Performance problems/painstakingly slow

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maennis1112
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Finale Version: 26.3.1
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Post by maennis1112 » Fri Aug 14, 2020 10:16 am

Hello everyone,

I'm encountering yet a new finale problem (which is maybe an old one), I'm finishing up a big score and on the last couple of pages I'm encountering performance issues of biblical proportions, I get the rotating beachball for pretty much every single click or shortcut, even when de-selecting a measure or changing the tool. Each time it takes between 5 and 90 seconds. Saving takes about 2 minutes. The file is only 1,8 MB tall.
This renders the program basically impossible to use, as everything takes literally 10 to 100 times longer. I've already tried opening it up in low resolution (no difference), by default I don't use automatic layout update, and I quit all other applications in the background, so I'm running out of ideas on how to finish up the score without spending the rest of the year on a couple of hundred clicks...

EDIT: The problem occurs also when working on an extracted part, but mainly on the last couple of pages only. There s a lot a lyrics on it, maybe because of that? Hard to imagine it should be exclusively because of the file size...

Anybody know a solution for this?

Thanks a bunch in advance, have a nice Friday!
Mac (Mid 2015)
OS X 10.13 (High Sierra)
Finale 26.0.1.706


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motet
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Post by motet » Fri Aug 14, 2020 4:09 pm

There are a couple of things you can try. First, reset Finale's preferences file, the source of many bugs.

https://makemusic.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/ ... inale-etc-

If that doesn't help, then as an experiment, try exporting your file to MusicXML and importing to a new file. If the new file doesn't exhibit the problem, then the old file is somehow corrupt. (The new file will have lost some formatting, etc., though). If the new file still has the problem, that would point to your system set-up.

oldmkvi
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Post by oldmkvi » Fri Aug 14, 2020 4:35 pm

I don't know if using Linked Parts might be better.

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motet
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Post by motet » Fri Aug 14, 2020 4:56 pm

oldmkvi wrote:
Fri Aug 14, 2020 4:35 pm
I don't know if using Linked Parts might be better.
You need linked parts to extract a part, so that's nothing to do with performance.

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zuill
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Post by zuill » Fri Aug 14, 2020 5:04 pm

Recently in another topic, we discussed a problem with a file slowing down way down after imploding due to a bug which duplicates a certain Smart Shape many times, creating a bloated file. If you run file maintenance, you can see if there seems to be an unusually high number of items in the score. Just another thing to check.

Zuill
Windows 10, Finale 2011-v26.3.1
"When all is said and done, more is said than done."

oldmkvi
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Post by oldmkvi » Fri Aug 14, 2020 5:21 pm

OK, but I used Extracted Parts before Linked Parts were available.
Now when I use Linked Parts, I never use or check Extracted Parts,
so I don't see how they go together.

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zuill
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Post by zuill » Fri Aug 14, 2020 5:48 pm

Before you can extract a part, it needs to be generated as a Linked Part. That's been the MO since the Linked Parts feature was introduced, I believe.

Zuill
Windows 10, Finale 2011-v26.3.1
"When all is said and done, more is said than done."

oldmkvi
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Post by oldmkvi » Sat Aug 15, 2020 4:18 pm

OK, Thanks Zuill.

maennis1112
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Finale Version: 26.3.1
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Post by maennis1112 » Tue Aug 18, 2020 5:30 pm

Thanks everyone for your ideas.

In the meantime I've tried them out, and nothing seems to work. Exporting as XML doesn't even work, program crashes every single time. The curious thing is that the nearer you come to the end of the score, the worse the problem gets — the first couple of pages are fine/almost normal, but then it gets slower and slower. File maintenance hasn't shown anything unusual, deleted close to nothing.

Interstingly, the problem persisted when I extracted a part, which means that it had significantly less information and a smaller file size.

Are there any other ideas?

Thanks and all the best!
Mac (Mid 2015)
OS X 10.13 (High Sierra)
Finale 26.0.1.706

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motet
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Post by motet » Tue Aug 18, 2020 5:53 pm

The only thing I can think of is to try deleting a range of measures right before you notice the problem. If that makes the slowness go away, then delete a smaller range, etc., and try to narrow it down to the spot causing the problem (if there is one).

If you want to make your file available via Dropbox, e.g., we can see if it's slow on other systems.

robertstiffler
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Post by robertstiffler » Mon Aug 24, 2020 2:34 pm

One more possibility:
Go to "Task Manager" while you are experiencing the problem. "Task Manager" will list all the applications that are currently running and the percent of computer time each app is using. You may fine something (app) running that you really do not need. You can close that app, and maybe have more computer time for your Finale application.
Bob Stiffler

tss-music
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Post by tss-music » Mon Feb 27, 2023 12:01 am

Wondering whether a solution was eventually found for this problem posted a couple years ago. It sounds similar to the issue I'm having (viewtopic.php?f=5&t=21721 , which no one's replied to :( ). MakeMusic support hasn't been able to find an answer, and reports that converting to MusicXML doesn't solve it. Data Check doesn't show an insane number of phantom Smart Shapes but the file size is really disproportionately large.

Thanks All,
Tom

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motet
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Post by motet » Mon Feb 27, 2023 5:11 pm

Your file is probably too big to upload here, but if you can make it available on Dropbox, etc., I would take a look.

maennis1112
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Post by maennis1112 » Wed Mar 01, 2023 7:37 pm

Hey everyone,

well I didn't really find a solution in the proper sense, but here's what I did: I sent my file to Klemm Music, the distributor of Finale in Germany, and asked them for support. Somebody replied and basically told me that indeed it was a humungous file and that it wasn't surprising that the performance was slow, basically saying that finale wasn't built for such complex applications :!:
The only workaround that he suggested and that I ended up using was to SWITCH OFF THE DISPLAYING OF LYRICS while working on anything else but lyrics. The score had lyrics (using the lyrics tool) irregularly scattered all across the piece, and there might have been a significant amount of hidden artefacts or something that finale just couldn't handle. But for many reasons that wasn't something I could have undone or cleaned up. So I switched off that they be displayed, and then the lagging was bearable and didn't interfere too much with my regular workflow. I switch it back on when I needed to edit, and obviously to print/export. I think in some instances I added a couple of expressions mimicking the lyrics in order not to have to add any syllables and potentially **** up the entire layout, but since i was almost done with the score it was ok and not too annoying.

I'm sorry i can't come up with a better reply, this is unfortunately all I have to offer :-/ But if I learned a lesson then it's to be hyper vigilant whenever using the lyrics tool and even more so whenever you're twisting the tool to do something other than traditional song lyrics.

Hope this helps in any way... Good luck!
Mac (Mid 2015)
OS X 10.13 (High Sierra)
Finale 26.0.1.706

maennis1112
Posts: 39
Joined: Sun May 06, 2018 9:24 pm
Finale Version: 26.3.1
Operating System: Mac

Post by maennis1112 » Wed Mar 01, 2023 7:41 pm

Oh and one more thing, the saving the file problem is still a thing, not two minutes but about 15 seconds, and that also with other files. But I suspect that the cause of this is that I always import libraries from preceding scores and even though I try to clean them up regularly, they end up a significant amount of custom expressions and custom smart shapes that might overload the entire file. So this could probably also be something to look out for.
Mac (Mid 2015)
OS X 10.13 (High Sierra)
Finale 26.0.1.706

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