I am working on l’Enfant et les sortilèges, a Ravel opera which I will be singing in two weeks.
The director wrote a new orchestration and I was trying, as an exercise, to make his file open in Dorico (and also to show him that it would probably would look nicer !)
He sent me an XML file, probably written in Finale. I could open it in Dorico, but with half of it without notes — not very useful.
But I could open it in Sibelius, so I tried to work out the problems there, and I found a lot of them. Now that it has been cleaned from strange bars (with inconsistent number of notes in it…) I thought the new XML export from Sibelius would open without problems in Dorico. But now it just does not open.
Are there any things that should be avoided in order to have an XML file open in Dorico ? Avoid n-uplets ? Or some kind of instruments ?
Thanks for your help, fellow Doricians !
I’ve had a few big files from Finale that D. refuses to open, but I haven’t really destilled what causes it. However, if your file only has HALF of the notes missing, it would indicate that the Finale file and/or MusicXML export is corrupted. Have you tried importing it back into Finale?
MuseScore seems to have a pretty good reputation for handling MusicXML, and it’s free. You could try importing the file and exporting it again to see if it cleans up any problems, or gives you any error/warning messages.
To fratveno : no, I did not import back to Finale, because I do not have it !
To Rob : I will try Musescore, why not ?
I will also try to save other projects of that piece with less instruments, or no instrument changes, to check and find the problems. I keep you posted 
Marc, I’ll be happy to have a go with Finale if you upload it here or send a PM… 
Another post in the thread says you don’t have Finale, so you might not know that Finale has never really cared whether there is the correct amount of music in a bar, right back to the first version!
To be fair, recent versions of Finale can give a warning message, but “old-school” users can switch it off, and it only gives a warning when you edit an under-full or over-full bar.
Well, I solved the problem :
Deleting all those “strange bars” with inconsistent rhythms, impossible n-uplets solved the problem. The file is now open in Dorico, and I will benefit from its stability and consistency
Now I have to write those bars again, but in Dorico it’s faster for me !
Hope it helps others !