File Corrupted - Progress Wiped After MuseScore Crashed

• Jul 10, 2012 - 00:19

(I was using Version 0.9.5, revision 2012, running on a Windows PC)

I was working on a music project for school when MuseScore froze while I was trying to change an F double sharp to an F sharp. The Microsoft error message came up, "MuseScore has encountered a problem and needs to close", so I let it close (This happens quite often, usually I just reboot the program, reload my project and continue). When I rebooted Musescore and opened my project, there was just a blank screen, not even any staves, bars or instruments.

Is it possible to somehow get my progress back? I save my work about every 10 seconds (but to the same place each time) so if I can get it back I'll only have lost that F sharp. The .mscz file is 11Kb and the Compressed file 14Kb - so does this mean my work is still there, but MuseScore just can't read it?

The file is now attatched

Attachment Size
Tyger, Tyger.mscz 13.75 KB

Comments

• Jul 10, 2012 - 03:32

Yes, it does seem your score is "mostly" (?) intact. An MSCZ is just a ZIP archive containing a MSCX file, which is plain text. I extracted the MSCX file, but got an error message on the extract. And the resultant MSCX file won't open in MuseScore. But if I view it in WordPad, I can see lots and lots of good info. So a bit of detective work should hopefully uncover the source of the problem.

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• Jul 10, 2012 - 06:48

charlie,

Is there any particular reason you are not running the latest version of MuseScore which is 1.2?
it may be be relevant to your problem but it helps to be running the latest version.

Charles

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• Jul 10, 2012 - 10:12

Werner, the MuseScore lead developer, had a look at the file and came back with bad news unfortunately: "The score is destroyed somehow. The xml text file is contaminated with random characters at different places." I'm afraid there is nothing to do about it. MuseScore 1.2 won't be able to open the file. I hope you still have a pdf copy or a print of your work.

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• Jul 10, 2012 - 10:16

Thankyou for your help everybody, for taking the time to look at this. Unfortunately I had no backup at all, so tomorrow I will start again.

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• Jul 10, 2012 - 17:04

Are you sure you have no backup? I have no experience with versions so old, but certainly in all versions for the last couple of years, MuseScore automatically saves backup copies of your score. I think ti does so each time you hit Save? File name begins with a period and ends with a comma. It also may save temporary backups in some sort of AppData folder (Windows) or the equivalent on your OS.

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• Jul 10, 2012 - 14:34

I guess I'm from the old school when computer storage was much less reliable than it is now. Even with an auto-backup feature which creates a backup at specific time intervals and the vast improvements in storage reliabilty I still try to save my work manually when I feel I have done an amount of creation or editing I wouldn't want to do again. I also do a Save As and use a different filename after a few saves so I'm not overwriting the last version - normally done by adding 1,2,3, etc to the end of the filename.

Print! In my previous working life I used to tell new programmers to print out the source code modules they were working on from time to time as it is the ultimate backup. Yes, a bit tedious to retype but it can be done surprisingly quickly compared to rethinking the program. Same for Musescore or any other document. This is protection by diversity of media.

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• Jul 11, 2012 - 03:40

That's a shame about missing out on the auto-save by one version - I've started rewriting it by memory though so I'm almost back to where I was before it crashed. There is a Save a Copy option so I'm now using that. Printing might take too long and too much ink because even though it was only about 100 bars, I had so many staves I could only fit one system per page.

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