Score refuses to save

• Jul 22, 2016 - 18:57

Over the last few days I've been working on several scores, but one of them has proved very frustrating. Once, when it and several other scores were open in Musescore 2, my Windows 7 performed a force quit and restarted. I restored my session afterwards, and all the other scores were saved but this one, which lost significant work. I searched through hidden files and even the autosaved versions, but none of them contained the progress I had made. Now the same thing has happened again, and I've lost hours of progress, only this time my computer never restarted. All I did was close the score. Again, it only happened to this one score. Yes, I do save at regular intervals, so by all accounts this file should have saved my work. However, when I look at the "date modified" of the file, it says I haven't edited it in days. Again, hidden files and autosaved versions have proved useless. I haven't tried saving the file online yet, but I'd prefer to find a way to restore my work and prevent this from happening again.


Comments

Best guess is that you accidentally saved to a different folder than you expected. This can happen accidentally if you are recovering a file after a crash - the recovered file is saved elsewhere. Snce you say there was no crash, though, it must be you accidentally saved to a different folder yourself. Best bet is to use the built-in search facility provided by your OS to find the missing file, using the filename.

The scenario you describe is common enough; your files are probably in the X86 program files directory, which is where MuseScore installs itself by default for Windows 7.

Use the Win7 search tool to look for all files modified on the specific date you had the problem. Don't bother trying to remember the actual file name; even one typo or mis-remembered cap or lower-case letter will falsify the results of a search based on that. Just use the date-modified filter. You probably didn't work on more than a few files on that day, so you'll be able to spot the missing MuseScore file by eye in the search results list.

Chances are pretty good you'll find it in C:\\Program Files (x86)\MuseScore 2\bin if you saved it at all.

Good luck.

In reply to by Recorder485

A useful technique, but unfortunately I did not find my missing file. According to my computer, I didn't work on any Musescore files yesterday.
Maybe it would help if I clarified that I do have the file, and I know exactly where it is -- My Documents/Musescore2/Scores, right where it's supposed to be -- it's just missing all the work I did on it yesterday. And I promise I did save, many times. It's like yesterday's work never existed.

In reply to by Jane Dohe

You need to set the search tool to look through the entire computer, not just the "Libraries" directory that appears by default in the address bar when you open Windows Explorer. Click on the arrow at the right end of the main address bar and it will open a drop-down offering "Computer". Click on that, then go to the search bar and click the magnifying glass to open up the filtering options for your search.

Win7 search.png

If you saved those files after the crash, they are in the computer somewhere, but they could be saved under an auto-generated 'random-numbers' file name in a virtual store somewhere.

Another thing to try is to use the "File > Open Recent" command.

If as others suggest you are opening an older version of the score and the newer version is out there somewhere, then depending on how you normally open your files, this may open the one you want.

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