Notation Composer and Musician 242 maintenance release

Mark, I truly appreciate the pictures which helped quite a lot.
I also wanted to shout out a special thanks for your "export" arrangement for Midi. Now I can export my changes to midi and continue without interruption working on a notation file, great when finishing up and checking lyrics.

Is this just me? this is so basic I thought it would be in the lsit of ?bugs but couldn't find it.

2.4.2 in XP (I had to recently re-download everthing!)

Select a region (ctrl-mouse)
convert it to notes qcrn
hit DEL

COmposer terminates with message "runtime error! Abnormal project termination

Hello Tim,

I wasn't able to reproduce this with version 2.4.2, nor with the current version (2.5) I'm working on. Please attach the .not file that illustrates this, and let me know what region you selected with Ctrl+Drag.

Thanks!

Cheers
-- Mark

Hello Tim,

I was able to reproduce the crash with version 2.4.2 using your above .not file. That's a serious bug.

It turns out, I've already fixed that bug (without knowing about this particular symptom of the bug) in the upcoming verison 2.5. I have been planning on saving up a big batch of usability improvements, some nice new features (such as Scale Meter) and bug fixes for a 2.5 release in about 2 weeks. This bug symptom is sufficiently serious that I'm tempted to get its fix out in a quick 2.4.3 release, but that would cost me a whole day to prepare the release. So, unless another serious bug shows up, I'll wait until the 2.5 release, in about 2 weeks, to make this bug fix available.

Thanks for reporting it!

Cheers
-- Mark

Hi Sherry, Mark,

1. Create a new song by following the defaults of “start a new song from scratch”
2. Add four 1/4 notes to the first bar. Say four times g.
3. Add lyrics to each note advancing each time with space bar. The lyrics are “a”, “b”, “c” and “d”.
4 While the lyric “d” is still selected, click “c”.
5. Click “b”.
6. Click “c”.

Composer fails to respond.

Note: Composers failure to respond is not due to, or is punishment for the uninteresting composition or meaningless lyrics.

Best wishes,

Herbert

This may or may not be related, you decide.
Composer never has been able to add lyrics such that the first note in the score can have a lyric syllable. It will look okay, but when played by VBKaraoke, etc. the first lyric syllable will not show. In the example you gave, I would expect B C D. The A would not show. One can add a preceeding potential lyric space and the problem goes away. In the example, inserting a 1/4 measure as measure #1, then letting the lyric actually start from measure #2, the example should finally (be expected to) display A B C D. Wasn't ABCDEFGHI a song on Sesame Street?
-- Michael --

Howdy guys,

MG - I apologize for not getting back on this sooner. Your report slid under my radar. I tried the procedure that you outlined, but without any problem. If you reopen this file in a fresh session of Composer, and attempt the steps, do you still get an abnormal program termination?

Herbert - I was able to reproduce the problem you reported, and it's now on the "fix it" list. The work around for this one is to make sure that the lyric edit box is gone (ie, that you switch from "add" to "select" mode) before selecting another lyric. I'm also sending you a book on lyrical poetry ;)

Michael - VanBasco (and other karaoke players) rely on slash marks for formatting the lyrics. Please try putting a "\" before that first lyric, eg "\a" rather than just "a". That should signal VB "Hey - lyrics coming up!" You can set Composer to hide those slash marks while you're working with the file if you find them annoying in that context. Please see the User's Guide, "Editing types of text/ Lyrics /Working with karaoke (.kar) files" for further information on formatting files for use in karaoke players.

ttfn,
Sherry

Hi Sherry,

Quote: I tried the procedure that you outlined, but without any problem. If you reopen this file in a fresh session of Composer, and attempt the steps, do you still get an abnormal program termination? End Quote.

After several fresh sessions, or both Composer and the computer. What surprised me most was that this was that only these notes in those two measures produced the result. Did you by chance try it in a version that had some of the abnormal termination problems fixed?

all best,
mgj

Howdy Michael,

I opened the .mid file and found a "/" (forward slash) rather than the suggested "\" (backward slash). I think it's the "\" (backward slash) that will make the difference. "Leaning into it" as it were ;) Please let me know if it doesn't. The "/" (forward slash) is for a different formatting aspect of karaoke files. Mark has written a nice section on karaoke formatting in the User's Guide, as mentioned above.

ttfn,
Sherry

Howdy Daniel,

I've let Mark know about the problem with your file not opening (I was unable to open it as well in 2.3.2). In the meantime, if you need to work on it, you may need to reinstall your older version of Composer. If you need help with that, let me know.

ttfn,
Sherry

Hi Sherry,
I corrected the slash direction in the notation file. I deleted the midi file. I exported a new ABCDEFGHI midi file. It still plays B C D E F G H I. The A does not play. Do you want a free copy of VanBasco? The exported midi from Composer will not show the A, forward or back slashed.
-- Michael --

Hi, Sherry, Daniel et al:

Regarding files suddenly not opening:

I'm still with 2.3.3 (as my steam-powered internet connection has not been reliable enough lately to download a big file) and since I took my studio apart and re-arranged it, I've suddenly been having difficulty with files not opening.

