MusicMaster Blog

Since Thursday, October 31, 2024, We have been seeing increased reports of MusicMaster Pro shutting down in the middle of operations. Typical operations impacted include auto-scheduling activities and log editing activities, but all workflows within MusicMaster can trigger an unexpected shutdown of the application.

Impacted versions include all releases of MusicMaster Pro Version 6, Version 7, and Version 8, and impacted operating systems include Windows 10 and Windows 11.

We believe that Windows released an update to Office 365 that is the root cause of this error. We also believe that the latest update to Windows 11 Cumulative Update Preview for Windows 11 Version 23H2 for x64-based Systems (KB5044380) may also lead to this issue. If you are experiencing unexpected shutdowns to MusicMaster Pro, here are some steps you can take to possibly resolve the issue, at least temporarily.

• Immediately after seeing MusicMaster Pro shut down unexpectedly, open the Windows Event Viewer, and look at the most recent error in the Application Log. If it references MSADO15.DLL, your system may be impacted. To take corrective action, try the following.
• In your search bar, type “Add Remove” and then select Add Remove Programs from the results list.
• In the list of applications displayed, look for Microsoft Access Database Engine (2010), Click on it (or on the 3 dots to the right of it if Windows 11) and choose Modify Or Update (depending on your Windows version).
• Next, Choose Reinstall or Repair from the options provided
• Finally, choose Reinstall, and confirm with the button at the bottom

This will reset Microsoft Access to the version that was installed with MusicMaster and should return full functionality.

Finally, be advised that should Microsoft push out another faulty update, this issue may return, thus we recommend disabling Windows Updates temporarily until Microsoft provides final resolution to the issue.

We apologize for any inconvenience and, as always, stand by to assist you in any way we can. Feel free to reach out to our support department at 262-825-4000 if you have any questions or require assistance.

Jerry Parker

Dir. Operations.

MusicMaster, Inc.

MusicMaster Pro 8.0.14 is now available to you under Help, Check for Update. Changes are as follows:

• When using Direct Entry in the Schedule Editor on Runtime or any length type field, you can now prefix the desired time with ~ to perform a Close To search and find songs at or near the specified Runtime. For example, entering 4:00 will find songs where the runtime Equals 4:00, but entering ~4:00 will find songs where the runtime is Close To 4:00.
• When viewing a Numeric type field in the History Browser, the header row will now provide a tooltip showing the minimum, maximum and average values that appear in that field during the history time period you are viewing. This applies to numeric type fields added in the User Field properties on the Display tab in the History Browser configuration.
• History loaded by the History Graph can now be refreshed after a short time to reflect changes made by other users, even if you are not making schedule history changes yourself.
• Made an adjustment in the Scheduling Calendar to prevent it from stealing the focus after you launch an operation from it, in the case where you have it set to remain open.
• Corrected an issue where the History Purge function could cause locked elements to become unlocked.
• Updated the calculation of the vocal music counters on the Canadian CRTC Self-Assessment Report.

You can find the full list of changes under Help, Release notes. Contact your MusicMaster Scheduling Consultant with any questions.

MusicMaster Pro 8.0.13 is now available to you under Help, Check for Update. Changes are as follows:

• When launching the Schedule Editor automatically at the end of Auto Scheduling, the cursor in the Schedule Editor will now be located at the first hour you set for the Auto Scheduler in the case where your session did not begin with the first hour of the day.
• When copy and pasting elements in the Schedule Editor, the values in the transition and user fields in the element properties will now be included.
• Made several minor editing improvements to the Packet Editor.
• When naming export files using date/time macros, new options are available that let you include the current date/time when you are performing the export and UTC conversions. You can also include a unique random string or characters to prevent existing files from being overwritten.
• Updated the CRTC Self-Assessment Special History Report to add support for Indigenous artist calculations. The design of the report has also been modified to make it shorter and include less columns with only unused values.
• Added a new Canadian CRTC Yearly Quota Special History Report that reports on Emerging and Indigenous Artist plays for an entire year.
• Added a new Special History Report for creators of NPR Syndicated Shows.
• Added UI text translations for the wizard-based setup dialogs.

You can find the full list of changes under Help, Release notes. Contact your MusicMaster Scheduling Consultant with any questions.

MusicMaster Pro 8.0.12 is now available via Help, Check for Update. Here are some highlights from this release:

You can now program a custom backup profile to make additional copies of your backup file in up to three alternate locations.

The Library Search Bar will now use the default Library Maintenance sort key if it has been set.

New options for the MinMax Step Rules allow you to set the rule so the range is allowed in only one direction, and any transition in the opposite direction will count as a failure.

Reworked the metadata download in the CD Ripper to improve reliability.

You can find the full list of changes under Help, Release notes. Contact your MusicMaster Scheduling Consultant with any questions.

MusicMaster Pro 8.0.11 is now available to you under Help, Check for Update. Key changes are as follows:

You can now set the default sort order when opening up song lists in Library Maintenance from the Infobar. This is located in Tools, Options under Library Editor Options, Library Layout Defaults.

