it is important enough, or make notice of it; whatever. I did, because I need it, but that may very well not be the case with others (I would not have mentioned it if 3.2 would be sufficient to me), so the urgency may vary, or the felt need to mention it. At least I have proven now that it is the case for more (3; Ubuntu Studio 18.04, KXStudio and AVLinux) Ubuntu based systems on different machines, with different sound settings and sound cards (my PC has a firewire soundcard and my laptop I had on a USB soundcard and then on the internal soundcard) and with different operating systems (the common factor however is; they all are Ubuntu based). Quote: "or we'd have heard at least one other report beyond this thread - indeed we'd have heard hundreds" is, how reasonable it may sound, yet an assumption. Many people may have large problems with some companies but may never mention it for many different reasons. Not everyone makes note of it (it depends on their interest) or if they want to go there or not. All kind of reasons are possible (or they simply won't notice the delay by not doing what I did). It is not an argument I find very convincing at all, with all respect. The only thing that matters, basically, is that it can be repeated, reproduced on other operating systems, with other sound settings (it does), preferably by more people (but the latter is not even absolutely needed). Reproducibility is the key. If so, it proves it does not depend on what I have on my PC or my sound settings there. It does not depend on that. So, the problem is probably wider and more substantially present (on other Linux-OS as wel; Ubuntu based). So, maybe I should install Windows again, one day, or buy a Mac, or use an non-Debian fork/distribution of Linux or wait for the developers of Ubuntu to upgrade what is needed. It is as it is. I have to learn to live with it.

In reply to by [DELETED] 36738910

> use an non-Debian fork/distribution of Linux

On a semi-related note, MuseScore was upgraded to 3.6 today in the official Arch Linux (community) repository. However, I wouldn't recommend using Arch or an Arch-based distro (such as Manjaro, which I currently use) as a daily driver if you don't have time to put up with the seemingly random things that break (due to the nature of a rolling-release distro). Do any users of, say, RHEL-based distros (such as Fedora) want to chime in?

In reply to by funnyflywheel

Thanks. I might try that (Arch Linux). Have you tried it with MS 3.6? I recall I have installed ArchLinux in the past already once, but I may give it another shot now (but you saying it regularly breaks down is enough not to install it on a machine; just a live USB). I'm about to download Fedora and try that as well in a live environment, from USB as well (with the possibility to download and use the AppImage 3.6.0 of MS from there).

Regarding "Debian variants/forks, like Ubuntu based distributions, haven't updated something crucial yet and so those distributions still use, or are forced to use MS 3.2" - I don't understand this. The only reason some distributions don't include recent versions of MuseScore is the maintainers have too much on their plate as it is to try to get the builds exactly right - and it's tricky indeed. That's why we provide the AppImage in the first place.

Anyhow, again, the AppImage works fine on most Ubuntu and Debian installations. Really, truly, they do - there are thousands upon thousands of AppImage users.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

I don't understand it either. Maybe, even though it is an AppImage it yet needs some missing dependencies for it to be able to run? Although I also understand that's why an AppImage is used in the first place. So, I don't know; I'm not a developer (it was mentioned to me above). I'm just trying to figure out what works for me with the MS 3.6.0 App Image and can only speak for myself. The only thing I notice is that 3.2 works fine, but the latest AppImage 3.6 obviously does not, on 3 tested different OS (all Ubuntu based) and 3 different sound systems. Others can only speak for themselves when they test and try it and/or mention it; if they happen to test the same things and indeed mention it. You can repeat it a thousand times, but it does not make it more convincing to me. What matters is: has it been tested by anyone else of those thousands of users and has it been confirmed to work; not be an issue? Or is it supposedly working, because no one has mentioned this yet (except me; and I may represent thousands and thousands of people who may have the same issue; but don't realize it yet or whatever). If this has been tested to work, on what systems, and on what systems is it an issue? In the mean time I'll keep looking and trying what works for me.

Although I can imagine that the AppImage can largely, but not entirely work on its own and for that (the external connections) it may still require certain things who may, or may not, be available to the extend what the AppImage needs it to function well/best. But again, I'm not a developer.

