Note continues after playback stopped (Version 1.1, Revision 4611)
The following was reported in version 0.9.6 and marked as fixed. However I have continued to experience the behavior in 1.0 and 1.1, now in revision 4611.
Steps to reproduce bug
1. Create a score. In my case, with several staves.
2. Press spacebar to start playback
3. In the middle of playback the spacebar again to stop playback
Expected behavior: Sound should stop
Actual behavior: Most recent notes played continue playing indefinitely.
I have confirmed that the held note(s) playback will stop if you reload the font library with the same or different library. Also if you back up and replay the music over the same point where the playback was previously stopped with a spacebar, the held note(s) will stop playback. I've tried to reproduce it in nightly build 4620 but at the moment I am getting no sound at all with that build.
My system: Windows 7 SP1.
Comments
Is there a particular score you could post and a specific place to start and stop to reproduce this? I've never seen this behavior in my scores.
In reply to Is there a particular score by Marc Sabatella
I posted a score. Actually many of the scores I use do it. These are all hymnals to be played in a church.
Most of my scores were imported from MIDI format, but I have also had it happen with scores I created from scratch in
Musescore. Also I have seen it occur with TimGM6mb.sf2, merlin_gold.sf2, and others.
I can't provide a particular place to stop and start to reproduce. I cannot reproduce it on demand but it does occur with some regularity, maybe 2-5% of the time. It does not appear to me to be tied to any particular place in the score. It does seem to occur more often if I have played back only a short while (5-10 seconds). I do that a lot as I tweak a score.
Also I have seen this on 3 separate Windows computers. 2 are running Win 7, one is running WinXP. All behave the same.
In reply to Notes continue after playback stopped (V 1.1, Revision 4611) by jim.weisgram
I couldn't reproduce it in about 50 tries on the posted score, but it also wouldn't surprise me if the file turned out to be corrupt - all those 64th notes and ties and overlapping ties and so forth are probably really stressing MuseScore.
In reply to I couldn't reproduce it in by Marc Sabatella
That file (and most of what I work with) came from someone else recording via MIDI keyboard into an older software product, MIDI Orchestrator, I think. And, yes, they are all a mess.
But I have files that I created from Musescore that have the same playback behavior, and I created those from computer keyboard note entry. I haven't tracked *which* of those file had the playback issue, however, so I can't really attach one at this time. All I can say at this point is the problem does not seem to be related to a particular file. I don't know if it is relevant, but until recently I have been saving all the files in MIDI format.
Yes, it seems to be at random.
Maybe you stop it with pinpoint accuracy, or a time when something in the computer isn't expecting it - I don't know if it's the computer having a number of things running, or slightly slow/malfunctioning.
In reply to Yes, it only occurs at by chen lung
>> Maybe you stop it with pinpoint accuracy,
If so, it needs to be way more accurate than I can control
>> Or a time when something in the computer isn't expecting it - I don't know if it's the computer having a number of things running, or slightly slow/malfunctioning.
3 different computers having the same problem seem to eliminate malfunctioning hardware. One of those running XP seems to eliminate Windows and drivers as the culprit.
Now that I think about it, I believe all 3 computers use different variants of Athlon CPU's. My main computer has an Athlon II X4 630. It has 6Gb of RAM and under normal use there is plenty of RAM available. However I do tend to open a number of programs at the same time.
BUT, the other Win7 computer I believe is a 2 core Athlon, which belongs to my church and doesn't run anything else but Musescore when the problem occurs. It has 4Gb of RAM. It seems to have no other problem processing Musescore, doesn't get bogged down, etc.
The XP box is an older Athlon, 1 Gb of RAM. I haven't used it with version 1.0 or 1.1, but I did see this behavior with 0.9.x.
In reply to Notes continue ... by jim.weisgram
Here's a new file with very little in it that just exhibited the "note held" problem. This file was created by Musescore and entered by note entry from a computer keyboard. I entered notes into the first staff, then the second. After working on the 2nd staff, during playback I paused it by pressing the spacebar. A note from measure 5 staff 2 (I think) continued to play. I rewound to the beginning and played back over the measure and the held note stopped playing.
This is a very simple file and in my mind demonstrates that something odd is going on. It happens so often to me on different computers that I am quite surprised that it doesn't happen to everyone.
I think I've found a way to reproduce it:
1. Open score.
2. Play.
3. Drag a time signature onto score.
4. Stop during note.
Using MuseScore 1.1 - Mac 10.6.8.
I've had this problem with pretty much every score I've made. Imported, created, short, long, many parts, few parts - I've always run into the hanging note. For me I'd say it happens the majority of the time I stop playback in the middle (I usually use the play buttons on the toolbar, not the panel) and I've had to run the playing over the hanging note to get rid of it.
I think it seems to be random, just keep playing scores and stopping at random points where there's something playing, and you should be able to reproduce the bug.
This is a phenomenon known as MIDI echo and is nothing to do with MuseScore.
It is caused by the MIDI engine not receiving the note offs for some reason, and has plagued MIDI programmers ever since MIDI was invented in the 1980's.
You will find every major MIDI sequencer has a "panic" button you can press to deal with this and send a series of Channel Mode messages which silence the oscillators and reset the controllers - it would be helpful if one of these could be provided in MuseScore in a future version.
The MIDI engine MuseScore uses is, I believe, FluidSynth and requests for help with this problem would be better directed to their support pages.
HTH
Michael
In reply to This is a phenomenon known as by ChurchOrganist
I guess I will file a new feature request for a panic button to add to Musescore. What I wonder is what is the practical downside to issuing an appropriately repeated sequence of MIDI messages every time you stop music playback, rather than only having a special command to reset everything. It seems to me that Musescore could be more aggressive about stopping playback.
In reply to MIDI Echo by jim.weisgram
It is highly unusual for you to be experiencing this as often as you say you are.
Even my DX27 synth which was a little prone to it only did it once a week or so, and none of my computers,( including one with an AMD processor) exhibit this behaviour when MuseScore's stop button is pressed, apart from one occasion when MuseScore decided to crash fro some reason.
This suggests there is something peculiar about the hardware setups you are using - you mention that they are all using AMD processors.
Normally there is no reason at all for a simple MIDI stop sequencer message to do any more than that - under normal circumstances the oscillators would stop on receipt of that message, unless there was an internal software problem.
The sending of channel mode messages to reset everything on pressing the stop key is not desirable, as they are reset commands designed to be used perhaps at the beginning of a MIDI sequence, and consequently will have an effect on any controllers you may have set up ie they will be returned to the default values, which, if you are in the middle of a piece of music may be extremely undesirable.- expression controller reverting to 127 for example.
I still think you should mention this problem on the Fluidsynth support pages, as it seems to me that there is an incompatibility between your hardware and Fluidsynth.
HTH
Michael
In reply to It is highly unusual for you by ChurchOrganist
Thanks for the help, although don't confuse me with jjl2357 who, it seems, happens much more often. I just get it once or twice in an hour of work, jjl2357 says it happens most of the time he or she stops playback.
Either way I will see about posting on Fluidsynth's forums.
In reply to Note continues after playback stopped by jim.weisgram
MuseScore used a very customized version of Fluidsynth... Not sure it makes sense to file a bug on their website.