Playback device
MuseScore 3.4 on Windows 10
Perhaps more a comment than anything else. I just encountered this.
If I change my playback device in Windows (say from speakers to headphones) after MuseScore is running, it changes for Windows but not for MuseScore, which keeps playing to the prior device. I have to change it before starting MuseScore for the change to be effective in MuseScore despite that Windows reports that MuseScore is configured for output to the new device. This may be an arcane "feature" of Windows and not of MuseScore.
Comments
For that purpose you can press the Restart audio devices button in Edit → Preferences → I/O
Pressing the MIDI-input icon in the toolbar twice might work as well.
In reply to For that purpose you can… by jeetee
Neither of those interventions worked under test.
In reply to Neither of those… by Gerald Reynolds
So after pressing the "restart/rescan audio devices" button in the preferences window you are unable to select the correct device? Doesn't it show up in the list?
As I would expect it would, as it seems to work when the device had been switched before starting MuseScore...
In reply to So after pressing the … by jeetee
Just pressing "Restart Audio and MIDI Devices" on its own does nothing evident. Above that, under the PortAudio settings, the Device defaults to Speakers. If you change that to Headphones and only press Apply and OK, it still does nothing. If you do that and THEN press "Restart Audio and MIDI Devices" the change is made. That was not clearly stated in your notes.
Taking it a step further, having changed the Device, if I close MuseScore, then unplug the headphones, then restart MuseScore, the Device resets to Speakers. Now, having done all of that, if I close it again, reconnect the headphones, and restart MuseScore, it returns to Headphones. But it was not doing that previously. Even starting MuseScore after the headphones were connected, the Device was remaining set to Speakers.
So I took it still a step further. I started MuseScore with the headphones not connected, then connected them. The Device remained set to Speakers as expected. I left it that way and closed and restarted MuseScore with the headphones connected and the Device reset to Headphones. This is expected behavior but it was not happening earlier when I first wrote. I don't know what changed.
In fact, last night I was getting no sound at all from MuseScore on either headphones or speakers. The Device must have been set to something else. I didn't view or change it. But after I connected the headphones with MuseScore running MuseScore began playing to the speakers. I didn't diagnose it further at the time so cannot say what happened there.
I can say that simply toggling MIDI off and on on the button bar will not make the change, just as pressing "Restart Audio and MIDI Devices" alone will not. One must go into Edit Preferences and change the Device first.