Hi again

You have a working system you seems satisfied with except musescore is now out in a never and better version ;-)

How is your sound configured. What combination of alsa, jack and pulseaudio is running ?
What backend alsa,jack, pa is enabled in musescores preferences ??
I have freezes on my version (3.5.2) when changing sound system. I did not have any sound on my system when pulseaudio was not present (I did not have it earlier when I tried it on Linux Calculate without pulseaudio). On my system this was easy done by enabling pa, because it is gentoo. But when jack is running changing the soundsytem causes Musescore to hang. Closed by issue the kill command. All this is because of a bug in qt. Alsa does not work without pulseaudio

Try starting the program from commandline. What is the output around the freeze ??

This might very well give a hint of why your system does not work as others are

The AppImage is supposed to include the dependencies it needs in terms of things expected, but - it doesn't include its own kernel, or device drivers, etc. So yeah, there are certainly dependencies - ones that in theory shouldn't matter, or should be unique to your own personal system anyhow. That's why the only think I can think is for you to really think about your installation processes and consider what you are doing similarly on the systems where you see the problem that maybe others don't do. That might mean anything from connecting to some specific WiFi network to using some specific user name as your login (seriously, I once debugged a performance problem that literally turned out to be due to the number of characters in the user name).

@larshenrikoern. On my main machine, my PC, I have MS 3.2 installed from the repository (I added the PPA of mirabilos). That works perfectly fine. No problems whatsoever. Only problem is with the AppImage. It does not make a difference what I sound settings I use; they all give the same problems. Normally I use everything through Jack with all the bridges on and working. I don't switch. I use Jack settings in I/O MS as well and have always all the bridges running, including the PulseAudio bridge.
So, what you describe, I don't have at all. Even if I use Pulseaudio in MS (with bridges on) or Alsa, ar Jack (all with the bridges on), it all works; I have good sound with that, but I do have the same slowness problems with only the AppImage of MS 3.6.0. Then I just downloaded and ran a fresh install from a USB stick and tried an other fresh install (this time on my laptop). Both the same problems with the Appimage 3.6.0; sound system again not an issue at all. This becomes a repeating session. I'll keep trying and let you know the outcome. I have to try to figure this out myself now, I think. Thank you all again.

Hi

You might try to contact mirabilos. He might know something we and the musescore developers do not know. And it is in fact a bug that musescore is not getting update along the way. So I am sure there is a explanation. It might interest everybody here ;-)

Have a good nights sleep ;-)

In reply to by larshenrikoern

Ok. I figured that the Xubuntu version on my laptop had probably not been updated for a while (I have not used my laptop for a while). I thought it would/should make no difference, but I just decided to do it anyway. And guess what: It made all the difference. I just did sudo apt-get update and then sudo apt-get ugrade and then all of a sudden, after that, the AppImage MS 3.6.0 works like a charm on my laptop now. All delay problems are instantly gone on that machine. I believe those were Xubuntu updates from, basically Ubuntu 20.04. So, that works and it has to do with updates, so maybe dependencies is some form. I at least have it working on one system now, my laptop. That was unexpectedly simple. So it may indeed have to do with software or dependencies in the updates/latest versions. Peculiar. That is quite dependent I would say (on the latest updates). I updated (not upgraded) with the latest Ubuntu 20.04 updates (Xubuntu is a light weight for of Ubuntu). So, clearly, some dependencies from the updates of 20.04 are needed or at least make it work. It had version 20.04 of Xubuntu already, and so, for some reason, it clearly needed the latest updates.

So, this is hopeful (that it works on my laptop with an updated Xubuntu 20.04). I think I'll run the risk of messing the system on my PC now and try an upgrade to Ubuntu Studio 20.04 (again with KXStudio on top) on my PC. I hope it won't break my studio system (it did just that before; maybe KXStudio wasn't really ready then yet). I'll make a backup and try a fresh install. The website of KXStudio now says: The KXStudio repositories support all Debian versions since 10 (Buster) and Ubuntu 18.04 (Bionic) or above including Ubuntu 20.04. I'll make the result known here as well. I hope it works.

