Repeat Barlines Won't Work - v2.02

• Jan 25, 2016 - 21:31

Any idea why the repeat barlines won't work in the attached file?

I have the "Play Repeats" button pressed at the top of the MuseScore window, and I have tried quitting and restarting MuseScore.

Exported as XML and played on Finale, the repeats in this song work just fine.

Attachment Size
Repeats Don't Work.mscz 12.46 KB


In reply to by Henk De Groot

When I play this song, it simply plays once through to the end. It's as if the repeat bars are not there. I tried removing and replacing them, but there was no change. I have the Play Repeats button at the top pressed.
Why would the XML exported from this song play properly in Finale, yet the song itself not play properly in MuseScore.
I'm using a Mac running Yosemite OS 10.10.5.

In reply to by tomfeledy

Your full score fails to repeat because it has errors elsewhere. In particular, there are around 200 overlapping DS elements at measure 43. Was this score by chance imported from MusicXML? Perhaps the input file had errors, or something went wrong during import. Or were there linked parts at one time that you tried deleting invididual staves from? There is a known bug that can occasionally cause something like this in those cases.

Anyhow, to fix it, right click one of the overlapping DS markings in measure 43, Select / All Similar Elements, press Delete, and they are gone, and then your repeat measure works.

In reply to by Pentatonus

Thank you to both Marc and Pentatonus.

I stopped counting at 50 D.S. (and also some S.) signs - all at measure 34.
As suggested, I used "Select All Similar Elements" to delete them en mass.
Now the repeats bar lines work properly.

To answer Marc, this song file came from a paper score belonging to our community chorus, scanned to PDF, then "recognized" by SmartScore X2 Pro, and exported as MusicXML into MuseScore. there is no "D.S" anywhere in the paper score, or in the SmartScore recognized file. So I don't know how it got into the MusicXML file and into MuseScore.

As mentioned before, the MusicXML file exported from this same MuseScore file did play properly in Finale. I just looked and I see no D.S. signs appearing in Finale at measure 43.

After this, I went back to the SmartScore file, and exported a 2nd MusicXML file. When I imported that file into MuseScore, there were no D.S. signs at measure 43, and the repeats at the end of the song worked properly.

I can only conclude that, as Marc suggests, something went wrong during the export or import process of the original MusicXML file.


I am having this same problem. I installed MuseScore today, created a one-page score with a single staff. I had several short repeats using barlines, none worked. I replaced some with the repeat-measure symbol and only kept a couple 4-measure repeats, no difference. I have tried all the suggestions on the knowledgebase here (deleted/recreated repeats, reset to defaults, tested reverse-toggle). I also created a new blank 3-measure file with a 2-measure repeat and it doesn't work either.

I also notice that the "number of repeats" option in the Measure Properties is not selectable.

I have Windows 7 Pro x64 and v2.02.

I have the same problem with "Malaguena" Arr. Antoine W. Bedrane, in measures 57-63. It does not repeat at m60 in my modified version. Here is what I did,

  1. downloaded this Piano version ( to my Laptop
  2. copied and pasted this Piano score into a new score to adapt it for Solo Guitar (in attachment)
  3. Deleted the m64 and 65 because they are not part of the song
  4. All repeats work fine except the repeats between m57-63

There must something wrong in the copy and paste because I played the score ( within the Musecore Site and the repeats worked fine.

Any comments?


Attachment Size
4855019-Malaguena_-arr._Badrane.mscz 29.67 KB
