MusEdit - Powerful notation software!

Problems and Strange Behavior

(Note: Page numbers in the following sections refer to the page in the MusEdit manual which addresses the problem. If you own a MusEdit manual you should consult that page in your manual)

Program Behavior

MusEdit Freezes/Crashes During Startup

On rare occasions some kind of bug will occur which might prevent MusEdit from starting properly. Two possible sources of this behavior might be a corruption in the last file which you were working on when MusEdit was last shut down; or perhaps one of the preferences you set during a previous session is causing MusEdit to have problems starting. Here is how you can bypass one or both of these problems:

a) MusEdit usually starts by re-opening the last file which was open when you last closed MusEdit. If there is a problem in that file then every time you try to start MusEdit the problem will cause MusEdit to crash and so you can never get the program to start.

Solution: To temporarily prevent opening the last score which was open when MusEdit was closed, hold down the Shift key while starting MusEdit. For example, if you usually start MusEdit by double clicking on a shortcut, this time hold down the Shift key while double-clicking on the shortcut. If you want to permanently stop MusEdit from starting with the last score (ie. if you want MusEdit to simply open with an empty window, or a new, empty document) go to Preferences | Document and under "Start MusEdit with..." choose "no" or "new" score.

b) MusEdit stores your preference settings in the Windows Registry, and every time it restarts it checks those stored values to figure out how to set itself up initially. But sometimes there can be a problem in the saved registry settings, so every time MusEdit tries to start it crashes as soon as it hits the registry problem.

Solution: To set preferences back to the values they had when MusEdit was first installed, hold down the Ctrl key while starting MusEdit. You will then have the option to restore the preferences MusEdit had when it was first installed. The only problem with doing this is that after MusEdit starts successfully you will have to go back and re-set the preferences which you like best.

A Score Which Used to Open Now Causes MusEdit to Crash When Trying to Open It

This can sometimes happen if the score has Line Groups and somehow the line group information has become corrupted. The contents of the score are OK, but when MusEdit tries to group the lines according to instructions, it has a problem and crashes.

Solution: Add the words "UndoLineGroups" to the name of the file. For example, if you have a file called "Mozart-40th.med", and it won't open, and you know it has line groups, you can try changing the name to "Mozart-40th-UndoLineGroups.med" and try opening it. If this is successful you will receive a message to warn you that line groups will be undone, and then the file will open with all the lines of each group separated into ungrouped lines. You will have to go back and re-group the lines now, but it is better than having to redo all the music entry from scratch. To re-group lines which have been "ungrouped":
- right-click in the top line
- hold down the Shift key
- hit the Down Arrow key until you have selected all the lines which used to be in a group (for example, perhaps the original group had a Chord, Treble, Text, Treble, and Tab line, so you would select those five lines)
- click on the Insert Line Group button ( ) or hit Ctrl+Shift+G
- make sure mutual translation options are checked correctly (for example if you had a mutually translating Treble/Tab line pair, check "Set 1" for both lines of that pair), then hit OK
- repeat this re-grouping procedure for each set of lines in your score

After installing MusEdit the program does not run because of a "missing dll"

MusEdit needs two important Windows system files to run: mfc42.dll and msvcrt.dll.
These files are already installed on almost every Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2K/XP system, and they are also included in the the MusEdit installation. But sometimes the correct version of these files does not get installed during the MusEdit installation, and when you try to run MusEdit you will get an error message such as:
"A device attached to the system will not run"
and/or "This program requires the module mfc42:6502" (or something similar...)
If you get one of these error messages when you first try to run MusEdit, you will need to download these system files by clicking on the link below:
MusEditSystemFiles.exe - 632 K
After downloading this file, double click on it and when the unzip dialog appears, click on the "Unzip" button. The required files will be automatically unzipped (extracted) to the MusEdit folder (assuming MusEdit is installed in the default folder: C:\Program Files\MusEdit; you will need to change this path if you installed MusEdit in a different folder). MusEdit should run properly after the necessary files are unzipped to the MusEdit folder.

Symbols and other images, toolbar buttons, or dialog text disappears

This is probably due to running out of "GDI Resources" in Windows. Windows has limited memory available for items such as menus, bitmaps, and other "resources". It doesn't matter how much RAM you have in your system; the space available for resources is still limited. MusEdit consumes quite a lot of resources because of all the musical symbols it uses; and during printing it loads a whole new set of symbols -this creates maximum stress. If you are having resource problems the best solutions are:
-Close all unneeded applications
-Avoid displaying both large and small symbol sizes at one time
-Be especially careful to observe these precautions when printing

Many of the toolbar buttons are disabled.

Toolbar buttons for actions which can only occur in staff lines (eg. set Key Sig, Time Sig, etc.) are disabled when the caret is in a text line; similarly the Font button is disabled when the caret is not in a text line. Also, most buttons which can change the document in some way are disabled when the document is in "Read Only" mode (pg. 27).

Toolbars disappear and reappear sometimes.

