Overlapping Time Signatures causes Musescore to crash

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I know how to work around the crash. There are a couple of ways to do it, but they will take me quite a while to explain. Unfortunately I must leave for a while. If you want to continue entering the score without the second time signatures in the mean time you can do that. Don't put any time signatures in the spots where a few instruments have the different time signature for the time being. I'll explain how to add those when I get back.

The workarounds play and display correctly, so you should like them.

Using mixed time signatures is not extremely difficult. The problem with MuseScore is that it does not handle local time signatures well at all. Once a local time signature is entered, you can not do any copying or pasting of any measure affected by the local time signature after a single rest or note is added to it. You can't add a local time signature to any measure that has anything but a measure rest in it. The good news is that you can overcome this.

There are 2 methods, and and you will have to decide which you prefer, mostly based upon the given score. Method 1 consists of entering all of the notes in the main time signature until every instrument returns to the same time signature, leaving all measures with the secondary time signature empty. Most importantly these measures must remain unchanged. They must retain measure rests only. In Petroushka the entire orchestra returns to 3/4 time on page 13 of the original score that I got from IMSLP. I would transcribe everything to at least that time change leaving the other measures empty.

First of all, enter the 3/4 time signature and save your score. Saving a copy under a different name may rescue you if you make a mistake and accidentally save it. After this is done, you can then enter the local time signature and everything not affected by the local time signature will remain unaffected, including the measures after the 3/4 time change. use ctrl-drag the local time signature into each measure. Once you make any change at all to any measure affected by the local time signature you cannot copy or paste into the measure. If there are multiple local time signatures, start at the end of the section and work forward. If you enter the local time signature and try to enter a time signature into one of the empty measures following it, it will cause an error. For example, on the piccolo you will want to start with the 5/8 time change 2 measures before the 3/4 time signature. You don't have to enter notes yet, just establish the local time signature. Next do the 7/8 time signature the measure before. Continue toward the beginning of the song until you have all of the time signatures entered where you want them. You can now start at the measure with the first local time signature and enter the notes and rests. This allows to to enter the line of music in a logical method that should make it go faster.

This method requires you to look forward in the score and make a plan as to how to enter the score. It works well when executed properly. Keep in mind that no part or whole of any of the measures with local time signatures can be copied or pasted into. Musescore considers these measures to be filled with tuplets, and the tuplet intrude from one measure to another, so you can't even copy entire measures.

Method 2 allows for a more linear input, but requires a little more work for each measure. Using this method does not affect succeeding measures in any manner. Ctrl drag the same time signature that is the main time signature to that measure. Next, right click the time signature you just dragged to the measure and changed the displayed duration to what you want. In measure 25, you will want the piccolo and oboes to show 7/8. You can do them in any order you like with no affect on other measures. Since you know you want 5 measures of 7/8, you can select all 5 of those measures at once and press ctrl-7. This will make a 7th-let in the measure. You notice that there is a bracket with a 7 over the measure that you will not want to see. If you select the measure and right click one of the brackets you can select all similar items in range selection and look at them in the inspector. F8 toggles it if it's closed. Change the number and bracket both to nothing. You now have the measures you wanted with a little more flexibility than with method 1. In this case, the oboe is playing the same music as the piccolo. After inserting and modifying the 3/4 time signature in the oboe, you can copy the piccolo to the oboe and press ctrl-down arrow to put the notes in the correct octave. You can actually insert the 3/4 time signature into the measure after you paste them if you want to.

The measure after these 5 has everyone but the piccolo and oboe change to 2/4 while they change to 5/8. You can enter the global 2/4 time signature then right click the time signatures in the piccolo and oboes to make them read 5/8. You can then do like you previously did with the 7/8. Select the 2 measures that will be 5/8 and press ctrl-5 to give you 5 1/8 notes in the measure. You will of course want to remove the brackets and numbers as before.

Some things to keep in mind with this method is that you are really working in the main time signature (4/4, 3/4, 2/4 etc rather than 7/8, 5/8 8/8...). Also remember that time signatures are not copied and pasted. Having said that, you could do the piccolo all the way through the 8/8 time signature, paste it to the oboe, move it down an octave, THEN insert the time signatures if you wanted to.

One thing I notice about the score. At Rehearsal mark 14, the oboes and violin I changes to 3/4 before the rest of the orchestra. At RH 15, when you enter the 3/4 global time signature, you can make individual instruments time signature invisible by selecting it and pressing V to prevent the redundant time signature in the oboes and violins if you want. With the relatively quick change to the new global time signature, you can use which ever method you like.

I stopped looking at PDF page 20, so I don't know if there are any other issues that would need to be addressed.

I personally use method 2 all of the time. I've never had a problem with it.

Let me know if there are any other issues that need addressed.