Musescore 4.1 won't save.

• Jul 13, 2023 - 17:37

I keep getting the message "Your score could not be saved. An unknown error occurred while saving this file." so I guess that's a full day's work gone.


Comments

Same here...it was a new piece and has never been saved. For now I'm publishing it to the website everytime to download and continue working on it the next time

In reply to by TotallyNotLoki

“Publishing” is a feature of the score-sharing website musescore.com and as such can sometimes have temporary issues if the site is undergoing maintenance or your internet connection is flaky. But that’s totally different from ordinary saving. Assuming you have write permission in the folder you are saving to
a d your drive is not failing, saving to your computer should always work. If you are having trouble with permissions in one folder, try another. If you have problems in all folders, then it may indeed be a failing drive.

I'm now having the same issue for the first time in years. (My error message is "Your score could not be saved...An error occurred when moving the file"). I'm not trying to "move" a file, just save it for the first time to my Dropbox cloud folder. This has worked for years. Suddenly MS won't save this way. Fortunately, this time I was able to save it directly to a folder on my hard drive (C:\Users\cello)...phew. The other weird thing is that, after trying to save and getting the above error message, I'm left with just a temp file (main file GONE) with extension .mscz_saving (see attached images). Now I really want to revert to an older version of MuseScore but not sure that won't create more problems.

In reply to by cellomellowman

MuseScore saves a temporary copy first to avoid problems should a power outage or other calamity occur in the middle of the save - your original file won't be harmed. And then it moves the temporary copy over to replace the original. If that operation fails, it tells me you either lack write permissions in that folder, or some other application has locked the file, or your drive is failing, or something like that.

Older versions wouldn't give you errors, they would just silently destroy your files when this happens. You definitely don't want to go back to that!

In reply to by cellomellowman

Hoi,
I have the same issues.
I noticed that I don't have these problems when I work outside the Windows libraries (in explorer).
I stopped organizing my scores through Libraries.
As far as I know I didn't have these problems with version 3 btw.

Also, try running MuseScore as administrator, maybe there is an authorization problem.

For me, I go into my save files and I see an "autosave" and a ".mscz_saving" file. I just delete both and "save as" the file again and it works

OK - this happened to me as well. When it happens - it doesn't matter what score you are trying to save. For me it was simply that the battery on my laptop was running low. When I charged up my laptop this problem was gone. Really - the Musescore software folks need to FIX THIS ERROR MESSAGE. Don't say "unexpected error occurred" when your software is obviously done something to cause this problem in the first place. I understand they are trying to protect against saving corrupt files in the middle of a power outage - but the solution is worse than the disease - unless you can make the error message make more sense. I am running Musecore 4.2.1.

In reply to by stacyloesch1

You just said that the problem was with your laptop's battery. MuseScore cannot know that. It just got a fail message from your computer that provided no reason why it could not save. Not a problem with MuseScore. Nor with any other application that gives a non-specific error message like this. This kind of error is almost always something happening on the computer, not in the software. As it was for you.

In reply to by TheHutch

My battery was about 50% charged. EVERYTHING else I did on my laptop was working normally. When I plugged in my laptop to the power supply....suddenly I could start saving files again. Look - I worked in software support for over 30 years for a commercial software product. I know when there is something wrong with software and when it's a computer problem. The fact is that MULTIPLE people all over the place are reporting problems saving files. I don't know what the trouble of course - but there is definitely a problem in Musescore somewhere. This issue just happened to me again today....it comes and goes. But when it exists there is nothing the user can do except hope it goes away.

I agree the whole thing about plugging in my charger may have been coincidence and not related to the real problem. But clearly there is something wrong with the Musescore software here. It's not the users problem to figure out what it is....it's your problem.

Software - good software should never spit out a message that says something as useless as "Unexpected error happened". That message - I think - comes from your software or from some library your software uses. I don't think it comes from Windows - maybe wrong about that. But when a piece of software as powerful and sophisticated as Musescore has trouble simply Saving files....don't blow off the issue as a user computer problem.

In reply to by stacyloesch1

OK - I open up a score right now. I simply edit the title of the score by adding a "." to it. Hit CTRL-S and I get error message attached. I see the ".saving" file in the Scores directory. Do something else to edit the score (changing the title again) and hit save and it works and the ".saving" file is removed automatically.

Attachment Size
MuseScoreError.PNG 10.77 KB

In reply to by stacyloesch1

Hmm, in general of course saving works normally, so it will be important to understand what is unique about either your score, your system, or the folder you are saving to that is triggering a problem. It's not "blowing off" a user to point this simple and helpful fact out, as you should know from your own experience in software support. Saying it is a problem triggered by something unique to a user's system isn't blaming the user - it's offering them the chance to help diagnose what unique qualities of their score/system/folder are triggering the problem, so that then the problem can be identified and fixed. It's still very likely a software problem - but one that only occurs in certain extraordinarily rare cases that only a small handful of users are encountering. So those few people experiencing the problem are in the unique position of being able to help figuring out what that trigger might actually be. That's the spirit of open source software - we all help out as we can. Those who are able to contribute code to that those who are able to help write documentation do that, those who are able to help test do that, etc. And those experiencing a problem almost no one else does can help us all understand what makes the problem occur for them and not for others, and thus help us all both avoid creating those circumstances in the future, and, if the problem does turn out to be a bug in MuseScore, report that with precise steps to reproduce it so it can be fixed.

You say you have seen reports elsewhere of at least one other user encountering this exact same problem (not just some other unrelated saving issue, like score corruption or a bad internet connection while saving online)? If so, can you post links to that? Maybe those of you encountering this specific issue can work together to find out what your scores, systems, or folders have in common that is triggering this.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Hello,
I have had this problem for a long time, a few months ago I decided to use an alternative storage method.

Since then I have been using 'uncompressed MuseScore folder', it is apparently still experimental but so far I have not encountered any problems.

You can select it in the save dialog as an alternative type.

No idea, but could compression be a problem?

In reply to by IcePlay

The compressed (zipped) format is the norm and works fine for most people. But earlier yoh said it failed in certain folders for you but not others. Do you have precise steps to reproduce a problem? If so, can you list them here so others on Windows can try to confirm? Once it is narrowed down to precise steps that anyone can reproduce, then an issue can be opened on GitHub so the developers can investigate and fix it.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Hi Marc,
I once looked for various reasons why it didn't work.
the mscz extension was linked to 7zip, removed the MuseScore directory from the Library folder, made copies to the C:\Temp directory, ....
Nothing helped in the end.

The strange thing is that with every change it seemed to work at first. In every new situation things went well a few times. But ultimately no more.

I If it's interesting...
I am using the latest version of MuseScore, Windows 10 with the latest update.
I am mainly working on piano scores.

As a background.
Working in IT for over 30 years. At the moment I can continue with MuseScore, which is fine with me. But if I can help to solve this problem please let me know what I can do.

kind regards,
Willem Winter

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