The Sibelius Forum

This problem appeared when I updated to the latest version of Sibelius. If I try to open a Sibelius file from within the program by going through the File>Open pathway the file does not open. If it is a file that has been opened previously, I can open it via the File>Quickstart pathway but, otherwise, I have to hide the program and go to the Documents>Scores folder where the files are stored to access a particular file. This is very annoying. Help?

Is no one else experiencing this problem? I can't believe it is just me! Any suggestions?

I haven't heard of this happening with anyone else. Do you get any messages or error conditions?

Try this. Go to File-->Preferences-->Other and click the "Show All Messages" butten.

Now when you try to open a file do you get any error messages?

Quite some time later, I have the same problem, I think it showed up after one of the MacOS updates, to Catalina I am not mistaken. I have reinstalled Ultimate but it did not help.

You need to be on a very recent version of Sib, if you've updated the Mac OS to one of the latest versions.

You may need to update to avoid issues.

Thank you for your reply.

I believe this means to buy a new license, or is there any upgrade path for Ultimate users?

A similar question was asked this morning on the official Sibelius forum. Here's the relevant part of the answer:

"The only upgrade available is to the latest version, currently 2022.12.

I suggest you investigate the 'Reinstate lapsed Perpetual licence' deal.

Your entitlement to this lies in your Sibelius 8 licence. You will receive a full installation. An older version doesn't need to be already installed on your computer."

I have exactly the same problem and I'm running Sibelius 8.6.1 build 994 on MacOS Ventura 13.5.2. The only way I can open ANY file, regardless of whether it was created with this version of Sibelius or earlier, is to double click the file itself in its folder.

A full re-installation of Sibelius has not resolved the issue. I never had this problem with an older version of Sibelius on Windows. I have a perpetual license and am not too interested in upgrading just to fix this issue.

Older versions of Sibelius like yours are not compatible with later Mac operating systems like 10.13 Ventura.

You may get some functionality but expect problems. Reinstalling won't make a difference, you have to upgrade to the latest version of Sibelius.

Windows 10 and 11 will happily run old versions of Sibelius, right back to 5 and possibly further! It's a problem created by Apple and they will not do anything, of course!

I hadn't realised my version is that old! I've reactivated a subscription, updated Sibelius and can confirm all the problems I was having are gone (opening files, entering chords or text problematic) - as far as my usage over a few hours goes. Thanks for your help.