MuseScore (and Sibelius) No MIDI Options Since Installing Zoom on Mac

• Jul 10, 2020 - 15:51

I'm a teacher and have installed Zoom.us on my Macbook Air so that I can use it for my remote teaching during lockdown. Since installing it, however, there have been no playback options at all for both Musescore and Sibelius. The fact that it's happening in both programs makes me suspect it's not a problem inside Musescore. I want to uninstall Zoom to confirm whether that's the problem, but I'm worried about running into issues with my teaching if I do uninstall and reinstall it, so I'd rather avoid that if I can.

On the main toolbar the MIDI and playback options are completely greyed out, and when I go to Preferences > I/O, all of the PortAudio drop downs are empty.

If anyone has a fix for this I would be eternally grateful! :)

Edit to add: When the issue started I was using the stable MuseScore 3 release. I've updated to the MuseScore 3.5 Beta and am still having the issue.

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Comments

bobjp

• Jul 10, 2020 - 19:57

Recently, someone using a Mac posted a screenshot that looked just like yours. They fixed it by starting their Mac in safe mode. here is how Apple says to start in safe mode:

Turn on or restart your Mac, then immediately press and hold the Shift key as your Mac starts up.
Release the key when you see the login window, then log in to your Mac.
You might be asked to log in again. On either the first or second login window, you should see ”Safe Boot” in
the upper-right corner of the window.

When he booted back up in normal mode, the audio was fixed.

elinburgess

• Jul 17, 2020 - 15:36

Thanks for the response - I tried that, it didn't fix the issue.

elinburgess

• Jul 17, 2020 - 15:47

I've tried a few different things to fix the issue, but to no avail. I have tried:
- launching my macbook in safe mode and then restarting again
- resetting Musescore 3 to factory settings
- installing a new soundfont (there was no soundfont in the soundfont folders)

I also found that the View -> Synthesiser was greyed out, no matter what I did.

bobjp

• Jul 17, 2020 - 17:06

Also check what is set in Preferences/ Audio in Finder. Macs like to change things.

elinburgess

• Jul 17, 2020 - 17:19

Nothing out of the ordinary there. I found that Zoom had installed a new Audio device (I could only find it by going into Audio MIDI Setup) so I deleted that and restarted computer, no change, restarted in safe mode, and that time when I opened Sibelius it claimed there were no audio devices before telling me I had "bad settings" (it's started saying that every time I launch, and that's when it stopped being able to playback), but still no playback, and the same went for Musescore.

bobjp

• Jul 18, 2020 - 01:43

Not sure why you would need to delete the Zoom audio device. It shouldn't have any effect unless it was selected. That said, while I don'r use a Mac, my wife does and says she constantly has to make adjustments to audio. She has Zoom but no notation software. Sorry I don't seem to be much help. Still waiting for another user to come along.