Wow! Glad it's working for you, but now I'm more curious than ever as to what was missing. If that can be identified, then perhaps that can be added to the AppImage.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

That was on my laptop running Xubuntu 20.04. I'm trying to get it working on my PC now as. I upgraded Ubuntu Studio 18.04 from within the OS to Ubuntu Studio 20.04. No success. Same problem; even worse. Trying to open the AppImage stalled everything. I'm trying a freshly new install now. I have no idea how to find out what did it with Xubuntu on my laptop. I'll keep you informed about (hopefully) further progress.

I’ve personally got only bad experiences with the mere presence of pulseaudio, and uninstalling the pulseaudio package proved to be the fix for all of them. Note that this is on Debian, not on *buntu, and I know that the more you deviate from the default *buntu installation the more buggy it becomes; also not sure whether KXStudio has anything that depends on poettering-breaks-audio, ahem pulseaudio.

There were also problems in pulseaudio and JACK playing together. Basically, when JACK starts, pulseaudio needs to temporarily relinquish full audio control, hand it to JACK, and then switch to using JACK as backend; in a test with a comrade who didn’t want to get rid of his systemd-audiod ahem pulseaudio, we did not manage to get this working smoothly at all.

So, the only idea I have regarding this is to deinstall pulseaudio, which may or may not break other parts of the system.

I’ve personally used MuseScore only with “just ALSA”, no JACK.

As for packaging newer releases… will do that eventually, but right now, lack of spare hacking time prevents me from that. A new Debian release is approaching, and I need to take care of a lot of packages. I’m backporting many fixes from newer versions as well, but the 3.6+ versions will be only available via backports as there’s a feature freeze really soon (and this was planned; I can provide newer versions via backports and PPA easily but not change existing versions in stable). TTBOMK there’s nothing in Debian 11 (to be released soon) or *buntu 21.04 (not LTS) preventing MuseScore 3.6+ from working; the current stable versions (Debian 10, *buntu 20.04 and 18.04) may have a Qt version that the MuseScore developers decided is beneath them to support (mostly because the Qt company broke everyone’s understanding of what LTS means).

So, sorry, but other than the one suggestion, I don’t have an idea right now.

Thank you for your extensive answer and tips. I just did a freshly Ubuntu Studio 20.04 install. Even buggier. It stalls the system when even trying to run the AppImage. Next I'll try an upgrade to the latest, if that does not work. I'll go back to Ubuntu 18.04 or Xubuntu on my PC as well. Have to see how it all works out. Thanks again. And all the hard work you developers do.

Hi again

Sorry to hear about your woes. Hope all goes well in the end. The main problem here as I see it, is the clutter pulseaudio is making. Sometimes it works. If not it is creating a lot of problems. Before gentoo I was using Devuan and here everything just worked. I could remove pulseaudio all together with no problems, and improve performance a bit as well. The problem is I have not found any distribution where this did work and having recent programs. Thats why I went with gentoo. Here I cant get Musescore make any sound without pulseaudio. But everything else did work without it. So I enabled the pulseaudioflag, and then it does work. And as the best sounding configuration I have tried yet when jack is running. The sound I very precise well defined and clean. Better than I thought my rather cheap speakers could do ;-)

Have a nice day

Thanks. I tried that already (sudo apt-get purge pulseaudio), but in this case, completely removing pulseaudio did not make any difference (here it isn't the Pulseaudio system, but something else; I know for a very long time, for many years now, what problems Pulseaudio can cause). I need Pulseaudio on my PC, because I need to be able to hear YT musicvideos. UPDATE: I first did a freshly install of Ubuntu Studio 20.04 on my PC and tried to run the AppImage 3.6.0 of MS. No success; even bigger problems with a completely stall of the whole OS system (stalling everything and not responding; only a hard reboot, holding the on/off button on the PC, could bring me back). Then I tried to get KXStudio working on top of the OS, but that did not work as well. I figured, because the Xubuntu distribution worked on my laptop (including the AppImage after running all the updates; have an updated system), I then installed Xubuntu 20.04 on my PC as well. And guess what: it worked. Also my sound system/studio also seems to be working now, but I have not fully been able to test that, but everything looks good. Back to Qjackctl and that works also; Jack works fine (no more Cadence for now). I have not installed KXStudio on top of this Xubuntu install, because that ruined Ubuntu Studio, so I thought that to be too risky and it is not needed here, because in Xubuntu everything works.

