Beta 2 Possible saving bug

• Jan 17, 2015 - 11:37

Hi folks,

I'm using musescore beta 2.0 revision a825ae0.

I did a big scoring session last night, and on resuming this morning found that many of the recent changes have not been saved. I am most particular about saving all the time as I go along, so this seems unusual.

Timestamp on the file indicates that about two hours of edits have been lost. The file I was working on was not at the top of the recent file list, but a file called "scLs6632" was. I think this was generated at some point in the night when musescore crashed, but it doesn't seem to contain recent edits either.

I definitely saved as I was going along, and quit musescore before retiring last night, with no "your file has not been saved" messages, so I assume my work has been saved somewhere, perhaps in one of these temporary files. Searching for .mscz files does not locate anything though.

Any idea where I might look to find these?

Thanks.
Jennifer

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• Jan 17, 2015 - 11:45

I've found some in Users/Jennifer/AppData/Local/MuseScore/MuseScore2 but unfortunately they stop at the same time as the score file.

Is there any other place they could be?

Jennifer

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• Jan 17, 2015 - 13:31

Yes, a925ae0 is the correct version :-)

Thanks for your help, there is a .mscz, file of the score in the same directory, timestamp of 2 hours before the actual score file. This is really odd, as I believe these are made every time you save, and I save frequently - like every minute or so when doing heavy editing.

I thought the most likely possibility was that I had accidentally saved the score in another folder, but I can't find it in any of the usual places. I'll do a more exhaustive search for it.

Jennifer

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• Jan 17, 2015 - 13:43

Ok - a search of my entire C: drive has located something that looks promising, the following file with a timestamp of 6:05am, the time I finished working on this score;

_Users_Jennifer_Music_Arrangements_Ronnie Hunter_Win Win Win-notation

It was in this folder;

C:\Users\Jennifer\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files (x86)\MuseScore 2\bin

A quick review shows that it is likely the correct one, but I'll check it to make sure. If it is, I will be most happy, these last two hours were the most productive of the entire day!

Jennifer

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• Sep 13, 2017 - 19:15

It is possible for computer software's job to be cut off anytime, because of many external causes (other software, dll conflict, system error, etc.).
If the file you're working on is important, and you're working hard on a day, do a "save as" every day (or hour) with a new date (or time).
eg: my_important_file-20170912-2039.mscz
even in some cases, do zip with date tag.

scores.png

Since I've been experiencing "file loss" a lot (for years, with different software), I can not trust any software (and OS) at all.
What's interesting: I never lost files in my Musescore software :)
So all the backups I've made are not yet useful to me.

I suspect it: Maybe the first thing I do is turn off the "auto-save" feature. (just a delusion)
I don't like it that, and I don't allow any software to do that.
My left little finger (pinky) and ring finger do this -automatically- after every change. (Ctrl + S)

Attachment Size
scores.png 4.67 KB

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• Jan 17, 2015 - 14:19

I hadn't realised that, I had assumed the behaved in a similar way to Reaper, i.e. every time you request a save, a backup copy is made before the actual save takes place. I like this, the biggest advantage is that if there is a crash during the actual save and the file becomes corrupt, at least you have the file from the previous save.

Jennifer

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• Jan 21, 2015 - 14:09

Hi,
U encountered a similar problem that is really worrying. I had a score that I revised and saved (several times) and one of the 2 parts (it's an arrangement for 2 piano')printed and the session closed. Th next morning reopening the, presumably saved, part the revisions were gone and nowhere to be found. It seems that only when I saved it with a new name, the revision is saved. Related to this, I think is that I have in "preferences" changed the location of the folder to save scores, from: (A) "/home/Joep/Documents/MuseScoreDevelopment/Sores" to (B)"/home/joep/Music/Mscore-pieces/score-name-folder/" (e.g. "~/Music/Mscore-pieces/A_Foggy_Day.mscz" extension is automatic of course) but sometimes A is used.
Also a revision overwrites the former version. I would like to propose that every time a revision is stored, automatically a version number is attached. Of course it can lead to many versions of the same score but these are easily removed (some programs offer a special function) and you'll never loose revisions (which costed me an extra day rewriting).
I hope somebody can give me an explanation for this saving problem as I consider it a serious bug.
Joep

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• Jan 21, 2015 - 14:43

Hey Joep, thanks for reporting this problem. I'm afraid no explanation can be given since we don't have enough details to identify and fix the bug. First we would need to be able to reproduce the bug. A description of the steps which lead to the bug would be a start. So if you encounter the problem again and you can produce it consistently yourself, don't hesitate to post on the forum.

