Open a score from 4.2 in 4.1

• Dec 25, 2023 - 11:50

I tried 4.2, added some sections to my score file and discovered that the playback is too broken for me.
I downgraded to 4.1 and can't open my score any more, since it was saved by 4.2.
In the future I will be making a backup and more extensive testing before trying a new version.
But is there a way to recover my broken score file today?

Comments

• Dec 25, 2023 - 12:11

Answering myself :) I could recover the file with the following steps:

  1. make a new empty folder
  2. extract the contents of .mscz file into this folder with zip software
  3. open the files .mscx and score_style.mss in a text editor and change text "4.20" to "4.10" and "4.2.0" to "4.1.0"
  4. make a new archive with the edited contents and call it .mscz

I could just open it in 4.1 and nothing seems lost, because I haven't used any new features yet.

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• Dec 25, 2023 - 12:20

They can only focus on a finite number of things :-) By simply refusing to load newer scores they don't have to invest into backwards compatibility / progressive regression. I just assumed nothing has changed drastically between minor releases and new for sure I haven't used anything that didn't exist before, so it was worth a try

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• Dec 25, 2023 - 12:43

The changes were considered drastic enough to warrant a new file version.
But with proper warnings it should have been made possible to read them down-rev, instead it had been made impossible, explicitly and on purpose. I don't support that decision, didn't back then and never will...

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• Jan 8, 2024 - 08:49

Here's another method that worked for me:
1. Download as .mxl file
2. Open in Musescore 3
3. Download as .mscz file
4. Open in Musescore 4.1

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