PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Windows Corrupt song file.

I have two songs that, when I load them, have a "ghost" or "parasite" song sheet attached that must be clicked off or closed to see and use the intended song. Strangely, both of these songs have exactly the same partial song sheet that comes up first.

The song sheet that comes up is a partial of a song that I rendered and saved to my YouTube Studio. I have no idea of how this could have happened.

I reported it to support@pgmusic.com and we exchanged this short dialogue:

"I would like to understand how I am supposed to “…try recreating the song in a fresh file…” Please don’t tell me that I might have to reconstruct it from scratch on a new sheet as that would take hours. Is there a way that I could copy just the score of the song into a clipboard, or some such, and then drop it into a new song sheet to avoid the work and he possibility of bringing in any corrupt files from the original?"

I never received an answer, so I am turning to this forum for edification and education.

Natcheztoo

not sure what you mean by a song sheet - when you close it is the normal BIAB chord sheet intact? one thing that might work is to open the BIAB file in RealBand and see what happens. then try and save it as a BIAB file and you might be where you want to be. to save losing the song copy the BIAB file first before opening in RB.

I agree with Bob's suggestion that RealBand might be able to filter the issue out. Definitely make a copy first, and/or save the song from RealBand as a BIAB file with a different name.

+1

Hello,

I am dropping in screen snips of the score that shows up first and the one that is behind it once I exit the first one. The score that shows up first is in the exact format (looks to be the same) of a song I rendered and uploaded to my YouTube Studio. I currently have found two songs that open with this attached.

I hope this helps. As stated above, I just want to create a new, uncorrupted file without hours of work. I will try the recommended REAL TRACKS idea and see what happens.

Let me know if you need anything else.

Just a hint of my other problems: I have BIAB 2024 (64 bit) with all upgrades. The red fill for notes does not work. Support has ostensibly been working on this for over half a year. I had the problem about a 18 months to 24 months ago and they cured it. Not this time, though. Why did it come back?

At the end of my withs, I bought a brand new extra powerful Dell Computer (even though my previous computer had the horsepower to run the BIAB program), with two terabytes of storage, high speed processor, loaded BIAB 2024 on it again, and the red-fill for notes still does not work. Also, the BIG LYRIC window does not have lyrics in it.

But here is the strange thing. I have two 2024 BIABs on my computer. I do not know why. The other is a 32-bit version. When I use it, the red fill of the melody notes works, and the BIG LYRIC window is populated with lyrics. My local tech said, "Heck, just use the 32 bit BIAB." Well, I paid for the 2024 64-bit and I want it to work correctly.

Recently I queried support@pgmusic.com and asked them, "What would happen if I paid for the entry level 2025 BIAB and installed it. Would that cure my problems?" So far, there has only been silence. It is only $50 or so dollars so it is not that much money, and it is supposed to be backwards integrated to work with past versions. In the past I have always bought the full-blown versions.

It seems I have been in near constant contact with various members of the support techies, but on these things, there is seemingly never a solution.

George Carlin, noted comic, once said, "Just because I have rear view mirrors on my commode doesn't mean that I am paranoid." Well, I am a bit paranoid about this. I am worried that openly discussing this might affect how much attention I get by the support people. I hope this does not affect them. They have been working hard on these problems and the voluminous emails I have received will attest to that. But, like Moses, I seem to only be able to look into the Holy Land (Canan) but never get to enter it."

I did an internet search and learned that BIAB has 31 employes. They must be extremely busy or overworked.

Enough. I am tired.

Natcheztoo (Jerry Krouse)

Real Tracks weren't mentioned. RealBand was.

Sorry, I can't follow what is going on here. Files, what files? Audio files (mp3), or BIAB files (.sgu or ,mgu). Also charts? What kind of chart, txt files or xml files? Can you upload some of these files so we can try them ourselves. Are we talking RT's or midi? Maybe it is just me!

Hi Jerry.

The image on the left shows BIAB's video player open with a song that has the following location and name...
C:\bb\Jerry's Songs\Christmas - Ricky Rowen.MGU

That is, the song is found in "c:\bb\ricky's songs" folder and the song file is called "Christmas - Ricky Rowen.MGU".

I'm not sure that this is the problem 'ghost' file that you mean. If it is, though, I'm guessing that when you open BIAB, it is loading a songfile from a previous session and that that song file has a video file attached to it called "Christmas - Ricky Rowen.AVI".

With this in mind, try the following...

1) Close BIAB.

2) Go to the folder "c:\bb\Ricky's Songs" and locate the file called "Christmas - Ricky Rowen.AVI".

3) Change the name of that file to "Christmas - Ricky Rowen(2).avi".

4) Open BIAB and load your songfile.

What happens now?

By slightly altering the name of the avi file, BIAB should no longer see it as attached to the MGU file and so will not load the video file. When you start your new song, have you tried clicking on "File | New"? This is always the best way to create a brand new chord sheet and reset BIAB in preparation for making a new song.

I hope this helps,
--Noel

I think Noel may be on to something here since what he is describing catches a lot of folks by surprise. Otherwise, if this is indeed a "corrupt" file, and you tried RealBand to open the mgu/sgu with no success, then there is no fixing it - you have to start over!

Noel et al,

At the moment my hear is soaring like a hawk! I did exactly what Noel recommended:

3) Change the name of that file to "Christmas - Ricky Rowen(2).avi".

When I opened it and played it, Voila! The "parasite" song sheet was gone. I am going to do this on the other song that opens with the same "parasite" sheet attached. I'll report shortly.

You guys make things seem so simple sometimes. Thank you all.

Jerry Krouse (Natcheztoo)

Reporting back on the second "corrupted" song file.

This is really odd, to me, but when I opened the two versions of this other "corrupted" song file that I have saved, neither had the "parasite" song attached to it. Could changing the file name of the other have cured this one also?

At the moment I am amazed but worry that I may have not remembered the correct name of the other song.

I'll take it for now. If I run across another, I will know what to do.

Jerry Krouse

I thought I would share this almost unbelievable news. This is an email to my tech guru. He is head of IT at a local college. I am almost incredulous at the way this turned out:

Bobby,

On the PGMusic Forum, one guy named Noel wrote what is below. I did what he recommended, and now the song loads on either one of the BIABs on my computer correctly and plays correctly with red notes and lyrics in the BIG LYRIC window. Amazing!

Then I went to the other song, Shema, which was opening with the “parasite” song sheet attached to it and when I played it, it opened without the “parasite” song sheet. This doesn’t make sense to me. By changing the file name of the first corrupted song, the second seems to have been cured at the same time.

But wait! There is more. When I opened the 2024 64-bit BIAB, every song I played had the red notes all the way through and every song that had lyrics displayed them in the BIG LYRIC window. This is too much for my little brain. Could one corrupted file (is that even the right term) have been adversely affecting everything that was wrong.

I am afraid to get my hopes up too much or to even use the 64-bit version much. I am afraid that all the improvements will go away.

Jerry

That is one of the reasons we keep Noel around. He is a regular winner of the annual "Ata boy" award.

“Could one corrupted file (is that even the right term) have been adversely affecting everything that was wrong?”

Everything I know from 47 years with microcomputers and 32 years with BIAB says No, unless your disk’s file structure became scrambled somehow.

I concur, he's a handy fella to have around these parts.