So, it works. I'll keep that for now. I know that Xubuntu had a recent action with a lot of testing and maybe that is the reason why it works so well right now (in comparison to the other Ubuntu 'forks'). I have the AppImage working now, after a lot of trouble and let's hope that the rest will be working as well. Almost impossible for me to say what caused this, except it seems that an update on Xubuntu made it somehow work (however not on Ubuntu Studio; while both are based on Ubuntu 20.04).

Hi.

Glad you got your setup working (sort of). To me it sounds like a temporary hack. If I just had known you was using firewire. Then I would have told you that support for that has been almost abandoned. That would have saved time. Agreeing using usb and pulseaudio for professional
work with live sound seems stupid, unless they are improving the standards of pulseaudio a lot. If so it might be a step forward to a better working sound system in genral for linux. Witch is a very good thing

Have a nice day

Hi again

I have looked at the pulseaudio development site. Only three people are currently working on it. They are doing what they can. But if anyone has the time and interest and is used working in C I am sure any contribution will be welcome to join.

Have a nice day

It (Ubuntu 18.04 + KXStudio on top) may sound as a 'temporary hack,' but to me it is 'proven stable' and long lasting and far better working than any (stand alone) Ubuntu distribution I have tried and I have used this for many years. It provides a completely working system in Cadence for any sound card and it works flawlessly and everything connects perfectly well. This is not the case at all with all later versions of Ubuntu (and other distributions moving away from it). They mostly and exclusively work with the Alsa driver assuming a USB sound card (I doubt if thunderbolt will work at all, but I haven't tried that). Also Jack works best with this setup I have (in all possible setups; I also have a USB sound card with my laptop (Focusrite Scarlett 2i2), and I have used the same system on there as well (I temporarily switched to Xubunte, but now I installed it back to Ubuntu 18.04 with KXStudio on top as well); without all the 'bells and whistles'; all the studio software). So, I seriously don't understand why Ubuntu is not looking into this more. They should. They should return to having Jack as a solid and stable base and connect everything to that, by smoothly working bridges. Now it all seems like a loosely (dis)connected and unstable system which often breaks down (also USB based). The people at KXStudio have gone to great lengths to make it working and they apparently know what they are doing. So, the people at Ubuntu should learn from that and incorporate that, I think.

I would say, give it (Ubuntu Studio 18.04 with KXStudio on top) a try if you have a Firewire sound card
Works best (all later/newer Ubuntu versions is a 'no go').

(The M-audio profire 610 soud card works great on Ubuntu 18.04, together with the above OS-hack (first start 'Ffado, then in Cadence select 'firewire' and the right settings; see above). Windows 10 is no option, because the driver for the sound card is not being updated by the factory/company. I tried it with Windows 10 and I had many unsolvable drop-outs of the soundcard; unworkable. Besides that, using Jack in Linux is a great advantage, because one can connect any software package to it and it won't hijack the system; in Windows and Macintosh the sound is exclusively hijacked by the opened software package. With Linux I can play any sound from any package, even through each other and they all work and can be connected. I tried Jack on Windows; it hardly work; not as it should, not as with Linux! Of course the Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 USB soundcard works with any Ubuntu version, 'out of the box').

In reply to by [DELETED] 36738910

Unfortunately, Ubuntu’s a commercial product, and they are interested in / focussing on the “modern GNU/Linux desktop”, which involves all of Poettering’s catastrophes, including pulseaudio. It’s not designed to work with high-end stuff, or even musicians’ requirements; its goal is to bring some kind of GNU/Linux (plus revenue-generating ads and spyware) to an average user’s desktop or laptop to get them off Microsoft or Apple products.

