Playback - the green line

Dorico
#41

After about three hours work this afternoon, I regret to have to say, it’s still there for me.

Dorico 2.0.0.1041
High Sierra 10.13.5

I suppose it could be considered as much that the score stops scrolling leftwards as that the playhead moves rightwards off screen. But it definitely does still happen.

I’d say about 50% of the time, a redraw puts things right after 10 seconds or so by itself. The rest of the time, restarting Dorico does.

But neither switching modes nor changing the Sample Rate away from and back to 44,100 helps.

Ulf, I’ve emailed you a video, diagnostic and project etc

If I can help in any other way with troubleshooting this, I’d be delighted.

Thanks so much!

#42

I think there is some confusion here – to be clear I think there are two completely separate issues.

  1. Playback line position accelerates due to the sample rate being changed outside Dorico: as reported by Auerbach, John B, mipi.
  2. The score isn’t shifted when the playback line scrolls out of view, as reported by ReRei, MarkSealey, Johan-v, JackvL, Robby.

Issue 1 can be resolved by resetting the sample rate within Dorico.
Issue 2 we’ve been looking at for about 18 months (STEAM-4736). Initially there was a problem that a few of us could reproduce in the office, and then James spotted and fixed a threading problem around October last year, which seemed to fix this for most users. I don’t believe this one is related to sample rates. The difficult thing is that in cases like Mark’s, it only manifests after a large period of time, so trying to pinpoint what has changed at that point is hard. My best guess at present is that this is either a strange threading problem, or something like App Nap that is causing the display to not update any more. We’ll continue to gather data on it, but at the moment I don’t think there’s anything concrete we can do.

#43

Thanks, Paul. Yes. Spot on. I’m talking about 2.

I’ll try following the simpler (identification) and more drastic (default write) solutions suggested here to see if it makes a difference.

Although restarting Dorico almost always cures the bug, it’s usually only a temporary fix; having to do that almost every time I want to play anything back is an annoyance, obviously.

Is there no debugging/tracking routine that can be applied in a way that would reveal exactly what’s going on when one of us experiences it, please?

#44

Mark, don’t you think that if there were, Paul would have mentioned it…?

#45

There’s currently no simple thing you can do at the moment that would give us the extra data. There’s some extra instrumentation that I may be able to add to Dorico which could give some more detail as to what’s going on, but that will take some time to implement.

#46

I know this is a real annoyance for everyone concerned - particularly when it’s so tricky to reproduce. I’m sorry.

As a mere user, though, I have a poor sense of where it figures on your list of priorities - particularly with so few apparently experiencing it.

Though I know you’ll appreciate that as a dedicated ‘fan’ of Dorico who uses it daily, to have this kind of ‘disability’ is pretty… ‘burdensome’ :wink:.

As a one-time developer myself I’m quite used to putting in tracer code that - although it produces masses of lines of output - can sometimes reveal the otherwise untroubleshootable.

I suppose what I’m really saying is that - since the one obvious approach of a member of your team wasting valuable hours waiting for it to manifest itself is impractical - I’d be happy to trial something else myself!

Am I remembering correctly that Dorico Pro 2 uses a new QT framework? Wouldn’t the fact that it hasn’t fixed the phenomenon suggest that it lies elsewhere?

Anyway, thanks for keeping it it!

#47

I hate to add to this subject any further, as I wonder if it will help.

But one thing I believe I noticed, is that when this issue seems to occur the green playback line is behind an open side window, and that the frame did jump when playback line reached what would have been the end of the visible music had the side window been closed.

Once again, since October, this has happened a handful of times (4-ish), so I felt things were taken care of. But just in case, maybe what I saw might shed some light on the issue.

Robby

#48

Robby,

Do you mean that the Toolbox and/or its Panels are expanded?

If so, one of them (almost) is in my case, as I work. Seems as though Dorico would know that they are taking up screen space into which the playback head could otherwise move. Or am I misunderstanding?

Thanks!

#49

You understood me correctly, the toolbox/panels were open. Dorico moved the page after the green line reached the end of what would have been visible had the toolbox/panel been closed (or if you could see through the toolbox/panels).