I've found that it has to do with changing of the default sound device. It seems that the file loads as far as the new dialogue box that comes up asking about re-assigning staves to the new default device and then the program hangs before that box is displayed.

This seems only to happen when the new default device is one that was not present (or has been modified since) the file was originally created.

I've worked around this by making sure that the default device is what was originally saved with the file, then making changes later as needed.

So far, I think that all the files that caused Composer to hang have loaded with that workaround in place.

David

Hey Sherry,

yes, I do need some info regarding re-installing an older version, as I have unfortunately deleted any setups that I had.

And for clarification's sake, all of my files open with 2.4.2 accept for this one, which would terminate version 2.3.1. I simply upgraded to see if it would open again, which it didn't.

~Daniel

Howdy Daniel,

Actually Mark and I both tested this file in other versions of Composer, and it appears that the file itself has been corrupted somehow. Since all your other files open in 2.4.2, that gives even more weight to that conclusion.

Your best bet here is to use the "File/Autosave file recovery" command, and then look for the last-saved backup of your "bid farewell piano" file. It should look like "bid farewell piano-Recover-1.not" for the last-saved one. Please try opening that file, or the ones before it, and see if they will open in 2.4.2. If so, you should only lose about the last five minutes of work you'd done on the file.

Here's hoping you can recover an uncorrupted copy quickly!
Sherry

Hello MG,

Thanks for reporting this problem a few days ago with your Symphony 3 .not file:
<blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!><font size=1>quote:</font>

Please select all the notes in measures 37 and 38, either by dragging he mouse or moving the cursor over the individual notes. Then use Shift plus either the up or down arrow. The result will be abnormal program termination.<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote>I confirmed the bug in version 2.4.2. It is now fixed for the next release, version 2.5, or perhaps 2.4.3. I might decide to get a 2.4.3 maintenance release out sooner with a few fixes like that one.

Cheers
-- Mark

Hello Michael,

This is a bug in VanBasco, not Composer:
<blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!><font size=1>quote:</font>

Composer never has been able to add lyrics such that the first note in the score can have a lyric syllable. It will look okay, but when played by VBKaraoke, etc. the first lyric syllable will not show.<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote>I was able to reproduce the bug by creating a .kar file totally from scratch in Cakewalk SONAR 7. Just as with the .kar file created by Composer, VanBasco did not display the first lyric.

There's a way I could work around VanBasco's bug. I found that if I added one MIDI tick to the first lyric event, then it would be correctly displayed by VanBasco. However, I'm afraid that if I add that work-around in Composer, just to accommodate VanBasco, I might break some other MIDI or Karaoke application trying to read the Karaoke file created by Composer. Therefore, I will not attempt to add a work-around in Composer.

Instead, I think the work-around you found is a fairly good one, to add an empty upbeat measure before the beginning of the song.

Cheers
-- Mark

Thanks, Mark.
The truth is that most of the time, songs with lyrics have an instrumental lead-in. On that rare occasion they don't, I just append a lead-in "rest" or a mute note ahead of the first music. An "empty up-beat measure", exactly.

Ok this is kinda strange... When I tried to open the recovery place, its says access denied, then opens up a manual 'open' window. I went manually to Notation/Composer/Recover, and it said access denied again.

Either way, I checked the properties of the Recover folder, and it said it has 0 files and 0 bytes of memory. But I really don't want my recovery folder to be denied to me...

~Daniel

Okay, now the recover file is opening, but when I try to open any file saved there, it says that access is denied. Anyways, the bid farewell piece is not there, so I'll do it over from scratch.
~Daniel

Howdy Daniel,

Ok, this is weird - I received email notifications of two posts from you, but I don't see them here on the forum.

The issue was regarding shifting notes from one staff to another. This problem has been fixed for the upcoming 2.5 release due in the next couple of weeks.

Daniel, if you had a problem with trying to post to the forum, please email me at support@notation.com and let me know what problem you encountered.

ttfn,
Sherry

I did send 2 posts, but I deleted them after I saw that the problem I found was the first thing posted by Herbert. Sorry for the confusion.

~Daniel

Howdy Daniel,

Thanks for confirming that what bit of remaining sanity I have is still intact ;) There are days when I wonder about me....

ttfn,
Sherry

Hi Sherry, Mark,

1. Create a new song by following the defaults of “start a new song from scratch”
2. Add 1/4 notes to the first two measures. Say eight times g.
3. Add lyrics to each note of the first measure. The lyrics are “a”, “b”, “c” and “d”.
4 Copy and paste special lyrics from the first measure to the second measure.

Only “a” is pasted.

Best wishes,

Herbert