New Finale

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mhschmieder
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Re: New Finale

Post by mhschmieder »

I'm lucky that I was quickly able to catch up on a week's worth of email this afternoon(I am 100% off the grid when I travel), and had flagged this one for serious consideration (they sent it to me three times to make sure I didn't miss it).

I may still feel the need to more thoroughly review the caveats from those who already did the upgrade, but FWIW the new Dorico product is being noted for more serious functional holes the longer people use it. So I think we all may need to keep our Finale workflows intact for a while longer...

...and yes, I remember the other product being promoted here as well, and intend to check that one out too (Overture?).
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mhschmieder
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Re: New Finale

Post by mhschmieder »

I went ahead and did the upgrade last night.

Other than the usual bootstrapping (three crashes until it ran), no problems. I didn't really run through it enough yet to notice what is new though.

It seems to have chosen a different place to install Garritan, so I may need to clean out my directories soon as already my 500 GB SSD (and I only had 130 GB a year ago!) is filling up -- mostly due to allowing more products (with relatively small footprints compared to VSL, Kontakt, BFD, etc.) to use their preferred default locations for their data/libraries.
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mhschmieder
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Re: New Finale

Post by mhschmieder »

Both 25.1 and 25.2 fail to launch (just updated to 25.2 to see if it fixed the problem); 25.0 was fine.

"Unresponsive during engine initialization" is what I get -- INSTANTLY -- a first for me, and repeatable even after a fresh reboot of the Mac.

When I've had problems with Finale in the past, it has taken longer to crash and is usually traceable to fonts issues.
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mhschmieder
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Re: New Finale

Post by mhschmieder »

Finale was updated again today. I still get the same results, after this update and after my recent Sierra upgrade: "Unresponsive during engine initialization".

No cycles to prioritize tracking down the cause. Working like the devil, am busy with the aftermath of my bandleader's death, recording a local metal band, and gigging plus I just joined a hard rock cover band on the side to complement my jazz combo experience.

I'm just disappointed, because I had hoped that the problem would take care of itself by the time I really need to use Finale again, which will be when I start creating lead sheets for whoever takes on the piano role in my jazz combo.
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Re: New Finale

Post by MIDI Life Crisis »

F25. Doorstop.
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mhschmieder
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Re: New Finale

Post by mhschmieder »

Hmm, maybe I'd better check for an older installer to the previous rev then, after the metal band packs up their gear and I return to working on my own material in a couple of weeks.

Come to think of it, I'm not sure this version has EVER worked for me, but I probably failed to note it at the time I paid for the upgrade as I likely was preoccupied with the El Capitan push (I was late to that party).
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mikehalloran
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Re: New Finale

Post by mikehalloran »

If you have a number of older Finale and SmartMusic products on your Mac, the installer can get confused. I just spent a week with MM Support and figured out how to get the 25 installer to behave. We never did figure out how or what happened but I'm good now.

This is easy and can't screw anything up (it's reversible if necessary):

Go to /Library/Application Support/MakeMusic

Move all the folders inside to a different location. Desktop is fine—this is temporary.

Run the 25.3 installer. Make certain you also run the second installer for Aria/Garritan

Test to see if it 25.3 opens without crashing. Play with a file etc.

If successful, go back to /Library/Application Support/MakeMusic and put all of those moved folders back except the one named Finale. If you installed the 64bit JW or TG Tools plugins in 25.2, open the Finale/Plug-ins folder on your desktop and put them into /Library/ApplicationSupport/MakeMusic/Finale/Plug-ins

In my case, I had SmartScore 9 and 2010 folders plus 2014 in there so I trashed them.

If everything works, now trash the Finale folder still on your desktop. If not, you can put the folder back.


In my case, it took a week with MM to get to the point where I figured out to do the above. MM doesn't know why the installer screwed up—only that it can.
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mhschmieder
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Re: New Finale

Post by mhschmieder »

Mike, cool, I'll try that later tonight -- drummer just showed up for some editing sessions.

This might be what I tried earlier, but it doesn't take long so is worth doing.