Toolbar visibility is stored with scores, so if you open a score which was saved with a toolbar hidden, that toolbar will hide itself again (see pg. 23).

Preferences don't seem to affect existing documents.

Preferences are generally applied to new documents; menus and toolbars should be used to adjust settings for existing documents. For example, suppose you want to change the length of the staff lines in a score you are working on... to do this, go to the menu item "Actions | Set Staff Length"
and set the length with the dialog that pops up. But to set the staff length you want MusEdit to use for all new scores you create, you would go to File | Set Preferences | Staff, Drum, and Text Lines and set the "Initial Staff Length" value.

AutoSave

Hitting "Cancel" on Autosave doesn't cancel autosaving.

Cancel cancels changes to the autosave settings (which are on by default). Choose "Don't Autosave" to stop autosaving.

Staff Lines

Setting Staff Length doesn't seem to work.

Make sure all the right options are checked, such as "Fixed length" vs. "No fixed length", and the range over which it should be applied. Also, make sure you are using the menu "Actions | Set Staff Length" to change the staff length for a score you are working on, don't use Preferences to change an existing score, Preferences are for the settings used for new scores.

Entering Symbols

When a new symbol is added the existing symbol disappears.

Some unexpected behavior can occur if you have "Overwrite" mode ON (by accidentally hitting the "Ins" key. Overwrite mode is indicated by the letters "OVR" in the status bar (instead of "INS")). One of the main characteristics of overwrite mode is that you can't build chords because every time you add a new note to a chord it overwrites the chord you're adding to. You might experiment with this a little to see how it behaves in case you ever get strange behavior so you can recognize what's going on. (pg. 54)

It's difficult to remove a symbol...

See pg. 91 for tips on removing symbols.

Grace notes don't join, even if "Join mode" is on.

MusEdit treats grace notes as simple symbols, so they can't make note clusters. Use "mini" notes for grace note clusters (see pg. 83)

Entering a single note creates a two or more tied notes instead

Auto-Bar insertion is causing the note to be replaced with a smaller total time value, followed by a bar, followed by the remaining time value. See pg. 94 for details of what is happening. Uncheck Options | Auto-Bar Insertion to prevent it from happening.

Chords

The only chord available for most keys and chord names is called "BLANK".

This can happen if you are working in an alternate tuning and MusEdit can't find (or create) any chords for that tuning, or if you have MusEdit set to only show custom chords, and there are none available.

In the first case, you will have to design your own chords for the alternate tuning, or else go to File | Set Preferences | Chords and check "Automatically create alternate tuning chords... from chords in MusEdit's chord dictionary".

in the second case go to File | Set Preferences | Chords and make sure "Only show custom chords, even when working in standard tuning" is unchecked. Also, if you are working in an alternate tuning and "Only show chords for current tuning" is checked, you will need to have designed (or scanned in from other scores) all the chords for the new tuning, otherwise MusEdit will have no chords to show, and whenever MusEdit has no chords to show for a certain key/name it only shows a chord named "BLANK". If this option is unchecked standard tuning chords will be visible, even though they are not appropriate for an alternate tuning.

Translation

Mutual translation doesn't seem to be working.

Make sure you checked the mutual translation boxes when you created the group (see pg. 156) and make sure Options | Automatic Translation ( or

) is toggled on.

Tab lines look messed up after pasting as text.

Make sure the font in the text document is "fixed-width" (eg. Courier). In some fonts the '-' and '|' characters are much narrower than numbers, so the tab columns get messed up.

MIDI

MIDI Play doesn't make any sound

First, your computer must have MIDI compatible sound, and make sure you've selected an appropriate output device (see pg. 183).

MIDI plays at strange speeds (eg. too fast) or the timing is off

There may be an error in the musical notation.

MIDI plays translated lines twice

Translating treble to tab produces two lines with the same music, and MIDI will play the same music twice. See pg. 194 for tips to avoid this.

MIDI playback shows incorrect fingering on the virtual fretboard

For accurate fingering the caret should be in a Tab line (which shows true fretboard fingering) during Midi playback. If necessary, use the Show/Hide buttons to hide the Treble lines so the caret is in a Tab line during playback.

Printing

Tab digits are missing or "clipped" on printouts.

The "Tab Clip" setting may be too low for your printer (see pg. 131).

On printouts bars, treble clef, and other symbols dangle below bottom of staff; note stems come out of middle of note bodies.

The Hor and Vert settings in Preferences | Printer Adjustments may need to be set differently for your printer. 100 is the standard value, but 80 works in most other cases (see pg.188).

Text on printed output doesn't line up with music the same way it lines up on the screen

The "Font Scaling" setting in Preferences | Document, Layout and Printing | Printing Adjustments may need to be set differently for your printer. 90% works for most printers, but if alignment is not correct this number probably needs to be reduced (see pg. 205).

When images from MusEdit scores are inserted in a word processor document and then printed out, they appear "jagged"

The exported images should be saved as "High Resolution Images" (see pg. 216 and 219) before being inserted in the word processor document so that they print out as sharp, high resolution images.