Ubuntu is based on Debian, the largest “true” community GNU/Linux distribution. Even there you have pulseaudio by default, but things still work without it. (Some exceptions apply; e.g. my microphone works with some communication websites like wonder.me only in Chromium, not in Firefox; I use ALSA only. JACK works, but I’m not personally using it except where necessary.)

So, sorry to bust that particular bubble, but the Ubuntu situation will not improve over time; if at all, it will get worse.

Unfortunately, the KXStudio addons (Cadence, Catia, …) are not available for Debian. Win some, lose some.

Hi

You can use Debian/Ubuntu (and other general purpose distros) with external repositories. The problem here is that it will introduce bugs and instability. For me the solution has been using a distribution like gentoo where I decide what to install, what features to enable and disable. And I have had so many bad experiences with other systems because I did not understand and had access to debug it in a good manner myself. Compiling means that if it builds it will most certainly work from gentoos (stable with a few unstable) repository. This has been the most satisfying thing for me in a long time

Looking forward to try out MS 3.6 as soon it is in gentoos repository
Have a nice day

If you do it like I did (and I put the description in the link above) it won't create bugs and instability. After everything works I turned off the updates (except security updates) then it keeps on working just fine. It is very stable (Ubuntu 18.04 + KXStudio on top). But, like I said, other distributions are not. This is the only one that works with me (I believe 16.04 also worked, but certainly not the younger versions).

No, if you never change anything or get new hardware you will not have new bugs. But anyone who has other hardware and needs cant use it. But your system is stable in any way possible. If you compile your own kernel (I do among other things that) I can have firewire among other things with even the newest kernel.
But I am glad on your behalf that you found a solution that is good for you. But next time asking for help be please a bit more patient. I do not think anyone did figure out what the bugs were that caused the original problems

Have a nice evening

Ah, interesting. The KXStudio packages are probably compiled on the oldest common denominator then, if they also work on Debian. I’d still be wary as user, but one could just recompile the source packages unchanged locally.

Good to know!

@larshenrikoern. "if you never change anything or get new hardware you will not have new bugs. But anyone who has other hardware and needs cant use it." I'm trying to say that the system I have works without problems with more hardware (Firewire/USB) and has no limitations (while the newer versions have). It is not true that I don't buy new hardware (Like I said, i did buy and also use a USB sound card (Focusrite Scarlet 2i2) ), but many have or even buy (new) Firewire soundcards today and that still also should work. It is not the normally a principle that older hardware should no longer work on Linux, rather the opposite; the other way around (Linux is supposed to work fine on older hardware, where Windows and/or Mac. won't work any longer). So, they should not simply say 'we don't support it any longe, just buy new'. That is the wrong way, and not typicol Linux, and also many professionals still use Firewire and that is still the superior way over USB (even USB 3.0). So, if I would buy new, it would be Thunderbolt, but who guarantees me if that will work if this even does not work (Thunderbolt is the new Firewire). I want it to be tested and proven to work (so I read many reviews/forums about that, before I even buy).
Sorry, I don't understand the sentence: "If you compile your own kernel (I do among other things that) I can have firewire among other things with even the newest kernel." "But next time asking for help be please a bit more patient." I think my extensive testing and trying and reporting it here rather shows my patience than that the opposite would be true. Also, you saying: "I do not think anyone did figure out what the bugs were that caused the original problems" . You can only speak for yourself, not for anyone else. Thanks for your patience, if my response was too much for you or somehow annoyed you. Not intended at all. I highly appreciated your response... anyone's response and I read and thought about them carefully.

@mirabilos. Yes, that may be the right conclusion. Interesting, isn't it. Yeah, being wary is probably the right way to go with this. I have no experience with recompiling. No idea what you mean or how I should or if I should at all. I'm not a very technical user (no programmer or developer), just a user.

