Heritage Muse Child Ballads problem

Subject: Heritage Muse Child Ballads problem
From: Dunlace
Date: 21 Nov 05 - 12:38 PM

My Heritage Muse Child Ballads and other HM software has not worked since I upgraded Adobe Reader. I can't get a reply from their web site. Has anybody had and/or solved this problem?

Thanks for any help you can offer.

Subject: RE: Heritage Muse Child Ballads problem
From: Bill D
Date: 21 Nov 05 - 12:56 PM

if it's merely a problem with Adobe version, perhaps Foxit Reader will allow you to use it until you sort it all out.

Subject: RE: Heritage Muse Child Ballads problem
From: Bill D
Date: 21 Nov 05 - 12:58 PM

...and it seems others have had problems..

a review

Subject: RE: Heritage Muse Child Ballads problem
From: GUEST,DB
Date: 21 Nov 05 - 04:59 PM

I've had problems with Adobe Acrobat Reader Version 7 (does anyone else hate pdf files as much as I do?). I found the answer in a computer mag (can't remember which one - sorry!). Open Adobe Acrobat 7 and click on the 'Help' menu - you should find a 'Detect and Repair' option in there somewhere - this fixed my problem.
The other fix involves checking that the Acrobat Reader plug-in has been enabled after installing Service Pack 2 (got that? - you're way ahead of me!). If this means anything to you do the following:

"In Internet Explorer, open the Tools menu and select Manage Add-ons, then select 'Add-ons that have been used by Internet Explorer' from the drop down menu. Locate the entries for Adobe Reader and ensure that all the add-ons are enabled."

Naughty Adobe and Microsoft confusing us like that!! Hope this helps.

Subject: RE: Heritage Muse Child Ballads problem
From: Joybell
Date: 21 Nov 05 - 05:28 PM

A helpful thread, Dunlace. Thank you. I havn't upgraded to Adobe 7 so I've not had problems yet. GuestDB, thanks. Yes I most certainly hate pdf files. Always having problems with them.

Incidently the review of "Heritage Muse Child Ballads" is interesting. I didn't expect much from the CDs when I knew that field recordings weren't used for them - but I'd wondered why not, too. Also I agree that using accomaniment for them was a mistake. I rather thought that the producers of "The Muse" were trying to aim too wide. The program is a handy reference work - while it works. Still I find myself using my old books of Child's collection and "The Contemplator" more often. Cheers, Joy

Subject: RE: Heritage Muse Child Ballads problem
From: GUEST,DB
Date: 21 Nov 05 - 05:50 PM

I seem to remember that Rod Stradling gave the 'Heritage Muse Child Ballads' a jolly good thrashing on his 'Musical Traditions' website. I think he had tech problems, too. I wonder if those problems were anything to do with Adobe Acrobat Reader?

Subject: RE: Heritage Muse Child Ballads problem
From: Lighter
Date: 21 Nov 05 - 05:59 PM

Read all about it at the link Bill D provides above. "Thrashing" is putting it mildly.

Subject: RE: Heritage Muse Child Ballads problem
From: Bill D
Date: 21 Nov 05 - 07:09 PM

well, for 'most' PDF files, Foxit Reader works, and works MUCH faster than Adobe, which, by default loads many, many plug-ins and extras that you seldom need, thus taking forever. I set my default reader to Foxit, then *IF* I find one that needs more, I can always wipe the dust off of Adobe.

Subject: RE: Heritage Muse Child Ballads problem
From: Roberto
Date: 22 Nov 05 - 07:42 AM

It is a long time since I've bought their cds, that I've never received. R

Subject: Heritage Muse Child Ballads from Camsco
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 25 Nov 06 - 03:19 PM

I have just tried and failed (one after another) to install these Child ballads on all 3 of my computers - I have an AMD2400 running W98SE, and old PIII933 running ME, and a Celeron 2400 running XP.

On the AMD, I made a mistake by putting the order ID in in lower case. It seemed to ahve installed but then would not run. I went back to the installer, and uninstalled to try again. Again it seemed to install but would not run. Then it would not uninstall and I am now left with a folder on my C drive with your programs in and it can do nothing about it as I expect it ahs made registry entries to run on start up (which I would not have chosen, but I was not offered the option) and if I simply delete the folder the computer will fail on boot.

