In my Vocal Score (VS) layout empty bars should being displayed as multibar rests or don´t being displayed at all.
This works fine usually, except this time the first bars of two singers appear. Why would this be?
bare necessities.zip (478 KB)
Might be something related to this?
You need to activate multibar rests for the VS layout.
multibar rests are activated, and there is no text, except the Tempo marking, but that shouldn´t break the rests.
and why these two systems and not the others?
They’re certainly not activated in the file you attached. Make sure to selected the VS layout in the left hand panel of layout options.
Dorico will only hide staves that are completely empty, and both “Max” and “Kathi” contains clef changes in the first bar (probably because you’ve imported via musicxml). Delete the clefs, and “Kathi” will be hidden. Dorico will always keep one staff visible, even though all staves are empty.
I have also experienced that hiding empty staves didn’t work form some bars although activated and the bars seemed to be empty. Only after I habe selected those bars and pressed delete it worked. No idea what was in those bars. At least nothing visible. 
Thank you andgle! You did it! I thought, I did check multibar rests, but obviously you were right!
Deleted the clefs and now it works! Great!
Hmmm, very confused with this as I don’t see any clef changes. Are they invisible in Dorico and only know by looking at the xml file?
The only way for me to get this looking correctly with the multi-rests not splitting is to delete the 4/4 meter, then re-input the 4/4 on beat one of the first measure, then all is good. Can someone shed more light on this?
Imported MusicXML files often come with unnecessary clef changes at the start of the first system that are invisible in Dorico but prevent staves from hiding.