I was trying to tell you that if you compile your own kernel it has the support you need. But Ubuntu is not coming to rescue you. But the kernel has the drivers in its source tree. They almost never remove driver support for older devices. If you dont know how to configure and compile kernels there are plenty of guides out there. That was how it was made when i started using linux long, long ago. And it still works

Regarding patience. What I meant was that you have to wait a bit and let people supporting you have a chance of answering you before you have changed your system. If you like doing things that fast you are not helping others than yourself and do not need any advice since you are not waiting for any and in the process wasting other peoples time and effort.

Have a nice day

Ok, maybe I'll look into the advantages of compiling one's own version and if and why that would be useful (but I figure that is way above my expertise/knowledge level of Linux). I understood from the answers above at some point, that I basically was on my own and I had to find a solution myself (remember that the initial goal was to get MS3.6 working; and I needed that relatively fast). And then I decided to inform you all, and anyone else who it might help, further about the process of what I did and how I got it to work. As a sort of extra, as possibly helpful information to help anyone further or give clues to developers as well maybe, rather as a sign of taking everyone's help (above) seriously, and not at all to waste anyone's time.

I haven’t compiled my own Linux kernel since 2.4.3-ac7-aa1-rwsem. Nowadays, distro kernels are good, and given the frequency of security updates, compiling one’s own kernels would get boring quickly. With DKMS, automating compilation of out-of-tree kernel modules (“external drivers”) is easy enough, at least in Debian and its derivatives.

This all is more of an integration question, though. The drivers are there, it’s just getting every application to play well together that is tricky. Poetteringaudio makes this difficult, especially as things like Firefox now drop ALSA support (although firefox-esr in Debian still supports it at least for playback, so the distro goes against upstream here and adds back support for nōn-pulseaudio; I don’t think *buntu does that since they run the “our way or the highway” strategy).

Containers (not just things like Docker but also snap and AppImages) make this tons more difficult; they bundle their own libraries (often illegally, i.e. without caring for their licences, and always with no security support) which may not integrate well with the rest of the system (e.g. a well-integrated distro may just patch applications so they use a common sound configuration, use the same files for configuring the same things, etc. — this is pretty much the reason for nōn-vanilla distros). This very bundling which enables the container image distributors to offer one image for “all” distros, even those which lack the necessary prerequisites (such as recent enough Qt, in the case of MuseScore) for a native package, is causing these problems as well.

tl;dr: If KXStudio works with Debian (and they say they do), maybe give that a shot?

Thanks for your extensive insightful explanation and as for me trying Debian; I did that more than a decade ago, when I ran my own web server (without GUI). I have everything working now (including MS3.6 as long as I don't try to activate the navigation view/panel) and as they say; 'don't change a winning team' (and by the way, I did try out AVLinux (as you may have read above), which is based on Debian; it used Qjackctl and I could not get my soundcard to work there with the firewire driver). So, I'll stick with this for now.

I will once again say it is good it works for you. And that is important. It is right someone told you, that you were at your own. But look at the length of this tread. You are not alone, and probably never was.

What I said was: If you need some support the current kernel does not have, compile one yourself.

I am also glad you told detailed about your solution. If you just had been just as detailed in the beginning about your system and hardware, I am sure there would have been even more solutions.

And last you may take a look here: https://gentoostudio.org/ , Do not use it directly. This guy came into some sort of disagreement with the gentoo people. So no longer direct connection between that site and gentoo.org

Have a nice day

Here you can find my installation and configuration, based on Ubuntu Studio, with KXStudio on top. All is focussd on Audio, connected through and to Jack with firewire. (I have a home music studio with virtual pipe organ running on GrandOrgue and an M-Audio profire 610 external sound card, I extensively use Ardour, Audacity, Musescore and GrandOrgue; and they have to be able to work together).
See attached.

Now I yet have to figure out how to make an image or live distribution of my system, which I must be able to boot and install from that live version (iso on USB-stick), just as with any other distribution. I tried some solutions online, but for that I had to install things that gave unsolvable package conflicts. If I have that tested and working, I'll put it here for completion purpose (and to keep having a stable working sound system, which is very important to me).

