iOS & iPadOS 13 Crashes

Over the past several months we’ve seen a notable increase in system-related crashes from users running iOS and iPadOS 13.4 or later. This is a system issue related to Apple’s Media Player framework that we identified and notified them about on April 6th. We’ve been doing everything we can since then to help them resolve it and they have recently indicated that this may be fixed with iOS and iPadOS 14 (we have not been able to reproduce the issue and cannot confirm this yet).

Early on, we learned that in some cases toggling the “Media & Apple Music” permissions switch in the Settings resolves the issue, but this does not work for all people. We know these crashes are unacceptable and so, given that a permanent fix appears to be some months away, we created a workaround of our own that we’re releasing today with forScore 11.2.5. Unfortunately, this bug is pervasive and the only way we can avoid these crashes is to completely avoid accessing the system’s music player—that’s a big change that reduces forScore’s capabilities, so we’re making it opt-in.

Here’s how it works: in the forScore section of the Settings app (not forScore’s own Settings panel), you’ll find a new option called “iOS & iPadOS 13.4 Workaround” that you can enable to avoid these crashes. This setting does not take effect until you restart forScore, however, so you’ll need to close and relaunch the app after you change it.

Here’s what it does: it avoids using Apple’s shared music player that forScore normally uses when it can’t play audio using its own audio engine. That means you won’t be able to view or control playback for songs currently being played by other apps (like the Music app), and you won’t be able to play songs that forScore can’t directly access. This typically includes DRMed purchases, items that are available to stream but have not been downloaded to your device, and any song if you have forScore’s “Use system audio engine” advanced option enabled.

We know these aren’t minor changes and if there was any other way to avoid these crashes without reducing functionality we would use it. For now, however, this is the best way to ensure that forScore remains stable and usable until Apple’s next major OS updates are released. We greatly value the work Apple does to improve and advance their platforms and we appreciate their help, and we want to especially thank those customers who helped us get the information Apple needed to get this bug sorted out.