Page layout lost after saving a notation

[veneman]

Hello

When I add any page layout element like keep measure with previous, or forced number of bars per system, system break, after saving the notation file exit and load it again, all these are lost.

This is a very nasty problem because I have many music pages with are carefully formatted. When loading and printing I have to reformat it again.

Is this a known problem? Is ther a workaround or is a solution to be expected soon.

Cheers Jaap Veneman

[Sherry C]

Hi Jaap,

Sorry to be late getting back to you - we were gone with my husband on a business trip.

I have not heard of such a widespread problem as what you are seeing. I've just briefly run through some testing of each of these here, but am not seeing the problems that you're seeing. If you could send me either here or at the helpdesk (support@notation.com) a file or two that you're working with, along with the type(s) of edit that Composer is losing, I'll take a look at it and see if there are "extenuating circumstances" that cause such a nasty bug to rear its ugly head.

ttfn,
Sherry

[veneman]

Dear Cherry,

This is an example of a file which has problems.
In Layout mode I have includes several systems breaks
and then printed the file inot a PDF format.
After saving the file and again opening it nearly all system breaks are gone. Both are uploaded, so you can compare these.
I did the test at different computers and found the same problem,
Succes with solving the problem.

Cheers Jaap

[Sherry C]

Hi Jaap,

Thanks for including the attachment. I'll study this to see what is causing the problem.

ttfn,
Sherry

[veneman]

Hi Jaap,

Thanks for including the attachment. I'll study this to see what is causing the problem.

ttfn,
Sherry

Hello Cherry,

Is there any progress to investigate this problem. Do you need
any more files or can I tryout something

The problem is becoming pressing because revisions of outstanding work
is time consuming for me due to reformatting the layout each time.
So I'm due to re-install the older version.

Hope to hear positive results soon


Cheers Jaap

[Sherry C]

Hi Jaap,

Due to some other circumstances here, we won't be able to get this fixed really soon. If installing the older version works for your particular situation, then that's probably the best stop-gap for you right now. Please let me know if you need the installation file for an older version, and I'll get that to you.

Sorry for the inconvenience here.

ttfn,
Sherry

[veneman]

Dear Sherry,

I justed tested the older version 2.5.2 but it has the same problem.
Could the problem have to do with the Windows 7, which I have on my computer and laptop's?

Cheers Jaap

[Sherry C]

Hi Jaap,


I justed tested the older version 2.5.2 but it has the same problem.
Could the problem have to do with the Windows 7, which I have on my computer and laptop's?


That's a possibility, though I'm using Win 7 and am not seeing the problem the same as you are. That said, I haven't installed any of the regular Windows updates for quite a while either, so you may be on to something here. If you have a roll-back point some time ago, you may want to try rolling back your computer and see if that resolves the problem.

Sorry I can't be more helpful at this point, but if I can't reproduce a problem, it's very hard to diagnose. One of the downsides to having so many options...

ttfn,
Sherry

[veneman]

Dear Sherry,

It crossed my mind that my own configuration is very richly loaded with applications. Going back a some restore points does not make sense.
But my neighbour has bought Composer too and installed on a brand new Windows 7 system, no further apps installed. He has exactly the same problems.

While on mu previous configurations with XP and Vista I did not have this problem. So I have just done a test with the Windows 7 compatitiblity tool Run File Explorer, got to the composer directory, right click on composer.exe, left click on Solve Compatibility Problems,
Start the analyses.
It found that it indicates compatibility issues, and advices to run Composer in Windows XP SP3 mode. Then click on continue and save to run Composer alway in XP-SP3 mode.

Problem is solved as far as I can see (with 2.5.2 and 2.61)

Cheers Jaap Veneman

[Sherry C]

Hi Jaap,

Thanks for that further research and findings. I'll write that up for looking into, and keep the information on hand for others who may run into the same issues.

Thanks!
Sherry

[Heiko H]

Hello.

I have exactly the same problem.
Working with layout, saving, quitting.
The next time I start NC changes are (partly) lost.
Annoying.

Maybe it has something to do with default paper size,
which is usally A4 in europe and "letter" in the US.
Or some other differences between installs on european and american computers?

Heiko.

[Sherry C]

Hi Heiko,

Sorry for the problem. Did you try Jaap's workaround of running Composer in "XP SP3" compatibility mode? I've tried that, and it does workaround the problem some of the time, but not all of the time (for me). We're trying to figure out the exact conditions here, so knowing what you've tried may be helpful.

Thanks!
Sherry

[Heiko H]

Hi Sherry.

Sorry, that doesn´t work.
tried it either with XP-SP3 and with XP-SP2, nothing works.
One of (many) not working Files as attachment.

Cheers Heiko

[Heiko H]

Ok, I played around a little.
I was thinking, because these were all files written with older versions, I tried to copy the score and started a new file with new from clippboard.

But the problem occured again:
BUT not in one part (if you open new attachment it´s "Chor & Bass")
This part let´s me save layout, the others are quite stubborn and don´t allow changes in layout most of the time - but: sometimes there was a change.
Strange.......

I hope you can fix this problem.
Strange that we are the only one, having those problems.

Cheers, Heiko

[veneman]

Dear Cherry, Heiko,
Untill now I had no problems with Notation files loosing formatting.
Although I as little as possible formatting applied in most of my notation files.

