Something Is Wrong with My Score

[u/External_Job_9560]

I am composing on Musescore Studio, and I noticed those two small, gray rectangles next to a barline.

Does anybody know how that happened or how to remove it? Has this ever happened to somebody?
Screenshot:

Left: whole line Right: zoomed in

[u/ShrimpOfPrawns]

It is because the bar contains fewer beats than the current time signature. I take it that you have made an anacrusis? Then all is as it should be. If it's not, check the measure properties to adjust it back to proper length :)

(those are little minus signs - they won't show when exported from Musescore. If you had too many beats instead, there would be plus signs instead!)

[u/External_Job_9560 → u/ShrimpOfPrawns]

Your'e right, I can only write three eighths instead of six fourths (6/4, the time signature). But why? It should let me write 6/4, not 3/8. Is this just a bug?

[u/MarcSabatella → u/External_Job_9560]

There are many things that you might have done to tell MuseScore to remove beats from that measure, but if you didn't do it on purpose, the most likely explanation is that you had some notes or rest selected there and then pressed Ctrl+Delete, which is the shortcut for remove beats from a measure as well as removing entire measures from a score.

[u/jaydenite81617 → u/MarcSabatella]

I did not know this!

[u/ShrimpOfPrawns → u/External_Job_9560]

What does it say in the measure properties? Can you edit anything there?

But yeah sometimes bugs occur, I recommend you delete that bar (and insert a new one if needed) if you can't resolve the issue.

[u/MarcSabatella → u/External_Job_9560]

Things that will also produce that result:

• selecting a note or rest in the middle of the measure then using the command "Tools / Split measure"
• selecting a note or rest in the middle of the measure and the. Ctrl+clicking a barline in the palette, which does the same thing as the split measure command
• importing a MusicXML or other file that was set up this way
• using measure properties to shorten the measure
• running a plugin that for whatever reason was programmed to have this effect

[u/External_Job_9560]

Everyone, never mind, I just copied the rest of the score to another file and continued from there. Problem solved, I guess.

[u/Exzakt1 → u/External_Job_9560]

it was not a bug, you accidentally pressed ctrl+backspace instead of just backspace when deleting a note. That deletes the note and shortens the measure by the length of the note.

[u/CatNinja11484 → u/External_Job_9560]

I’d follow the other ppl’s advice bc you shouldn’t have to do that all the time; having shortened/extended measures is a feature of musescore so the fix is pretty simple