I am having difficulty with playback. The cursor moves, but there is no sound. The mixer shows no gain levels.
When I go to configure audio (Play -> Setup), I see that I do not have any available or active devices to choose from. Both lists are empty. I believe, Sibelius Essential should be listed here. But it is not.
I have gone to Configure Audio Engine. Core Audio is selected. Other applications produce sound (ableton, max msp, itunes, various).
I have restarted both the computer and Sibelius several times.
I navigated to Application Support/Sibelius 7/ to delete the PlogueEngine folder, however, found both Sibelius 7 and Sibelius 7.5 folders empty and without the PrologueEngine folder.
Interestingly, the problem began once the Sibelius 7.5 trial ended.
My OS is Catalina (from reading the forum) I believe that I can't activate Sibelius 7.5 since the Avid License control will not run on Catalina. Has this changed?
What are my options for getting playback to work on Sibelius 7.1.3?
> When I go to configure audio (Play -> Setup), I see that I do not have any available or active devices to choose from.
Please attach a screen-shot of the Sibelius dialogue "Audio Engine Options"
and a screen-shot of the Apple "Audio MIDI Setup" -> "Audio Devices" -> displaying the audio output device that you wish Sibelius to use.
> I navigated to Application Support/Sibelius 7/ to delete the PlogueEngine folder,
> however, found both Sibelius 7 and Sibelius 7.5 folders empty and without the PrologueEngine folder.
Probably you were looking in the wrong macOS "Library": you need to be looking in the "User Library", not the "System Library".
> My OS is Catalina (from reading the forum) I believe that I can't activate Sibelius 7.5
> since the Avid License control will not run on Catalina. Has this changed?
No. There is no future for Sibelius 7.x on Catalina, or any higher version of macOS. Sibelius 7.x will be riddled with bugs that cannot be fixed, and, once they lose their activation, they can never be activated again.
> What are my options for getting playback to work on Sibelius 7.1.3?
Provide screen-shots as requested.
--
Sibelius 2020.6/7.5.1/7.1.3/6.2/5.2.5, PhotoScore Ult 2020.1, Windows 10 64-bit 16GB. Desktop, and Microsoft Surface Book.
The screen-shot of Audio Engine Options shows that Sibelius was forbidden access to the "Built-in Output".
Please provide further diagnostic evidence as follows:
- ensure that Sibelius is fully quit, and not even running in the background;
- in macOS Finder, hold down the Option/alt key while pulling down the "Go" menu, and select "Library";
- in "Library", open sub-folder "Application Support";
- in "Application Support", open "Avid";
- in "Avid", open "Sibelius 7";
- in "Sibelius 7", open "PlogueEngine";
- take all the files from inside "PlogueEngine", and copy them into a .ZIP archive;
- post that .ZIP archive somewhere in the cloud or web, and give us the URL for fetching it.
--
Sibelius 2020.6/7.5.1/7.1.3/6.2/5.2.5, PhotoScore Ult 2020.1, Windows 10 64-bit 16GB. Desktop, and Microsoft Surface Book.
It is possible that some of the AU or VST plug-ins are not compatible with Catalina. You have many iZotope, Ozone and RX 7 plug-ins. Please check to see whether updates are required for these plug-ins to work with Catalina. If you no longer need them, remove them from the system.
The following plug-ins are not working at all:
/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST/Focusrite/Scarlett EQ.vst
/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST/Focusrite/Scarlett Reverb.vst
/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST/Focusrite/Scarlett Compressor.vst
/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST/Focusrite/Scarlett Gate.vst
and, unless you can update them to work again, I suggest that you remove these plug-ins from the system.
I'm not sure that this is all that might be wrong, but these potential problems might be obscuring any other underlying problem.
--
Sibelius 2020.6/7.5.1/7.1.3/6.2/5.2.5, PhotoScore Ult 2020.1, Windows 10 64-bit 16GB. Desktop, and Microsoft Surface Book.
Please try the following:
- ensure that Sibelius is fully quit, and not even running in the background;
- in macOS Finder, hold down the Option/alt key while pulling down the "Go" menu, and select "Library";
- in "Library", open sub-folder "Application Support";
- in "Application Support", open "Avid";
- in "Avid", open "Sibelius 7";
- from "Sibelius 7":
-- trash the sub-folders "Playback Configurations" and "PlogueEngine";
-- trash the file "PlaybackConfig.xml".
and then try launching Sibelius.
--
Sibelius 2020.6/7.5.1/7.1.3/6.2/5.2.5, PhotoScore Ult 2020.1, Windows 10 64-bit 16GB. Desktop, and Microsoft Surface Book.
Thanks, Robin. I deleted the files above and relauched Sibelius. I did it several times, with no luck.
The first time, the bad audio engine message was not present, but the playback did not work. The transport had 3 stacked lines (~) to the right of the tempo.
The other times, the bad audio engine message appeared as the program was loaded.
> The transport had 3 stacked lines (~) to the right of the tempo.
The symbol means that Sibelius has opened in "ReWire" mode.
Normal playback will not work, because Sibelius will only function through the ReWire connection.
Did you have another ReWire application open at the time (such as GarageBand or any other DAW)?
Use the buttons at the bottom of "Audio Engine Options" to escape from ReWire mode. After every button push, click OK, then quit Sibelius and re-launch. Check "Audio Engine Options" again, and repeat the button-clicking until both buttons are greyed out and inactive.
Sorry, I am right out of ideas for further fixes. If you ever find a solution, please let us know.
I have heard of similar issues with other versions of Sibelius on Catalina. You should perhaps investigate whatever features were introduced in Catalina that were not there before. For instance, there are some new security features which require applications to be given "permission" to do various things, which might perhaps include audio input or output.
--
Sibelius 2020.6/7.5.1/7.1.3/6.2/5.2.5, PhotoScore Ult 2020.1, Windows 10 64-bit 16GB. Desktop, and Microsoft Surface Book.
I restarted the computer once in safe mode (Hold Shift while booting). The Bad Audio Engine Setting message was gone, but playback still didn't work. I restarted the computer a second time, this time not in Safe Mode and everything worked fine.
Below is a link to Safe Mode in case anyone else is having this issue:
> I restarted the computer once in safe mode (Hold Shift while booting).
> The Bad Audio Engine Setting message was gone, but playback still didn't work.
> I restarted the computer a second time, this time not in Safe Mode and everything worked fine.
This is a very interesting observation, and suggests that the problem was in macOS all along, and not Sibelius.
--
Sibelius 2020.6/7.5.1/7.1.3/6.2/5.2.5, PhotoScore Ult 2020.1, Windows 10 64-bit 16GB. Desktop, and Microsoft Surface Book.
Screen Shot 2020-07-09 at 2.36.22 AM.png