The new Mac operating system, OS 10.10 (Yosemite) will be here soon. Rumors suggest that it could be available as early as tomorrow.

We have been actively testing our notation programs on the Yosemite beta builds, and are pleased to report that Finale 2014 runs well. We are tracking a few issues, including performance of pinch zoom gestures, but overall things look very promising.

We have, however, come across a potential crash when using Human Playback in older versions of Finale.

Finale 2012, 2011, PrintMusic 2011 and SongWriter 2012 can crash if Human Playback is enabled. In Finale 2012 and SongWriter 2012, this crash can occur when pressing “play” or exporting to an audio file. In Finale 2011 and PrintMusic 2011, we have also seen crashes occur after creating a new file with the Setup Wizard.

Changing HP to “none” can prevent the crash in Finale 2012 and SongWriter 2012, and in Finale 2012 the “Apply Human Playback” plugin can be used as an alternative to HP.

This crash is NOT present in Finale 2014, PrintMusic 2014, or NotePad 2012.

To be clear, options for users of older versions of Finale include:

• Postpone updating to Yosemite until more information is available, or
• Turn off Human Playback, or
• Upgrade to Finale 2014. Learn more here.

Of course, Yosemite is still subject to change until its official release. As additional information becomes available, we’ll share that in future Finale blog posts. If you wish, you can automatically receive all Finale blog posts in your mailbox by clicking on “SUBSCRIBE” near the upper right hand corner of this page.

UPDATE 10/22/14: To be clear, Finale 2012 and earlier are not supported in Yosemite. While results vary, there are known problems. If you’re using Finale 2012 or earlier, I don’t recommend updating to Yosemite at this time. We’ll provide more information on this blog as it becomes available.