Occasionally, when trying to save files in Finale notation products an error or set of errors may appear that prevent a file from being saved. There appears to be a correlation between how long Finale has been open on the computer and this error appearing.
With the release of Finale v26, we believe we have fixed this issue for the majority of situations that caused the problem. If you do encounter this issue with Finale v26 though, please follow through with steps listed below to save your work and troubleshoot the issue.
Please choose your operating systems below for more information and some workarounds for this issue.
Choose your operating system
Windows
When Finale saves, it cleans up after itself by deleting some temporarily stored information. This error occurred as it was trying to do this. While this indicates computer problems in some cases, in many cases it can be resolved with the following steps.
First, if you have work to save, try using MusicXML as an alternate saving method:
- Open your document.
- Choose File > Export > MusicXML.
- Save your document as an XML file to your Desktop.
- Close Finale without saving.
Next, clear Finale's preferences to try and eliminate any current saving errors. This will reset all of Finale's preferences to their default settings:
- Close Finale.
- Press and hold the Windows key and press the letter R to open the Run dialog box.
- Type or copy & paste the following:
- "%appdata%\MakeMusic" (without quotes)
- Click OK.
- In the folder listing that appears, open the Finale <your version number> folder.
- Find and delete these two files in this folder:
- FINALE.ini
- FINMIDI.ini
- Empty your Recycle Bin.
- Restart your computer.
After clearing Finale's preferences, create a new folder on your Desktop to store Finale's temporary files. This usually helps prevent this error moving forward:
- Create a new folder on your Desktop named FinaleTemp.
- Open Finale.
- Close the Launch Window and any other messages you may see, then choose Edit > Preferences.
- Select Folders from the navigation panel on the left.
- For Temporary Files, select the FinaleTemp folder you just created on your desktop.
- Click Apply.
- Click OK.
- Close and reopen Finale.
To recover your work from before:
- Click File > Import > MusicXML.
- Select the file you just saved to the desktop and click Open.
- Choose File > Save As to save the new document as a Finale file and give it a new filename.
- Now you can delete the MusicXML file from your Desktop and continue working with the newly-saved Finale document.
There are also a few workflow adjustments that could prevent this from happening. Some of this may be old news, but the importance of this cannot be stressed enough. Specifically, it's best to restart your computer at least once a week. Also, when stepping away from the computer long enough for it to go to sleep, be sure to save ongoing work and close Finale. While these may seem like simple things, they can have a big impact.
To keep up-to-date on this issue, please subscribe to this article using the green Follow button on the bottom of this page.
Mac
When Finale saves, it cleans up after itself by deleting some temporarily stored information. This error occurred as it was trying to do this. While this indicates computer problems in some cases, in many cases it can be resolved with the following steps.
First, if you have work to save and are unable to do so, try using MusicXML as an alternate saving method:
- Open your document.
- Choose File > Export > MusicXML.
- Save your document as an XML file to your Desktop.
- Quit Finale without saving.
Next, clear Finale's preferences to try and eliminate any current saving errors. This will reset all of Finale's preferences to their default settings:
- Quit Finale.
- In the Finder program toolbar, choose Go > Go to Folder.
- Type or copy & paste the following location: "~/library/preferences" (without quotes).
- In the Preferences folder, find a file named either...
- For Finale 25: com.makemusic.finale.fprf and drag it into the Trash.
- For Finale 2014.5 (and previous): Finale <your version number> Preferences and drag it into the Trash.
- Empty your Trash.
- Restart your computer.
- Relaunch Finale.
After clearing Finale's preferences, create a new folder on your Desktop to store Finale's temporary files. This usually helps prevent this error moving forward:
- Create a new folder on your Desktop or within Documents named FinaleTemp.
- Open Finale.
- Close the Launch Window and any other messages you may see, then choose Finale > Preferences from the dropdown menu bar (for earlier versions of Finale, the dropdown menu will list the version number).
- Select Folders along the left.
- Check and select Temp Files, then select the folder you just created.
- Click Apply.
- Click OK to close Preferences.
- Close and reopen Finale.
To recover your work from before:
- Chose File > Import > MusicXML.
- Import the MusicXML file you saved previously from the Desktop.
- Save the new Finale document under a new name.
- Now you can delete the XML from your Desktop and continue working with the newly-saved Finale file.
There are also a few workflow adjustments that could prevent this from happening. Some of this may be old news, but the importance of this cannot be stressed enough. Specifically, it's best to restart your computer at least once a week. Also, when stepping away from the computer long enough for it to go to sleep, be sure to save ongoing work and close Finale. While these may seem like simple things, they can have a big impact.
To keep up-to-date on this issue, please subscribe to this article using the green Follow button on the bottom of this page.