I tried the seasons.not file on my computer. I applied a 4 measures per stave
for all staves with the releavant button (1234) and saved the file. The loaded it again. Some of the formatting is gone indeed. (measure freeses and system breaks)
I also tried this with some different formattings like pagebreaks, system breaks, also in this file part of the formatting is gone after saving and reloading. So it looks like the compatibility mode XP-SP3 is
not a complete solutiong, although is improved the work for me.

Also I use only A4 paper format, but also tried the test with letter format.
It had the same problems.

Cheers Jaap

[Mark W]

Hello Jaap,

I've been working on this bug that the system breaks are lost upon reopening.

The file Als sterren aan de hemel staan.not (http://www.notation.com/vb-forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=496&d=1284535552) that you sent us definitely shows this problem.

I've tested the problem opening a fresh MIDI file, which doesn't have system break data already in it, of course, because that data is only kept in .not files. I'm not seeing the problem in that case. Well, I'm not seeing it now. When I was investigating the bug a while ago, I thought I saw the problem also with fresh MIDI files.

Can you reproduce the loss system break when you start with a fresh MIDI file, add some system breaks, save the .not file, and reopen it?


Cheers
-- Mark

[Mark W]

Hello Jaap,

I've opened a helpdesk ticket AGR-743973, and sent it to you with a "clean" version of your 'Als sterren aan de hemel staan' file.

So other users have problem with this layout bug, who might gain some insight into what the problem is and what the status of the fix is, here is the message I included in your helpdesk ticket:

----

I'm making some progress on this layout bug. Please find the attached file Als sterren aan de hemel staan CLEANED.not which is your file with all of the layout data in all of the parts removed. I found that I'm then able to add system breaks that are preserved upon file save and then reopen.

I'd appreciate your adding some layout changes back into this file and see if the problem arises again. If the problem doesn't arise again, then it will help me to know the history of this file: when did you first create it and start adding layout changes? If you originally created the 'Als sterren aan de hemel staan' file before late Aug, 2008 (yes, more than two years ago), then there may have been a file corruption after that date.

Sorry this bug has taken so long to fix. I spent about 8 hours on it this last week getting nowhere, until I finally started exploring today whether maybe it was just this file that has problems. I did try using the Default Layout (Def button) for the Alto Sax part, but that didn't help. I had to use some temporary version of Composer to totally remove all of the layout changes in all of the parts, hence the word "CLEAN" in the file name. This suggests that maybe the bug has something to do with conflicts of layout changes between different parts.

If the problem is isolated to corruption of some .not files, and if the problem doesn't show up again for new files or CLEANed files, then I'll add some

Cheers
-- Mark

[Mark W]

Hello Jaap,

Here is some very encouraging news about the problem with layout changes not being kept upon file reopen.

I've added a new option to the dialog box that comes up with you choose the Default Layout option in the Layout menu, or click the Def button in the layout toolbar. The option lets you set the default layout for all parts.

If you have a .not file that has this problem with layout, then a work-around is to use the above option. It doesn't work to just set the Default Layout for the particular part. There is some problem with a conflict with other parts.

This work-around doesn't tell me how the original file got corrupted, though. If the problem shows up again after using the Default Layout option applied to all parts, then I'll need to fix the bug. At that point, however, it will be easier to find the bug after we start from the point of a .not file with all of the layout data cleared out for all parts.

Jaap, I'll make available to you a special release of Notation Composer with the above work-around. It will accomplish the equivalent to the "clean" (no layout data) version of your .not file that I sent to you via the helpdesk, except that you'll then be able to "clean" the layout data any problem .not file. I'll make that special temporary release of Notation Composer available to you via the helpdesk.

If you find this fully works around the problem, then I'll release the work-around as part of the v2.6.3, which I'll want to release soon particular because this is a bad bug that needs to be addressed.

Cheers
-- Mark

[Mark W]

Hello Jaap and Heiko,

Very good news!!!!

The problem with layout data being lost upon File Open has now been fixed.

You won't need to use the work-around to clean out the layout data and start over. Your original Als sterran aan de hemel stann.not now opens fine, with the two system breaks you added at measure 9 and 15.

Lots of other symptoms of the layout bug have been resolved also.

This will be the most important bug fix of the v2.6.3 release, which I'm planning on releasing Weds, Oct 10.

Thanks very much for your patient help on side with researching this bug.

Cheers
-- Mark

[veneman]

Hello Mark

That's very good news. I'm sure you solved it adequately as always.
I'm looking forward to see and work with the improved version. It certainly did cost you lot of hours because it was to my feelings a very nasty problem to analyse and pinpoint.

Yesterday I did several test which I mailed you, but I think now this was too late be usefull for your work. I apologize I could not respond quicker but it were busy days for me throughout the weekend.

All the best and very much success working on improvements of the product.

Cheers Jaap

[Mark W]

Hello Jaap,

Notation Composer v2.6.3 is now released. When you open your .not files, even those that had missing layout data will now correctly display the layout as you had last saved it.

You should be aware, though, that if you had bee adding a lot of layout data to the file on top of the layout data that wasn't displayed, then you might see some messed up layout when you open the file. If that happens, just clean up the messes, or start over by using the Default Layout option.

Thanks again for your help and patience exploring this bug with us.

This was one of the two worst bugs in Notation Composer that Sherry and I knew about. It's good that it's finally fixed. It was an especially tough one to fix.

Enjoy the layout feature now!

Cheers
-- Mark

[Heiko H]

Halleluyah!!!!

It´s working, and I am happy :)
No problems so far,
even the old files open properly in the saved layout state.
It´s a pleasure to have such a great support with your program.

Thank you very much Mark and Sherry!