You can now adjust the way the Schedule Editor matching value search functions (Ctrl-1/Ctrl-2) work when you are searching a multiple keyword field. The choices are Primary Keyword Only, Match Any Keyword or Match All Keywords. This setting is in Tools, Options under the Schedule Editor Replacement Song Options.

When using the Scheduling Recap function in the Schedule Editor, you can now choose to do this by Song ID to see all attempts to schedule a song, or by History ID to just see all attempts that were made to schedule a specific element.

You can now force a confirmation prompt when you try to drag a song in Library Maintenance to a Song List on the InfoBar and that song is already in the selected Song List. g.

If you pause the Audio Player and then switch to a different song before resuming playback, the play button and F12 will start playing the new song, but clicking the pause button again will resume the paused song.

Improved the speed of loading data in the Scheduling Calendar

You can find the full list of changes under Help, Release notes. Please contact your MusicMaster Scheduling Consultant with any questions.

MusicMaster Pro 8.0.10 is now available to you under Help, Check for Update. Changes are as follows: 

You can now configure a new prompt message to remind you to make a backup when closing a station. This setting is available in the Backup/Restore utility under the new Options button in the lower left corner. This message can appear every time, or only when the last backup reaches a specified number of days old.

The AutoKick rule now tests in both directions by default, but contains a property to make it look
backward only like other history rules.

Adjusted the Unique Value search dialog so it better handles the case where you manually edit the current value before clicking OK.

The unique values search function was adjusted to better handle the case where you were entering plain numeric values into a text field without any padding to make the entries equal length.

Corrected an error that would sometimes appear when deleting a packet.

You can find the full list of changes under Help, Release notes. Contact your MusicMaster Scheduling Consultant with any questions.

MusicMaster Pro 8.0.8 is now available to you under Help, Check for Update. Changes include:

There is a new option in Tools, Options, Dataset Identification that allows you to show the date/time of the latest station backup on the title bar.

You can now right click a song that is hosting a Virtual Show in Library Maintenance or the Schedule Editor and use the new Show Virtual Show Songs function to show the details of the songs contained in that Virtual Show.

A warning will now be shown when opening the Datafile Manager if the data path or file specified on the command-line is invalid. This can help you avoid the case where you might accidentally open the wrong copy of a station database from the wrong folder.

The Format Clock Editor Element Properties dialog now allows you to edit the User1 and User2 text fields that are available in the Schedule History Element Properties. These fields work just like the Transition field in the Clock Editor and Schedule Editor.

There are also several adjustments designed to improve performance and responsiveness.

You can find the full list of changes under Help, Release notes. Contact your MusicMaster Scheduling Consultant with any questions.

MusicMaster PRO 8.0.7 is now available to you under Help, Check for Update. Changes include:

Corrected some data refresh issues in Library Maintenance where row colors were not displayed properly and where the song counts that can be shown in the InfoBar were not always immediately updated.

Applied some performance improvements in Library Maintenance, particularly to cases where categories were changed on songs. This had the greatest impact when using a SQL database.

Several changes have been made to improve the translation of text displayed in the software to other languages including fixing some phrases that were always shown in English and filling in some missing translations, particularly for Spanish.

You can find the full list of changes under Help, Release notes. Contact your MusicMaster Scheduling Consultant with any questions.

You can go to Help, Check for Updates to get MusicMaster PRO 8.0.6.  Among the highlights:

The History Browser now has an option on the Categories tab to determine the Category Type.  You can select either Song Category or Scheduled Category.  Song Category is the category the songs are currently in or the category that the songs were in when they were scheduled during the specified time period. If you set this to Scheduled Category, songs that played during the time period in any of the selected categories will be included no matter where that song currently is located.  The Scheduled Category can also be included as part of the display when using the Individual Plays option.

New query operators are available when searching Multiple Keyword and Song fields.  With Multiple Keyword fields, you can use “Primary Keyword Does Not Equal” and “Primary Keyword Does Not Contain”. With Song and Keyword fields, you can use “Trivia Does Not Contain”.

The Hour, Sweep and Record Target rules have been adjusted to make the gauge bigger, especially helpful when the values it has to display are large numbers.

Please contact your Music Scheduling Consultant if you have any questions or need assistance installing this version.

MusicMaster 8.0.5 is now available in Help, Check for Updates.

With this release the internal web browser has been updated from Internet Explorer to Microsoft Edge. Previously you might have encountered websites that no longer worked with Internet Explorer. With Microsoft Edge, the latest publishing standards are met making pages display better. There are added benefits including improved rendering performance, the ability to save user credentials for the Music Store (better cookie handling) and the ability to redirect the default download folder for Store audio file downloads.

We’ve updated the Chart Editor to better handle songs that re-enter the chart. Previously if a song was removed then added again, fields were cleared. Now as long as the Peak Position is more than zero, the song will be treated as re-entering the chart. This means fields like Debut Date and various Peak fields will not change unless the re-entry is higher than the current values.

Due to the possible installation of Microsoft Edge, the installation file will check to see if your system needs this installed. If it does, an additional messaging screen will appear to indicate this. Please note that if this needs to be installed, the process will take significantly longer than you might be used to. Once this is installed, subsequent installations will be back to a normal length.