My Finale, it dies! Any Healers out there?

So, here's the deal. And this is a long post... I'm sorry. I'm trying to be as clear as possible.

I'm using Finale 2005. Officially, it's called Finale 2005a, if that makes any difference for anyone. I've been using it since the Christmas celebration of 2004, when it was given to me by my family. I've never had any issues with it.

Until recently.

I'm working on two rather large projects at the moment - a Symphony (for a large-ish full orchestra), and a Suite for the Grand Organ. Problems presented themselves at first in the Symphony, but have began mirroring themselves also in the Suite. So here we go...

Whilst writing the second movement to said symphony, one day I was given one of those "This Program Has Performed an Illegal Operation and Will Be Shut Down" warnings. And of course, it did shut down, and I lost about three pages of music. After inputting all the music again (horrifically boring process, don'tcha know?), everything seemed to be okay.

I got several more pages written, but then as I was going back to edit something and add in a Trombone line, I came to the same page where I'd had the Illegal Operation crap, and it happened again. And I lost all the editing and Trombone-adding that I'd done.

So I gave up on that aspect, momentarily at least, and continued writing. On page... um, nine or ten, there is an enormous crescendo to an orchestral tutti, with lots of divisi strings and the like. Well... when I played this back, the crescendo sounded a bit shaky, if you know what I mean, and then out of nowhere, the strings part completely dropped out. Seeing as this was an appogiatura of a G# chord (enharmonically) to an F# chord, and the weight of the strings supplied the basis of the harmonic foundation, it simply sounded horrid. (The woodwinds held most of the melody, the Brass a harmonic counterpoint thing... and the percussion was mostly hidden, purposefully. I NEED the strings there... but they don't play.)

Now I know that playback isn't the ultimate goal of writing, etc. However, this particular movement needs to play back properly, seeing as my mother has requested a copy of it to be played at her wedding, which is coming up on May 5th. Yeah, that soon.

I've tried everything I can think of to fix this problem: I've rearranged all the preceding hairpins, even removing the crescendi all together just to see if they had some effect on it. Nothing. I've rescored the tutti and appogiatura, hoping that I'd somehow crossed the two Violin parts (which had been sharing the same MIDI channel, or whatever it's called). Nothing. I went into the Instrument List and reformed EVERYTHING so that none of the strings were sharing a MIDI channel. Nothing.

In desperation, I finally just sat down and started to recopy the entire thing into another file (including the aforementioned Trombone staff to save problems on that). However, when I got to that lovely THIRD PAGE, the Illegal Operation crap happened. Again. And I gave up.

Finally, last night, I was just hoping to maybe get through the tutti section, finish it up, and just force myself (and future audience) to deal with the dropping out of the strings at that part. However, as I was writing in the Harp part on that page, Illegal Operation. I swore a few times, opened it back up, Illegal Operation. A third try, same results.

So I've simply given up for now, on that.

Now then, on to the Organ suite. I'm only about ten measures into the Prélude, and encountering similar crap. The three lines are all on different Channels, to avoid that shaky sound of clashed channels (can you tell I've some experience working with an under-channeled computer?). In this piece, the pedal line (which is randomly set to the "Church Organ" setting, simply because I want a more diapason-like tone from the pedal around the clarions and trompettas of the manuals. At any rate, the Prélude is set to Adagio Doloroso, and is built upon (horrendous, according to my mother) dissonances in the manuals over a very slow-moving pedal line. Unfortunately, said pedal line just randomly stops playing every now and then. This file hasn't given me any of those Illegal Operation warnings, but for all I know, it might.

So there's my two mains problems; obviously, the more pressing problem is with the Symphony's file.

I've also made sure it's not just my computer; I do have Finale 2008 Notepad installed on this computer (my internet computer and Finale computer are two separate entities), so I opened the file in Notepad and found, much to my chagrin, that the strings dropped out at the same time. So, whatever the problem is, I have a feeling it's in the file itself, or worse, in Finale.

*huge sigh*

Anyone have any idea what I'm to do, besides chunk it out of the third-story window?