By the way, the latest AppImage works fine now, with my latest install; see my post above of Feb 2, 2021 - 10:06. Except that 'the navigator' loads slow at initial load/use and then blocks MS; I have to wait until it appears; which lasts 10-30s or so). But, other then that, everything works great!
A big thank you for the developers (volunteers), who work so hard on this and keep doing so.
(OS: Ubuntu 18.04.5 LTS, Arch.: x86_64, MuseScore version (64-bit): 3.6.1.515740129, revision: d0fc8e9 )

Friends - I just tried the 3.6.2 app image on kubuntu 20.04. I'm having the same delays. My computer just thrashes when I launch the 3.6.2 image. 3.6.2 is using 25% of my cpu and is hopelessly unresponsive. I'm a longtime user of MuseScore on k/ubuntu. I've been using 3.2.3 for huge orchestral projects quite sucessfully, without any signs of strain. This is a long thread to wade through, and I'm not sure what a solution might be for me, but I thought I would report the same problem. I am using the 5.4.0-65-lowlatency kernel, and I do have ubuntu studio controls installed.

I would describe the functioning of 3.6.2 appimage in ubuntu 20.04 as something like molasses in January when opening an existing score for the first time. Much better with a new score, but I haven't really tried anything large in a new score.

Workaround No Yes

First of all, I found a workaround for my situation: After reading through some of the discussion above, I switched from PulseAudio to Alsa Audio in my I/O preferences and the thrashing stopped. I've been using 3.6.2 for a few days now on a huge score without a problem. FWIW: I had done a clean install of kubuntu 20.04. MuseScore 3.2x was installed and it worked fine. 3.6.2 AppImage thrashed.
Notes from before disabling PA:
1. Launching 3.6.2 from a command line leaves no error/problem output during the thrashing or on quitting.
2. Launching without opening an existing score, or starting with a new score seems fine at first, but just opening a menu or clicking on a palette item sends it into a tizzy. OK, so maybe there is some QT compatability issue going on here, but what does Pulse Audio have to do with clicking in the menubar or on a palette item?? Just seems like a logical non-developer question!
Hopefully this will help someone

Workaround Yes No

Hi!

I have the same problem here, Ubuntu Studio 20.04.3, Kernel Version 5.11.0-37 Low Latency, launching App Image 3.6.2

When I open the navigator, MuseScore freezes, eventually it responds but with huge delays. When Page setup is opened (which has a small navigator at the bottom of the window) it takes a few minutes to load, once I close it, I can use musescore again without any problems.

Best wishes!

Workaround No Yes

Might be the webview part of the dialog which can get disavled with the -w command line option and in the prefences.
Could also be caused by the MDL extension.

In reply to by Jojo-Schmitz

Workaround Yes No

Hi everybody, I found out recently that i have the same performance issues discussed here. It startet with MS 3.5.x.AppImage, but I am testing with 3.6.2. right now.
1. ancient Dell Latitude 620 with Ubuntu (Studio) 18.04 :Musescore 3.6.2.AppImage runs smoothly.
2. Dell Latitude 6430 with Ubuntu Ubuntu (Studio) 20.04 :Musescore 3.6.2.AppImage has the "molasses" issue.
The snap version of MS 3.6.2 works smoothly, but only with pulse. (No jack, no direct Alsa.) But that's not of interest here.
3. I7 Desktop with Ubuntu (Studio) 18.04 :Musescore 3.6.2.AppImage runs smoothly.
4.This I7 Desktop runs also with Arch Linux and there MS 3.6.2 runs also nicely.
I have no clue yet, why this happens.
One difference is there. In the task manager i can see with MS 3.6.2 always 2 tasks. One with the name of the *.AppImage and the second with changing names (like MuseScore Startup, later mscore-portable and some more).
With MS 3.2 (installed) i see only Qt Client Leader Window.
That's it for now, but I am going to examine the AppImage furthermore. If you want me to test anything specific, I am willing to help. You guys do a tremendous job, thx

I decided to compile the version 3.6.2. from source code. It's not as convenient as the AppImage, but it is the solution for those with the AppImage problem.
I did it with Ubuntu 20.04 and qt 5.12.8. With the compile guide compilation is quite possible.
Thx