Smart shapes not too smart

[Jay Emmes]

Quite often Finale decides to not play back smart shapes as it supposed to do. Well, frankly, Finale quite often decides not to play articulations (accents notably) or expressions (pizzicato and arco mostly) either, but that's for a next time. In this case Finale refuses to play the diminuendos (see attached file) in these particular measures. Mind you, in all other measures of that document playback is just fine in all instruments.
I have erased and re-entered the four measures on these four staves, but to no avail. I replaced the smart shape with a "dim." expression, but to no avail either. Reloaded instruments, cleared MIDI data (both in the MIDI menu and the "clear selected items), but alas. I created a new file from scratch, copied these four measures into it and voilà: no diminuendo. So there must be something in these measures that tells Finale to ignore the hairpins, but I'm at my wits' end as to what that might be.

It is greatly appreciated if anyone is willing to take a look. And anyone who can solve this conundrum will be recommended for next year's Nobel Peace Prize.

[motet]

I can't get any sound out of your file at all.

But I notice Human Playback is set to "Custom." Try different Human Playback choices and see if that makes a difference.

[Jay Emmes]

Forgot to mention that, sorry, but I had tried that as well: changing HP setup to 'standard', 'none', whatever, no difference. The file should play though as it uses standard GIfF sounds (bassoon solo, 2x violin section and viola section.)