How to repair a MuseScore file with a "bad format" error

Occasionally you may try to open a MuseScore file, only to get an error message like the following:

Clicking on "Show details":

One possible reason for the error is the presence of one or more "&" (ampersand) characters in the source code or other inaccuracy. To correct:

1. Right click on the file, select a "Rename" option, and change the file extension from .mscz to .zip (Note: your system should be set to display file extensions);
2. Right click on the *.zip file and select an Unzip/Extract option from the menu; extract the file to a convenient location;
3. Locate the *.mscx file inside the generated folder and open it with a text editor (e.g. Wordpad, Notepad++, Vim etc.).

4. Navigate through the lines of code until you come to the line and column error previously reported:

   Any lone "&" (ampersand) character (e.g. see image above) should be replaced with its equivalent XML entity reference—i.e. "&";
   In other cases check the accuracy of the string.

5. Save the corrected *.mscx file and open it with MuseScore.

See also:

• File formats
• How to recover a backup copy of a score