Unable to "Save as Audio File"... any workarounds?

[jbh001]

I realize this is an old thread from a different forum, but I found some success with the issue, and wanted to share it in case it might help someone else with a similar problem.

In the old Finale forum that was closed 01/01/2017, there was this post:
https://forum.makemusic.com/default.aspx?f=6&m=213021

I am on Finale 2007c on Leopard. Every time I try "Save as Audio File..." (with either standard AIF or MP3) it stops with an error of "Could not create the audio file (the file may be in use by another application)." I assume this is a misleading error, because Finale is the only application using this file.

Does anyone know a way I could fix or at least work around this?

What I have found is that earlier versions of Finale have compatibility problems with macOS 10.6 (Snow Leopard) and later, likely because Apple dropped support for formatting or writing HFS disks and images, but which remained supported as read-only volumes up thru macOS 10.14.

Context:
I have Finale 2008.r2 running on a Macmini1,1 that originally shipped with macOS 10.4.7 (Tiger). I later upgraded this to macOS 10.6.8 (the latest macOS that particular Mac Mini could support). However, when I began experiencing problems with it, I did a clean install of macOS 10.6 followed by Finale 2008.r2, and that is when the issue(s) showed up. I not only got the above error when trying to export an .mp3, but Finale would also crash and throw and error report every time I tried to exit it.

Apparent solution:
I did a clean install of the macOS 10.4.7 that came with the Mac Mini, then installed Finale, and the problem has disappeared. I haven't tested it out yet, but I'm guessing that it wasn't an issue before because when I originally upgraded from macOS 10.4 to 10.6, it was an in-place upgrade instead of a clean install of macOS 10.6.

Note:
After downgrading to macOS 10.4.7, I also experienced the issue listed in one of the replies to the original post about the maximum length of filenames being limited to 27 characters (plus 4 characters for the dot and 3-character extension, for a total of 31 characters) in Apple's HFS file system. (This limit was extended to a total of 255 characters in Apple's HFS+ file system.)

I need to revise my last post a bit. The maximum filename length is 27 - NOT 28 characters. If you use 28 characters, the "mp3" filename extension gets cut off.

So, 27 characters it is.

I hope this is helpful.

[motet]

I strongly suggest using a separate application such as Audacity which can make a recording of whatever is playing through your sound system. This specialized application not only supports a wide variety of audio file applications, it's kept up to date with operating system changes.

Relying on something built into Finale is a fool's errand.

[N Grossingink]

Just so everyone knows, you are talking about Finale versions and Mac OSX versions that are more than 10 years old. Most all users will be using more up to date software. I haven't had any problems with Finale and save to audio file, but maybe others do. In which case Motet's suggestion of Audacity is right on. It's free and quite useful.