Agggggh! I am very frustrated. Does anyone know if there is some glitch, or some user-created error one might perform inadvertantly, that would cause finale to leave off an accidental for no apparent reason? This has happened to me a handful of times, most recently I noticed it happened twice in one piece. I only find it by accident as I happen to focus attention in a new way on the sheet music. It seems idiotic that this could happen (and this was something I submitted to a publisher, though I did send a recording too so hopefully that mitigated the potential disaster), but I'd played this so much before I notated it that I'm never truly "reading" the sheet music as I play, and finale is playing the correct pitch through the playback function, so there's really no way I'd ever notice an error was there without playing thru the entire piece one note at a time and finding out what finale has really printed for me. ???Has anyone had this sort of problem, and how can it be avoided in the future?

ETA: maybe I should further clarify that if I try to add the accidental to the note, which on the screen looks like it has no accidental though it plays back as if it does, finale will not put the accidental there. So it is acting as if it was printed with the accidental, although you can't see it on the screen, and it is't on the printed page. Also, if I change the key signature to make the accidentals part of the key, finale does not add a natural to those oddball notes...so it does "know" on some level that an accidental is applied to them already, it just won't show it.

Speaking from experience with Finale 2006, this is indeed a bug. Finale sometimes "forgets" to replace accidentals after certain alterations to entries - on which the accidental is syntatically correctly hidden - which necessitates re-placement of the accidental (for example, removing the cross-barline tie between two notes with written flats, although this doesn't usually happen). I have often tried to work out what exact conditions result in Finale forgetting to put the accidental back, but there appears to be no hard-and-fast rule.

However, as you suspected, Finale is not ignorant of when the user or itself has deliberately removed accidentals. While using the Speedy Entry Tool, an asterisk usually appears at a bottom corner if there are accidentals whose visibility is contrary to what the notation convention dictates.

For example, a cursor will be "starred" when moved to an entry containing a cautionary accidental (the accidental isn't necessary there but is forced to be visible).

Another example is with "fake ties" (I won't go into detail as to why sometimes a fake tie drawn using a slur is more preferable than a real tie). Here the accidental should appear on the later entry (because as far as Finale is concerned it's only a slur) but the accidental can be hidden (see below). When you run the Speedy Entry cursor over this entry, you will see an asterisk (because the accidental IS supposed to be there, but it isn't there).

Just to make it clear again, the asterisk doesn't mean the accidental is supposed to be there, but it means the accidental's visibility is syntactically correct.

You can change the visibility of the accidental by hitting the asterisk key on your entry, making sure that the vertical cursor is on the exact note for which you want to show/hide the accidental. The asterisk sign at the corner will show/hide according to whether the result is syntactically correct.

You could run your speedy entry cursor through your pieces and see, but this could take a while. Nevertheless, I think the above information is useful for editing isolate cases.

I also suggest trying out the Cautionary Accidentals plug-in. This will place cautionary accidentals at appropriate places depending on the settings you give it, and I'm guessing that it also puts accidentals on places that should have them, too. This may or may not solve your problems, but it's definitely worth a try. Just watch out for one thing: this plug in will put two accidentals on an entry which is shared between two voices and sharps/flats will appear like double-sharps/double-flats. I usually just correct these manually. It's a pain, but life isn't all rose petals Also, I have found no automated way to "reverse" cautionary accidental assignments yet (except Undo, but that obviously doesn't work after you've reloaded the piece), so save a copy of your work before using it!

I realise this is a bit convoluted, but I hope it gives you more things to play around. I would post image examples but I don't have internet at my new home yet (I'm replying to this at work).

ETA:

The only user-created error I can think of is accidentally hitting the asterisk while using speedy entry. Since asterisk is also SHIFT+8, and 8 is a semibreve, and 9 - the next key - forces enharmonic respelling, I guess this could happen once in a while if you are very fluent in Speedy Entry and use all these features. Also, sometimes Finale gets "confused" if you keep hiding and showing conflicting accidentals in different voices on the same staff, put ties on them, and then transpose afterwards.

Funny that I had almost the same difficulty several months ago. Great answer as usual, Tar!

Tar, that was sheer brilliance and thanks sooo much for the detailed info. I am going to print a copy of this and paste it by the computer! I am excited to go explore all this. And yes, at least for this particular problem piece I suppose it is possible I accidentally hit something wrong in speedy entry, as I was doing a ton of messing around with it trying to create double "flags" and aim some of them up or down, seperating intervals that were printed together but intended to be split between hands, etc. (RH and LH on the same staff, seemed easier to read at the time but now I kinda regret it). Thanks ever so!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I hope it worked out in the end, musiccr8r?

I also did an experiment: basically, in a cross-barline tie pair, Finale doesn't update the star state of the latter note of the pair when the tie is broken.

The following sequence will confuse Finale reproducibly:

1. Tie a pair of notes with written accidentals across a barline (e.g. D# | D# )
-- The accidental on the latter note correctly disappears.

2. Use speedy entry to force-show the accidental on the latter note by hitting the * key.
-- The entry cursor will correctly be starred.

3. Sever the tie.
-- The accidental on the latter note will remain, and the entry cursor will still be starred, even though this is now syntactically correct. This is the glitch.

4. Use speedy entry to reverse force-show the accidental on the latter note.
-- The accidental on the latter note will disappear, and the entry cursor will become un-starred. The latter note is now printed without an accidental, even though it plays as if it has an accidental.

When the key signature is changed to a key with that accidental, the note does not show a natural: a behaviour you have described in your OP.

If you re-tie the pair, the star-state of the cursor will get corrected automatically.

Just something to be aware of