As for the "storing revisions request", consider using somethinh like Dropbox or another file sync service which will store all the revisions for you in the cloud. That will come in handy in times when you don't have your computer with you, or in worst case, when your computer would crash and not startup again.

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• Jan 21, 2015 - 22:36

Thomas,
Thanks for the speedy reply.
It has happened to me the last week at least three times. The problem is that you don't discover it easily as you save several times on a day always the same way and I have 1 score open which is the main score and each part like:
Filename_score;Filename_Part-1;Filename_Part-2
A: I do a revision (e.g. add several bars for both parts and change some bars in both parts)
Filename_score is marked with a *.
B: I save the file (USING THE SAME FILENAME: Filename_score i.e. CTRL-S)
C: I follow the same procedure several times over the day.
D: At the end of that day I close the file.
E: The next morning I reload the file.
All or part of the revisions are gone (I'm not sure but I think all).
The problem is you only see it when you close the file but often I keep the file open till the next day and continue the next day and mostly I keep the file open until it's finished. Moreover I am not completely sure it happens consistently! (a common problem with programming errors! I programmed and supervised programmers for >10 years).
My OS is Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. I use nightly version 4f4115b.
And I differ somewhat with you with respect to revisions. I think it very valuable if revisions were stored consecutively (with a number or a letter) in the same directory as the scores (or another on called score-revisions) and storing in the cloud is not a real solution, mostly a work-around. I personally never use the cloud (call me paranoid). When I want to use the file(s) I always use an USB-stick which I can use on my laptop, my tablet or any other computer I can work on.
Lastly what I miss is a special directory for backups and a function to make backups every time period (choosing e.g. from 10', 30', 1 hour, etc.).
Of course I have some more suggestions for improvement but I don't think this is the place to mention them.
Hope you can do something with this. If you need some more specific information please ask.
Thanks,
Joep

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• Jan 22, 2015 - 00:45

When you say you "save the file using the same filename", do you mean you literally use the "save as" function and re-enter the same name? Or just that you hit "save", which of course keeps using the same file? I would recommend the latter ubnless you wish to implement your own versioning scheme by changing the name on each save.

I take it merely following those steps as described doesn't cause the problem every time. More useful be be if you could figure something specific that is guaranteed to reproduce the problem. But I suspect what is probably happening is that somehow you or MuseScore is getting confused and saving to either a different name or different folder. I've saved literally thousands of files over the past few months and have nevewr seen anything like what you describe, so there must be *something* more to it.

BTW, I would suggest if you want automatic versioning, you bite the bullet and consider a cloud service. They in no way preclude saving on USB drive. Most have a facility to automatically mirror your files both locally and on their servers. Or get a drive that comes with software for automatic versioning, or see if your operating support can enable support for it. It's really not the sort of thing that every single application should have to be in the business of inventing for themselves.

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• Oct 1, 2015 - 12:28

I don't understand. What specific bug do you mean? There were several different things discussed in this thread - some perhaps bugs but without specific steps to follow to reproduce, others were feature requests and not bugs at all. At least one might have just been a user misunderstanding.

If you are seeing a "simple and obvious" bug, can you describe it in more detail? Ideally provide a sample score and precise step by step instructions to reproduce it.

It's possible you are referring to the fact that after recovering a file after a crash, the resulting score is not saved in the original location. If so, there is an existing feature request to change this - see #81711: Scores saved in unexpected location if saved after MuseScore crashes and restores session. Meanwhile, though, simply use "Save As" to specify where you would like that recovered file saved. Otherwise it saves to a different folder - on my system, it's the folder from which MuseScore is actually run.

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• Oct 1, 2015 - 18:47

I am clearly wrong because I have just saved a file twice successfully. Maybe it just doesn't save when I have done a lot of work :-(
The file I am working on is outside the Scores folder which itself is not in the default location.

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• Oct 1, 2015 - 22:53

I suspect it is just that, as I mentioned, in the very special case where MuseScore recovers your score after a crash, then in that case and that case only, it can be difficult to guess *where* the restored score is saved. But it is still saved, always, without exception. I've never seen a single confirmed case where this doesn't happen. Doesn't matter if your score is in the Scores folder or not.

If you are seeing a case where it appears at first your work has not been saved, then most likely, there was some confusion about *where* your work was saved. Perhaps either because you were working with a crash-recovered score, or perhaps you had used the Save As command. So while it is certainly *possible* that you have encountered an extremely rare bug no one else has seen, it would not be "simple and obvious" until someone comes up with a set of steps we can follow to reproduce it.

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