On the PIII933 it seems to have uninstalled, but I am not going to risk installing again.

On the Celeron, I put the right order number in and nothing happened for a bit: so I clicked OK and got authorisation failure.

On the Celeron the app tries to run but Adobe says it needs a plugin that does not load.

Then NONE of the machines would run Explorer to access the internet, until I shut down my router competely and rebooted it.

What is wrong witht this thing?

Subject: RE: Heritage Muse Child Ballads from Camsco
From: Bernard
Date: 25 Nov 06 - 05:37 PM

Sorry, Richard, I don't understand the question...

I've googled the thing, and come up with this, but I'm not sure what you are asking?

Subject: RE: Heritage Muse Child Ballads from Camsco
From: Jeri
Date: 25 Nov 06 - 07:42 PM

It's a searchable digital version of the Child ballads. Heritage Muse Child Ballads. Judging by the threads linked to at the top of this page, there have been other problems.

Subject: RE: Heritage Muse Child Ballads from Camsco
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 25 Nov 06 - 07:46 PM

Hi-
I'm only the vendor. For assistance, you should contact the publisher, at heritagemuse.com.

If all else fails, you can return it to me for a refund, but I don't think that's what either of us wants.

Subject: RE: Heritage Muse Child Ballads from Camsco
From: Susan of DT
Date: 25 Nov 06 - 09:16 PM

I found that calling Heritage Muse works better than email. When you reach them/him, he is helpful. The number should be on the materials in/on the DVD case.

Subject: RE: Heritage Muse Child Ballads from Camsco
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 26 Nov 06 - 02:50 AM

Yes, not blaming you Dick, but I will bear the offer in mind. Phoning the USA from England is not always convenient.

I, like Rod Stradling, was underwhelmed by the recordings, but my main problem was that for a while I thought the program had killed all three of my computers and left me unable to work and earn my living!

Subject: RE: Heritage Muse Child Ballads from Camsco
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 26 Nov 06 - 11:35 AM

I don't know what happened to your first insallation, but I believe there's a security provision that prevents installation on more than one computer. There's a password available (I'm told) to overcome this, but it would have to come from Heritage Muse.
Meanwhile, I'll forward your message to the publisher.

Subject: RE: Heritage Muse Child Ballads from Camsco
From: Celtaddict
Date: 11 Jan 07 - 11:03 PM

This sounds just like what I have been going through trying to install this program on my new computer!
I see several threads on these problems, and gather there must be considerable bugs yet to work out. Has anyone facing the problems had success either in fixing it or in contacting Heritage Muse?

Subject: RE: Heritage Muse Child Ballads problem
From: Celtaddict
Date: 11 Jan 07 - 11:05 PM

My new version on my new computer still will not install correctly, with Adobe 7 OR 8. I see you were having trouble some time ago. Did you find a way to make it work? Or receive any response from Heritage Muse?

Subject: RE: Heritage Muse Child Ballads from Camsco
From: Joe_F
Date: 11 Jan 07 - 11:52 PM

I had trouble when I first bought mine, several years ago, because my Adobe Reader wasn't up to date. When at length I managed to download a suitable version, the Child Ballads disk worked. However, when I got a new computer, I had to telephone to get something or other reset.

My impression is that this sort of nonsense is a result of copy protection. A similar thing happened last year with the Oxford English Dictionary CD-ROM. It stopped working, all over the world, because an upgrade of Windows was incompatible with Oxford's copy protection software. Eventually a patch was provided.

Subject: RE: Heritage Muse Child Ballads problem
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 12 Jan 07 - 07:08 AM

other thread, same topic?

Subject: RE: Heritage Muse Child Ballads problem
From: Phil Cooper
Date: 12 Jan 07 - 06:22 PM

I had trouble, too.