Thanks for your time, I greatly appreciate it,

~Dallas

A couple of fast ideas:

1. Seperate the movements in seperate files. It's better to work on 3 20 page files, rather than 1 60 page... Risks are less and once you're done it's secure

2. attach the said file for other people to take a look. It could be that you're doing something very specific in a specific bar and this causes all the trouble... Other eyes might be able to pick it up sooner.

3. Your recording issues might be CPU or RAM drop outs, more than the Finale itself...

Thank you SO MUCH for taking the time to tackle this for me, Nikolas! I'm indebted to you!

Okay, I've a few quick questions about your solutions:

1) How do you mean this? Do you mean, say, Movement 1 in its own file, Movement 2 in another, etc., or do you mean to separate the individual parts/sections (for example, Woodwinds in a file, Brass in another, etc.)? If it's the former, that's already what I do. The second movement is indeed in its own file. (Heck, the first movement isn't even written yet; long story).

2) I'll try this; however, I'd have to convert from my Finale 2005 file on my other computer to the Finale 2008 Notepad, which is on this computer. Do you think this would at all affect the viewing integrity, or what have you? Either way, I'll get this done as soon as possible.

3) Hahahah. VERY possible, considering it's an old computer with Windows '98 and horrific ram problems. However, note that I also opened the Symphony file on a different computer - fully up to date, Windows XP, with some ungodly amount of RAM, CPU management programs that make my head spin, etc... and still had the same results.

Nevertheless, I thank you again for taking the time to read through my garble and offer suggestions; I'll try everything you've said here! Thank you so much!

~Dallas

1. I mean each movement on it's own file. Not parts.
2. Why do you need to convert? Just save the finale 2005 file, put it on the disk, and move it along to your internet connected computer. Anyone with versions more recent than 2005a will be able to open the file. No worries there.

Also maybe (although it is a long shot), just make a pdf file of the page 3 and attach it here, only to see if there is anything dodgy going on in that particular page.

2.5 Maybe (new idea), try to delete bars before and after, to see which bar is making hte trouble. You know it's page 3. What if page 3 was page 1 after all? What if there wasn't a page 4? Elliminating bars and possible problems you will reach the problem.

3. hmmm... don't know until I can see the file or I can get someone else to play it (have note pad and a very early version of finale, myself). But this could be it. Again try to mute some channels, leave only the strings to see if this keeps up. solo only vln I and see what happens, etc. Find out if this is a RAM/CPU issue, or just some finale issue after all.

On a very recent experience:

I'm currently working on a solo piano piece. While it sounds simple it's not. Because it changes time every bar pretty much. And bars are far from normal at 23/16, then 9/8, then 4/4, then 13/16, etc. Also it features plenty of 7:8 and 9:8 at the same time, as well as appogiaturas, etc. A bit of hell that is!

At bar 130, more or less and page 10 I've noticed that it starts crumbling a little bit. The whole thing. Some features don't work exactly. For example copy doesn't work, but only copy paste (the mass mover tool does not work 100%). Adding a quarter note puts in a whole note instead! It takes quite a bit of time to update.

My computer is rather old, but it's still very stable and I'm running Finale 2000! So nothing too fancy.

Still it is my belief that if you stress any software too much, it will start playing games!

Okay, thanks for specifying.

And again, I will try some of these things, and see if anything works. And I understand now what you mean by attaching from disk; I can do that as soon as I get home (visiting grandparents now, lol). In fact, it's how I did the Finale file for my piano piece.

I agree with the stressed software theory... I hope it's nothing too permanent, though.

And of all times! I'm under deadline here!

Thanks once again; I'll do some trouble shooting as soon as I return home.

Okay, Nikolas, I tried to go in and start rearranging the music as you had suggested, just to see if it'd work... but, I couldn't. Before I can even affix the cursor on the screen at page nine (or is it ten...?), where the current problematic area exists, Finale gives me the "Illegal Operation" warning and shuts down.

~sigh~

I was going to give you the attachment, but I'll have to do that at a later time. To no surprise, the disc I used to create the backup copies of ALL my music is, ha hah, NOT working.

Anyways.

So, yeah.

I've thanked you like a million times, Nikolas. Thanks again.