Also, this specific time (but not the previous times), I did NOT install Garritan again as I figured that would be a redundant action. So thanks for explicitly including that in your steps!
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Re: New Finale

Post by MIDI Life Crisis »

mikehalloran wrote:I just spent a week with MM Support and figured out how to get the 25 installer to behave... This is easy and can't screw anything up..
I'm having a hard time rectifying those two statements.

It took a week for them to figure that out (and granted, they did) but it begs the question what else is lurking to be discovered?

More importantly than loosing the movie window was loosing my trust in the developer. I believe that is irretrievable at this point. This past week they were touting some film composer or another on their web site (I've been there at least twice, so it's not like I'm not a fanboy... or was), but as far as composing for film, I have yet to see one film composer actually embrace F25. I would, in fact, be in very deep doo doo right now if I couldn't get F2014.5 back on it's feet. It stopped working completely in El Cap and mysteriously revived itself in Sierra. What the fudge (fudge being code) was THAT about.

Perhaps it will run better now, but at what cost? At the cost of loosing features so you can just eliminate the code? Don't need it. Cut it. Cut it... I am not a fan of Draconian practices and certainly not when it comes to removing what are critical features, long touted features that lured many, myself included, to invest in update after update, thousands of dollars by now, and for what? For an app that is as useless to me as an onion when it comes to scoring my work?

Nope, Sorry. No love for Finale 25, regardless of however much they update, reduce the price, or further "improve" it. They've lost me as a customer and as an endorser. No skin off their backs, I suppose. They have enough schools to sell to - which is what they are catering to: students. The pros get shafted unless all you need to do is layout, engrave, typeset, whatever - just DON'T effing (there, it slipped out - so to speak) try to score to picture because in that realm...

IT SUCKS THE VERY BIGGEST ONE!

PM me if you want to know how I really feel...
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Phil O
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Re: New Finale

Post by Phil O »

I finally got F25.2 (sounds like a fighter jet) to work reasonably well on my system. I may just not mess with it. Every time they've come out with an update they've fixed two things and broken eight.

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Re: New Finale

Post by terrybritton »

MIDI Life Crisis wrote: For an app that is as useless to me as an onion when it comes to scoring my work?
Hey, now - I still compose using onion juice as invisible ink using a quill pen when the (paranoid) mood strikes. Instant copyright protection!

But, yeah, no movie window, etc..

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Re: New Finale

Post by mikehalloran »

MIDI Life Crisis wrote:
mikehalloran wrote:I just spent a week with MM Support and figured out how to get the 25 installer to behave... This is easy and can't screw anything up..
I'm having a hard time rectifying those two statements.

It took a week for them to figure that out (and granted, they did) but it begs the question what else ?
...
You misunderstand. I figured out how to make the installer behave, not they.

It took a few days to get a tech who read my support request and understand that I was accurately describing a real issue. The other two assumed I didn't know what I was doing or that I couldn't follow simple instructions on a Mac.

The one who helped me confirmed with Engineering that my problem could exist. He then gave a number of suggestions that, while they didn't fix anything, led me to figure out the solution—he was helpful. MM doesn't know what caused it and neither do I other than having older products installed triggers something in the installer to misbehave—the procedure I gave proves it beyond all doubt. I expect others will be helped by this.

The procedure I gave is easy: you find one folder, move its contents to a temporary location, rerun both installers, put everything back except one folder. A new Finale user will only see one folder in that directory, BTW.

I've been on the opposite side and worked a pre-sales support desk for a number of years. Rarely is there a real problem to be solved. I'm glad we got it resolved in a week.
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Re: New Finale

Post by MIDI Life Crisis »

Good luck. I'll never have to deal with that company again. F2014.5 is as good as the app will ever get in my studio.
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mhschmieder
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Re: New Finale

Post by mhschmieder »

Hey Mike, just ran all your steps, but unfortunately the same results. "Unresponsive during initialization" appears as a pop-up after a few minutes.
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mikehalloran
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Re: New Finale

Post by mikehalloran »

mhschmieder wrote:Hey Mike, just ran all your steps, but unfortunately the same results. "Unresponsive during initialization" appears as a pop-up after a few minutes.
Phone support is gone. You gave to start at the Submit a request link at the top of this page. Chad is the head of support—I hope you get him.

https://makemusic.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/ ... t_activity
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