Finale Forum

Hi all

My Finale behaves very strange recently: the noteheads of all half-notes are changed by a strange shape: a boxed question mark (see attachment). This happens when I try to enter half-notes in a new document; also, when opening an old document, all half-notes are replaced by that strange character.

Following the suggestions of MakeMusic customer support, I tried to re-install the fonts pack; then tried a fresh new installation of Finale. Nothing worked, the problem persists.

So far the customer support hasn't come with a solution. Has anyone had that issue before?

Finale 2014.5 (exact version: 2014.5.7098), macOS 10.12.6 (Sierra).

I'd suggest you delete the font cache - a restart will rebuild a fresh one. The free utility "OnyX" works very well for this (Clean > Fonts).

https://www.titanium-software.fr/en/onyx.html

Before the Mac mavens jump all over me, yes I've had the same problem and yes, OnyX did provide the cure (in my case).

N.

In Fontbook (Mac), make sure there are no font duplicates. There is a menu command to verify it.

Thanks for the replies.

Yes, I did check for font duplicates from the Font Book - no problem here.

I'm still discussing this with MakeMusic support; I'll wait to see if they will come with a solution before trying to delete the font cache.

The easiest way to empty the font caches is to boot into Safe Boot Mode (holding down shift at power on), and then restart again.

Finale did have a phase where font caches would need to be cleared after installation. I've not seen that since F25.

Just saying-

You seem to have had this problem for several days now. You say that you're "still discussing this with MakeMusic support". You've been given two suggestions to try, either of which is safe and will not produce any unwanted side effects.

N.

N Grossingink wrote:Just saying-

You seem to have had this problem for several days now. You say that you're "still discussing this with MakeMusic support". You've been given two suggestions to try, either of which is safe and will not produce any unwanted side effects.

N.

Correct. I already posted about the first suggestion in my second post: I have no font duplicates. And the discussion with MM support goes indeed slow: one message per day (obviously due to the time zone difference).

Yesterday I tried the second suggestion as well: clearing the font cache. For this I used OnyX utility, as suggested. However, the problem still persists.

Meanwhile, the MM support seems not able to provide a solution. They claim this is an issue with file permissions concerning the fonts. However, if I cannot access a font file due to bad permissions, then I should not be able to see *any* character of that font, and I only have problem with *some* characters (te half-note being one of them).

Can you use the half-note character from Maestro in other applications?

Can you upload a sample document here, to see if it display correctly (or incorrectly) on other systems?

See attachments:

- The file fanny power.mus was created with an earlier version of Finale, however I had no problems opening it in 2014.5. Now it opens erroneously, i.e. the half-notes are replaced by the boxed question mark. The playback does not work for some reason, but this is probably not related, I'll leave this problem alone for the moment.

- The file sample.musx was created now with 2014.5 as a new default document. Again, no half-notes. However, the playback seems to work.

I can use the half-note characters from font Maestro in other applications without problems: I inserted them in a new Word document and a Text edit document. In addition, the characters are seen in the Font Book and other applications where I am able to display all characters of a font.

Just for completeness, here's a file that I created earlier with Finale 2014.5, and now shows the problem.

All half notes look fine for me in all the posted files.

Definitely something wrong with your system. Nothing wrong with the files.

Zuill