Hi Richard,

It's unfortunate to hear that you are encountering these issue. Yes, in some cases, reinstalling with a clean install can clear up problems like this. You can find the uninstall steps in our knowledge base article here. If this does not help with things, feel free to contact our support team using the Submit a a request option above. 

If the "clean reinstall" doesn't work and it may not, by all means contact Finale tech support. They can help you find the real culprit.

David,

This may explain something I was told many years ago: installing over a faulty existing installation may not rewrite certain files, and that uninstalling the program first is more reliable. Is this, in fact, the case?

A “clean install” begins with a new installation and installing everything from scratch except your work (data) files. That’s a really time consuming pain and almost never necessary. Last time I did it took me three days about 12 years ago.

As David suggests, contact Support. They can give you a list of all files to be removed, reinstalling Finale is easy from there. You may have to go into your MakeMusic account and de-authorize your installation so that you can reauthorize — this can be done after the installation if you get the too many authorizations message. Your work files should be backed up separately to a thumb drive first just in case.

AutoSave doesn't work ("This file doesn't exist"), Audio Engine "fails to load", dynamics don't play back as marked, etc.

This can be caused by many things including your work files stored somewhere other than the default such as iCloud, GoogleDrive or Dropbox — yes, they want you to store your data there but a timing error or some other hiccup can corrupt the paths. When this happens, it’s not Finale that’s corrupt but the pathways to your data. Storing on a remote drive that went to sleep used to be a common cause of this. Keeping your data in the default location is the best way I know to keep these errors from happening.

To be clear, a “clean reinstall” (a term that almost no one uses” means removing everything associated with Finale including any licensing files, font info, preferences, support files etc. Get the list from Support (I’m about to request it myself). Everything except any work files (those you’ve created) which you should save and store in another location such as a desktop folder. De-authorize your license(s) in your MakeMusic account. You then reinstall Finale from scratch. See if you still have a problem.

A “clean install” begins with erasing your System followed by a new installation of the OS and then installing your applications. When chasing audio app issues, you test often and then reinstall any plugins and VIs. Your work files that you have backed up properly are added last. This is a time consuming PIA.

A full install is not normally necessary for troubleshooting one app. I recently did this on a new drive, installing Monterey, Finale 26 and 27.1 plus NotePerformer 3.32 only. Although there are still issues with this, I have found workarounds and can get everything working well enough. I will next install my plugins to see if I can find the one causing problems on my main drive. If I can, then I’ll deal with it. If not, I’ll try a “clean reinstall” on my main drive. Worst case, I can leave it alone as I have acceptable workarounds for the various problems I’ve encountered. Had I not decided to “save time” (Ha!) by using NotePerformer on a project that I commissioned from my daughter, I would not have known I was having these problems. NP behaves differently in 26 and 27.1 over Monterey — also in the clean install but differently. I almost never use it but it does sound better than the Garritan VIs that my daughter had indicated.