Subject: RE: Heritage Muse Child Ballads problem
From: Celtaddict
Date: 13 Jan 07 - 02:01 PM

I have received an e-mail from Heritage Muse with specific questions and offering to walk me through by phone. This sounds promising.
(And the back of the box does say it is consistent with Reader or Acrobat 6.0 so may not work with more current versions, which should be fixable.) I will post back to let you know how this turns out, since evidently I am not alone.
Bernard: Thanks for the link; wonderful site I had found before and 'lost.'
Roberto: Did you receive the CD(s) eventually? If not, PM me and I will forward your e-mail to the CEO.

Subject: RE: Heritage Muse Child Ballads problem
From: John Minear
Date: 12 Sep 08 - 06:56 AM

Perhaps this is a dead horse that ought to be hauled off to its resting place. However, I thought I would try one last time to see if there is any life left it in it anywhere. I got a new iMac a year a go and the Heritage Muse Digital Child would not load on it. I emailed the folks and received a promise that I would have the answer last December. Since then only total silence. I have emailed them a half dozen times over the last nine months with no response. Not only am I without the resource, I think this business casts a negative light over the whole field of ballad research and effort. What happened here and why? In a time when there is some growing interest in the old ballads this is an unfortunate affair.

Subject: RE: Heritage Muse Child Ballads problem
From: Howard Kaplan
Date: 23 Feb 12 - 04:30 PM

I can now report an easy solution to one of the reported problems with using the Heritage Muse edition of ESPB: migrating among versions of Adobe Reader. Specifically, we already had a successful installation under Windows XP and Adobe Reader 7, the latter of which we had left installed for the sole purpose of opening the ESPB files. We have now migrated to using ESPB under Adobe Reader 10 on the same computer, and we are deleting Adobe Reader 7.

Among other changes that the ESPB software made when it was first installed under Reader 7.0, it placed three files into a plug_ins folder. (This folder is always present for Adobe Reader, with or without the extra three files.) The exact path to reach this folder seems to vary among different installations, but either "Acrobat 7.0" or "Reader 7.0" is somewhere in the path name. For example, on one computer, this folder is C:\Program Files\Adobe\Reader 7.0\Reader\plug_ins. If all else fails, you should be able to find it by inspecting a shortcut that launches Reader and looking at the subfolders of the folder which contains the executable launched by the shortcut.

These three files have the following names:
FileOpen.api
fOpen32.api
fowp4kbd.api

When we copied those three files to the corresponding plug_ins folder under Reader 10.0, we could open the ESPB files using Reader 10. In addition, the application works better under Reader 10 than under Reader 7. Under Reader 7, we cannot print any of the pages, though we can copy text to the clipboard. Under Reader 10, we can print to our choice of devices and can also copy text to the clipboard.

So, if you simply want to migrate the installation of ESPB to a later version of Adobe Reader on the same computer, it might be unexpectedly simple to do so.

In the process of learning all of this, I also learned a few other things about the fragility of the ESPB installation, about its use of registry keys, and about the possibility of migrating it to another computer altogether. Anyone who's seriously interested in this is welcome to PM me.

Subject: RE: Heritage Muse Child Ballads problem
From: Joe_F
Date: 23 Feb 12 - 06:46 PM

I gave up on Heritage Muse three years ago when it stopped returning my phone messages. I am delighted to hear that Mr Kaplan, by becoming an expert on Adobe Acrobat, has managed to resuscitate the Child ballads, but I am too senile & ignorant to follow that path.

I am waiting with bated breath for Loomis House to put out a machine-readable version of its edition.

Subject: RE: Heritage Muse Child Ballads problem
From: John Minear
Date: 24 Feb 12 - 07:05 AM

Well said, Joe F.

Subject: RE: Heritage Muse Child Ballads problem
From: Phil Cooper
Date: 25 Feb 12 - 12:01 AM

I could never get past the opening page. Since I have all five of the dover books, I figured I could look things up the old fashioned way.

Subject: RE: Heritage Muse Child Ballads problem
From: Joe_F
Date: 25 Feb 12 - 02:41 PM

Alas, I gave away my Dover volumes when I got the Heritage Muse disc.

I faintly hope that Loomis House will not make the mistake of making its version dependent on somebody else's software over whose mutations it has no control. (I far more faintly hope that the producers of such a valuable scholarly resource will disdain copy protection.)