Has a bug been introduced recently? I swear it never worked this way in the past.
In the above example, this is all there is in the score. Force Duration is never used. This is Dorico deciding when to break into 2 tied notes. In all cases, I want the 3-beat notes to be shown as dotted half. What am I doing wrong?
There are note grouping options that seem to offer exactly that, but they are not working for me.


I know the time signature is 4/4, but I wonder what if the meter is set for a conflicting grouping with your settings. I get this result by matching your settings exactly (which I think is what you want):
I can also get your result in the screen shot by altering the time signature to [2+2]/4.
Did you create this in an earlier version (as in not the just released last week 5.1.60.2184 version), and create the time sig by clicking in the right panel? There was a bug with right panel time sigs that effectively “baked in” the Notation Options. If you haven’t already, update to the latest version, delete the meter signpost, reinput the meter with the popover and it will appear correctly.
I installed 5.1.60 last week. I created that sample today from the hub using an empty file, adding a single flute. The 4/4 was already in place by virtue of creating the empty file from the hub.,I did not use the right panel at all. The version installed is 5.1.60.2187, audio engine 5.6.42.5.
Are you saying there is a later version than this?
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Just to be sure, I deleted the downloaded zip file from 5.1.60 last week, and did “Install Again.” It downloaded again, and the new ZIP was exactly the same size, so I assume that is the same code. I then launched Dorico and again created a new score from the hub with these 5 measures and still get the same result I showed in the first graphic in this thread.
It isn’t the worst problem that ever way. It is still perfectly readable, but I’d prefer to get back to showing the dotted halfs consistently. I am uploading my test file in case anybody else gets a different result from that.
Dotted half.dorico (529.3 KB)
I don’t really understand how to examine that. I get exactly the same (bad) result with all of these: 4/4, [2+2]/4, c, cutc.
The notation options you have set in this file appear to be different from what your first post noted. These are what I see:


Changing those and then re-adding the time signature 4/4 shifts the note grouping to match your intent (though I’m not sure why the addition of the time signature is necessary to get it to switch).
Dotted half.dorico (528.1 KB)
Right you are. I had tried all those options, but as you correctly note, the options do not take effect until the meter mark is deleted and re-added. That surely cannot be correct. This is surely a bug. Those options should take effect as soon as the Apply button is clicked.
Thanks for running this down.
Yeah, I think there are still bugs here. The version history for the last update stated …
… but I’m not sure that’s true. There definitely seems to be something buggy if hitting Apply doesn’t work and the time sig has to be re-input.
Is somebody from Steinberg aware of this problem, or does it need to be reported to Support?
I have encountered this in Dorico 5, and was hoping the latest update would solve it - but it is still present. Previous versions updated the note groupings immediately after hitting APPLY, but no longer. Time signatures have to be re-entered for the options to be displayed. This is a REAL problem when the meter changes often, as I have to re-enter every single one to get the proper note groupings displayed. 
I did report this to US Support via email.
The team will see it here sooner than a support ticket will get attention. Daniel or Ulf, can you confirm that this bug is still present?
I’m just taking a look at this, but I can’t reproduce the problem in Dorico 5.1.60. What I’m trying is this:
- create a new project from the Hub, using the “Empty” template with default settings (4/4 time signature, 32 bars, C major key signature)
- add an instrument
- add some notes
- change the note grouping Notation Options
I find that this works as expected. Are you doing something different? Would you be able to upload a Dorico Diagnostics file?
I just repeated this same procedure from scratch.
This time when I change the grouping option to “notate as a single note”, it reacts as expected.

However, when I do this procedure multiple times without shutting Dorico down, the problem appears intermittently. I can’t really find a pattern that produces the problem every time. It may be related to completely shutting down Dorico, or it may relate to what the note grouping settings were by default before I changed them.
FWIW, measure 2 always comes out as a single dotted half, regardless of the settings.

Shouldn’t M2 be two notes with these settings?
My diag file is here: Box
There’s a separate control for that, in the Syncopation section:

@Richard_Lanyon , I have a file which stubbornly refuses to consolidate those notes into dotted half notes. One does – once – in one part, but none of the other occasions will consolidate. Could I send it to you privately to see what’s going on? It is an XML import from Sibelius, so…
Oh, and to get that one note to change, I had to re-enter the time signature for the settings to take effect. Same thing if I changed settings back – nothing would happen unless I re-entered the time signature.
If it’s an XML import, do check that your Preferences > MusicXML Import wasn’t set to respect notated values.
They are not. And the notes don’t show Force Duration turned on when selected.
Was the project created in 5.1.60? If not, did you try re-importing to see if you get the same behavior in the current version? If you do, can you cut the file down to a single bar the exhibits this behavior, and post it for us to check out?
I’ve definitely seen situations in which imported time signatures don’t interact with Notation Options like Dorico native time signatures.