Serious issues with finale

[rogue335]

Does anyone else have these serious document-breaking issues with finale? What is even going on??

Windows 10
Finale 27
Ryzen 5 3600
RTX 3060 (12GB Vram)
16GB Ram

- Randomly after working for a period of time, the "drawn" area of the screen turns black and everything stutters, then finale crashes and windows restarts it with documents to recover. As soon as I see the whole drawn area turn black, and/or my cursor start to leave tracers, I know this is about to happen. This happens once or twice a day.

- Once in a while, ALL of the expression categories are randomly empty upon opening a document, yes completely empty. Some of the expressions are still in the score visible, but none are in the expression dialog. This happened today and drove me to no end. I closed said document, opened it, and then suddenly the expression designer had only expressions from another document/template style I have. However most of what I saw on the score were expressions from the library that is supposed to be there... although a couple were actually not there. Such as forte piano and SfZ markings. What could possibly be happening here? this is not the first time the expression dialog box has done this to me, but the first in a little while. Previously this was occurring on Finale 25 as well as 26.

[N Grossingink]

I'd suggest your first troubleshooting step would be to rebuild the preferences, as outlined here:
https://makemusic.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/ ... inale-etc-

Next, do an Advanced Google search of the old Make Music forum. The URL is here: http://forum.makemusic.com
Use keywords such as "black screen"

The "black screen" thing sounds vaguely familiar and may have been around for years.

[ebiggs1]

First question, this only happens with Finale? All of your other programs work perfectly?

[rogue335]

First question, this only happens with Finale? Al of your other programs work perfectly?

Yep this particular issue I've only seen with Finale. I use other programs such as Photoshop/Illustrator, Indesign, and have dabbled with trial versions of Dorico/Siblelius. Full crash issues or worse are extremely rare in those. This is probably the 10th occurrence of the expression dialog opening with nothing in it, but set me back a couple hours in work. The items appeared in the score, but I had to basically re-add them in so that they would appear in the expression dialog box. and the black screen has happened countless times. I would say that the black screen only started happening when I upgraded to Finale 27. Could have something to do with still having Finale 26 installed?

The other reply mentioning to re-build preferences file, so I'll give that a go. For as long as I've used finale (10+ years) I've always had a mild issue with preferences - It would not save the score "paper" selection and background selection. All other preferences would save fine, this small issue never really concerned me, and I just keep it as the default that it opens with now.

[AnneMillington]

I'm interested in knowing whether the reset Preferences thing works.

Also, rogue335, do you have another computer with a similar setup that has not had Finale installed ever? My guess is Finale would work fine there, leading back to the Preferences issue or some other left-behind configuration files.

[ebiggs1]

I am leaning to a computer hardware problem and not a Finale one. First try disabling the print spooler and Windows Audio. Leave them disabled for this test.
The fact that Finale 27.3 runs on my Windows 10 off the shelf Dell desktop and thousands of other computers almost flawlessly ever since installed it almost eliminates Finale as the issue. Therefore, I suspect something in your Windows setup or computer is at fault. I will also guess resetting preferences will not make any difference. As with any computer conflict problem finding it is the frustrating part.

I would make sure all your drivers are the latest available form the manufacturers. Don't let Windows do this for you. Go to their individual website and d/l the latest they have and reinstall them.

Since you stated you have a Ryzen 5 3600 processor did you build this computer yourself? If you overclock it, it can get too hot. Even running normally it can get hot. Check that out.

They say you can run Finale 27 with other versions still on your computer. But I find that in some cases it does cause problems to have more than one version. I would not advise you remove 26 if it is running perfectly well but you might rename it for now so WIndows can't find it.

[motet]

I would file a support ticket with MakeMusic.

[AnneMillington]

I am leaning to a computer hardware problem and not a Finale one...
The fact that Finale 27.3 runs on my Windows 10 off the shelf Dell desktop and thousands of other computers almost flawlessly ever since installed it almost eliminates Finale as the issue...

I agree with ebiggs1. I have found Finale installs to be virtually trouble-free over the years (and versions) I have used it, even with marginal systems. I have had more trouble with the sound files and settings, but even that has smoothed out with NotePerformer 3.0. I am sure you can get to the bottom of this.

Edited to add: If you can open a ticket, I would do so!