Finale cannot open the selected filetype

Discuss technical issues with keyboards, sound, video cards, etc.

Moderators: Peter Thomsen, miker

Post Reply
allenblake21
Posts: 4
Joined: Tue Jun 26, 2018 9:04 pm
Finale Version: 2012
Operating System: Mac

Post by allenblake21 » Tue Jun 26, 2018 9:17 pm

Hi -
I have been working on a piece in FINALE 2012 on a mac, and I personally save it almost every 10 seconds. Then my Finale quit, and there are no BAK's of this on the computer, and it is now saying "Finale cannot open the selected filetype." There are no TEMP files of it either. It seems to have completely gone batty.

I also have tried to do file>open, copied the file and changed it to .xml, .musx, and even prayed I could convert it somehow to .pdf so I would at least have a hard copy of the work. Can anyone help? Or even open it for me?

Thanks.


User avatar
motet
Posts: 8227
Joined: Tue Dec 06, 2016 8:33 pm
Finale Version: 2014.5,2011,2005,27
Operating System: Windows

Post by motet » Tue Jun 26, 2018 9:27 pm

You didn't have Autosave turned on?

allenblake21
Posts: 4
Joined: Tue Jun 26, 2018 9:04 pm
Finale Version: 2012
Operating System: Mac

Post by allenblake21 » Tue Jun 26, 2018 9:29 pm

Just checked in preferences, and the box is un-checked.

User avatar
motet
Posts: 8227
Joined: Tue Dec 06, 2016 8:33 pm
Finale Version: 2014.5,2011,2005,27
Operating System: Windows

Post by motet » Tue Jun 26, 2018 9:31 pm

Oh, too bad. Looks like portions of the file have been zeroed. I'm afraid you're probably out of luck--I'm sorry.

allenblake21
Posts: 4
Joined: Tue Jun 26, 2018 9:04 pm
Finale Version: 2012
Operating System: Mac

Post by allenblake21 » Tue Jun 26, 2018 9:33 pm

motet wrote:Oh, too bad. Looks like portions of the file have been zeroed. I'm afraid you're probably out of luck--I'm sorry.
I hadn't finished. Are any of the portions not zeroed? Is there anything left in the file that I could get? Or is the whole thing zeroed?

User avatar
motet
Posts: 8227
Joined: Tue Dec 06, 2016 8:33 pm
Finale Version: 2014.5,2011,2005,27
Operating System: Windows

Post by motet » Tue Jun 26, 2018 9:56 pm

The whole thing isn't zeroed, but much of it is, and I'd say there's little hope of salvaging anything. It's binary data rather than anything recognizable.

Are you sure there's not a .bak file somewhere? Can you do a search?

allenblake21
Posts: 4
Joined: Tue Jun 26, 2018 9:04 pm
Finale Version: 2012
Operating System: Mac

Post by allenblake21 » Tue Jun 26, 2018 10:00 pm

I searched for .bak, bak, by the file name, everything. Hmm. Thanks for trying - for future reference, how do you think this happened?

User avatar
zuill
Posts: 4418
Joined: Sat Dec 10, 2016 9:35 pm
Finale Version: Finale 2011-v26.3.1
Operating System: Windows

Post by zuill » Tue Jun 26, 2018 10:05 pm

If you have no backup files, that is because you didn't design a path to a folder in which to have Finale place them. I would do that, as well as turn on Autosave. One more word of advice: Save different versions of a project so that you have more than one file. I often save a new version of a file when I go to the next level of the project.

Also, if Mac has the same problem Windows has, create a folder for the temp files (temporary files that only Finale can use for a single session) that is unique to Finale. When Finale is closed, delete these files. They are no longer needed. No future session of Finale can use them. They can cause file corruption.

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

User avatar
motet
Posts: 8227
Joined: Tue Dec 06, 2016 8:33 pm
Finale Version: 2014.5,2011,2005,27
Operating System: Windows

Post by motet » Tue Jun 26, 2018 11:56 pm

I don't know from the Mac, but won't the "Time Machine" help here?

User avatar
MikeHalloran
Posts: 706
Joined: Mon Jan 02, 2017 2:56 am
Finale Version: 27
Operating System: Mac

Post by MikeHalloran » Wed Jun 27, 2018 1:14 am

motet wrote:I don't know from the Mac, but won't the "Time Machine" help here?
If the file has been saved successfully and indexing is tuned on (default) for Time Machine, yes.
Mike Halloran

Finale 27.3, SmartScore X2 Pro, GPO5 & World Instruments
MacOS Ventura 13.2.1; 2017 iMac Pro 18 Core, 128G RAM, 4TB; 2021 MBAir M1
NotePerformer3, Dorico 4, Overture, Notion 6, DP 11, Logic Pro

Post Reply