Finale 27 ludicrously slow to start

[motet]

What did you change?

[Fulcanelli]

Here is the solution to the LUDICROUSLY slow to start. I got these instructions from Finale:

When you launch Finale, the program does a scan of all the available audio drivers on your system. We can sometimes shorten this process by telling Finale not to scan for all the drivers. Please follow these steps:

Close Finale
Hold down your Windows key (to the left of the spacebar, between the <Ctrl> and <Alt> keys) and type the letter "R" - this will open the 'Run' dialog box
Type "%appdata%" (without quotation marks) and click 'OK'
Navigate to MakeMusic\Finale 26 (*note: for older versions of Finale this folder name will show the version - ex: "Finale 2014.5")
In this folder, double-click the file named "FINMIDI.ini" - this should open the file in a text editor (e.g. Notepad)
Near bottom of the file until you see a section that looks like this:

[AUDIOAPIPREFS]
EngineLoaded=1
ASIOEnabled=1
DirectSoundEnabled=1
WASAPIEnabled=1

Make sure that the EngineLoaded value is 1, so that line should now read "EngineLoaded=1"
Change the ASIOEnabled value from 1 to 0, so that line should now read "ASIOEnabled=0"
Change the WASAPIEnabled value from 1 to 0, so that line should now read "WASAPIEnabled=0"
Save and close the file, then relaunch Finale to see if the issue has been resolved

[motet]

I tried that, hoping that it would cure the situation where Finale failed to obey the audio settings if it couldn't detect a microphone, but all it did was leave me with audio not set up, so I fail to see how this is helpful. What am I missing?

[danielleoh]

I've learned the hard way that although this problem is indeed caused by Finale's ASIO interoperability, fixing it kind of breaks it in the end. I switched off ASIO by changing the startup script to read ASIO = 0, and that sped things up. Then pretty quickly a long series of other problems developed, including the ridiculous problem where it would play through the speakers if I plugged in the headphones, and would not play through headphones at all...
In the end I've gone back to ASIO = 1; I'm sitting here wasting ten minutes for the program to start so I can make an edit to a file that's being recorded today.
Seriously guys, other companies have none of these problems. Can you please just fix this??

[TonyEastwood]

RE: fixing it kind of breaks it in the end.

I removed my ASIO months ago and its worked perfectly (" works for me" ) ever since. So maybe the ASIO on your computer is "more intermittently faulty" than mine . You shouldn't have to wait 10 minutes for it to start – you should definitely raise a support ticket with MM – I've always found them very helpful.

One thing I have learned by sad experience, however, is never to any change to any audio devices ( e.g. plug-in or remove a USB audio device) when Finale is actually running. . . .

[jmhohlfeld]

I just want to add my thanks for the ASIO tip/trick. I have put up with slow Finale loading for as long as I can remember. Even went so far as to buy a new laptop, thinking it was my hardware. (Returned the laptop since it didn't solve that problem and Windows 11 is still not mature enough to adopt.)

It is far from ideal to disable part of the "base" profile, but after all we are using Finale to "MakeMusic" for a multitude of purposes. We should not be inconvenienced and frustrated with a BUG of this magnitude.

I will submit a ticket after this post, but I cannot image that I am the first to raise this issue. Why hasn't this been dealt with?

[dtoub]

So, for all Mac users, in my case (using a Mac) the problem is that I have too many plug-ins that Finale scans through each time it starts. Removing the plug-ins speeds the start up to normal. Problem solved in the sense I now know the reason for the slow startup. I just have to live with it (bc I'm not gonna get rid of my expensive plugs). I'll brew a pot of coffee before I go to work instead, like in the old days.

Interesting. It's been slow to open on my 2018 MBP (Intel) under Ventura and I thought it was the OS and reported it as a bug, but this makes sense. I have a lot more plugins now (TGT, JW, RGP) so that likely does account for the slowdown. But I'm not getting rid of them since I use them.

[jmhohlfeld]

As I said, I initiated a ticket with MakeMusic -- this is what I wrote:
"For as long as I can remember, Finale has taken a long time to load and open the initial page where I can open or create a Finale file. I recently looked for a solution on the Finale Forum, and found that disabling ASIO in the FINMIDI.INI file would "make the problem go away." It worked, but I am not happy about having to change a default setting to get Finale to load in a reasonable time.

What is MakeMusic doing about this problem?"

Within a couple of hours I got this reply:
"Thanks for contacting MakeMusic Customer Support. I'd be happy to address your concerns.
I understand that having to make this change to improve startup times is not ideal, and I've experienced this issue myself. Having to change the FINMIDI file basically is you telling Finale what to boot up when it launches, and ASIO/WASAPI are two audio drivers that Finale looks for by default. Telling Finale to stop loading those drivers is our first method for cutting launch times. We are always trying to improve performance for our programs, and we are working on this. Luckily, editing the FINMIDI file is something you only have to do once (unless you reinstall Finale).

Feel free to reach out with any further questions and thank you again for contacting us."

So! They are aware, and they are working on it. In the meantime, I'm OK with not loading ASIO (so far at least) and LOVE the quicker loading.