Once again, this has happened so few times since October, that I chalked it up to something else happening. I haven’t seen the behavior in quite a few weeks, so I could be throwing something into the fire that doesn’t help the diagnosis of this problem.

Robby

#50

I appreciate your frustration, Mark. As Daniel has mentioned many times before, we do have to take some difficult decisions about where to focus our time, and we do try to ensure that the widest range of customers get the best bang for their buck. Having said that, we do also spend considerable time looking at problems such as this that do only affect a handful of users. We do have some instrumentation code in Dorico already, but it currently doesn’t contain enough specific information to diagnose this particular problem. I do hope to spend some time adding a bit more instrumentation that could help.

One extra bit of information that could be relevant: does this happen in page view as well as galley view?

#51

I know you do, Paul; and I feel bad (and I know I’m trying everyone’s patience) every time I mention it.

Of course. And you’re doing - if I may say - a magnificent job… look at the time now: way after hours for you. I (like everyone else) am truly grateful.

As Daniel has mentioned many times before, we do have to take some difficult decisions about where to focus our time, and we do try to ensure that the widest range of customers get the best bang for their buck. Having said that, we do also spend considerable time looking at problems such as this that do only affect a handful of users.

Understood. Thanks! And if you need a tester… :slight_smile:

We do have some instrumentation code in Dorico already, but it currently doesn’t contain enough specific information to diagnose this particular problem. I do hope to spend some time adding a bit more instrumentation that could help.

I’ll work the rest of today in Page view and see. (I usually work almost exclusively in Gallery.)

One extra bit of information that could be relevant: does this happen in page view as well as galley view?

Thanks very much again, Paul - and the Team!

#52

Hi Paul,

It happens for me in both views.

And Robby I had the same thought so I waited and waited but the screen didn’t refresh no matter if the tool window was reached to its „invisible“ end.

#53

If you try dragging the score around with the mouse does that cause it to ‘wake up’ and start updating again?

#54

Paul,

You bring up an interesting point: hasn’t that functionality been removed from Dorico Pro 2?

I instinctively tried to do that on the morning I installed the upgrade - for reasons of plain positioning - and got a thick grey marquee instead. Have I inadvertently unset something?

Not to derail a thread so dear to my heart, though, dragging didn’t use to fix it in v.1.

Annoyingly - or pleasantly depending on attitude - I worked for four hours yesterday in Page View with not one instance of the phenomenon. I switched to Galley: nothing.

I do appreciate how tough this must be for you to troubleshoot - even to observe - and am grateful :slight_smile:

#55

By default hold down shift to drag it and with no modifier to make a marquis selection, but I think there’s also a preference to switch this behaviour.

#56

Thanks, Paul!

Yes, I found the preference but - interestingly - it makes no difference, in case that’s helpful; I’m happy to use SHIFT+ :slight_smile:

#57

Yes, Paul - it seems to :slight_smile: .

Was working for three or four hours this afternoon without a relaunch; Galley View; up it cropped.

Two things that nay help:

  1. when the screen should have scrolled leftwards, for a microsecond, what for all the world looks like a conventional (vertical, charcoal/dark grey) OS scrollbar appears at the extreme right hand edge of the score window… immediately to the left of the Panel
  2. if I SHIFT-drag the score within its window, it does ‘wake’ things up and is updated as normal.

Hope this may add something… somehow. Thanks!

#58

Update: tried to ‘wake’ the scrolling today as you suggested - after the usual three to four hours, at which the phenomenon announces itself. This time it does nothing. So - alas - scrap dragging the score as a possible solution…

#59

Just to let you know. It didn’t help me either unfortunately.

#60

Well it’s good for Mark and bad for me, but I do have the same problem on my Mac. Even though I have all the settings in the preferences dialogue ticked, the playback line continues to move, but the score doesn’t move anymore to follow it and it scrolls out of view. Dorico is the only open application running. I tried with different Zoom Lives and different page views, but nothing changes.

Regards Jürg