Windows 8.1 Music App... Just Ripped Me Off?

[Windows Central Question]

I just purchased a song from this thing... it said it downloaded, but...

(a) it shows up under the artist with a stupid little cloud symbol and won't play,
(b) I don't see it under my Music folder.

The entire program is insanely confusing.

Under "Collection" there is an option for All/available offline/streaming/only on this PC.

1. Where is this explained?
2. Why is it there?
3. And why do artists/song disappear if I select only on this PC, even though they are clearly in my My Music folder?

I browsed to the C:\Users\Public\Music\Xbox Music\Purchases and found the file. It won't play.

4. How do you contact Microsoft's billing to dispute a music purchase which didn't work?

 

[mrpuny]

Hi, I'll try to help as best I can. So let's start with the music file. First off, it's strange that your file is showing up under the 'Public' user. It normally shows up under your account, but I'm guessing that the default save location got changed from your Music folder to the Public one. The first thing I might try is to change your default save location back to your user account Music folder and redownload the purchased file. You may have to delete your original file, or to be safer, just move the someplace else, like on your desktop. Then in the Xbox Music app you should be able to find the song again and redownload it. If you bring up your collection (all music) and find the song, right click on it (or select it and swipe up if using touch, I think) and you should get an option to download. Try downloading it again, and see if it works this time. Assuming it works you can then delete the original on the desktop (or wherever you moved it.)

To be honest, for the most part I've been using Xbox Music with the streaming music subscription, and so I'm just learning about the music purchase side of things as well. I'd suggest bringing up the settings and selecting help to learn more, but at the moment it seems the entire Xbox support (games as well as music) site is down. I get a "This page is currently unavailable, please check back later" message. Maybe this will be working by the time you read this; try it and see. If not, here's what I understand about the service:

The cloud icon means that the song is both available in your cloud collection and locally on your PC. (Actually, that shows up if you go to "Settings\Preferences" and select "Learn about those icons in your collection") The filter for what music shows is 'all' - in your cloud collection and locally on your PC, 'available offline' - songs in your cloud collection that don't need to be streamed, 'streaming' - songs in your cloud collection that aren't available on your PC and so have to be streamed, and 'only on this PC' which means the songs aren't in your cloud collection at all, but are only stored locally on your PC. These are just filtering options.

As to why 'only on this PC' causes songs to disappear, when you go to Settings\Preferences and select 'Choose where we look for music on this PC', do the locations shown include where the music files are stored? If not, then you can add them and they should show up.

 

[Keith Brooks]

I've personally found the Music app to be buggy in a fully updated Windows 8.1 Pro w/Media Center x64. Try opening the app, click collections, scroll down to the artist or song you purchased, double-click on it, then click the 3 ...'s and click on download. Hope that help's you. Personally I got the various free holiday downloads they had. After I downloaded each and closed the app, I opened Windows Media Player. WMP only found certain song's and a bunch were still left in the
usic > Xbox Music > Purchases folder. They should've been moved out of that folder into a folder in Music > Artist Name > Album Name > Song Name. It wasn't, I spent a few hours cutting and pasting them where they should've gone. WMP still doesn't list them. I have Cyberlink PowerDVD due to having a Blu-ray burner. PowerDVD finds them all and plays them. Also, be forewarned, I've tried WWindows 10 DP and WMP still hasn't gotten a new version. It's still Windows 7's Windows Media Player 12, which is in 7, 8, 8.1 and now 10.

 

[mrpuny]

I've personally found the Music app to be buggy in a fully updated Windows 8.1 Pro w/Media Center x64. Try opening the app, click collections, scroll down to the artist or song you purchased, double-click on it, then click the 3 ...'s and click on download. Hope that help's you. Personally I got the various free holiday downloads they had. After I downloaded each and closed the app, I opened Windows Media Player. WMP only found certain song's and a bunch were still left in the
usic > Xbox Music > Purchases folder. They should've been moved out of that folder into a folder in Music > Artist Name > Album Name > Song Name. It wasn't, I spent a few hours cutting and pasting them where they should've gone. WMP still doesn't list them. I have Cyberlink PowerDVD due to having a Blu-ray burner. PowerDVD finds them all and plays them. Also, be forewarned, I've tried WWindows 10 DP and WMP still hasn't gotten a new version. It's still Windows 7's Windows Media Player 12, which is in 7, 8, 8.1 and now 10.

Interesting. Did you change the music library save location from the default? Just wondering because I've been downloading the holiday deal purchases on a couple of 64-bit Win 8.1 Pro with Media Center PC's and only had problems with one of them where it wouldn't download purchases at all for a while. It would add them to my cloud collection but then error out when it was trying to download. After searching around, I found a tip about resetting my default libraries and that fixed it. And the OP was finding the song in the Public user music folder, which sounds like the default music library save location was changed. So I wonder if the problems with Xbox Music show up when the default library save location is modified?

 

[Brett Watters]

This program is beyond frustrating.

I've not found that anytime I play any music which I purchased through the Music App store... it refuses to play. Music now purchased through the store is fine. As long as it says "Streaming status: Unmatched". The file is on disk, the file plays fine in Media Player or Media Center, etc. If I remote the file... it says "downloading", but no file it there, or in the public folder. I tried removing the public folder... nothing. Then re-adding it.... nothing.

I've noticed that MS did away with the ability to play streaming music... great. But why does it still even talk about the cloud? Why does it show music on the cloud I can't play? Why is Media Player smart enough to just read the files on disk rather than this stupid cloud nonsense which I don't want.

So... a year worth of music purchases... unplayable!

Why is it that in 2014... Microsoft can't even make a music playing program which works as well as WMP?

 

[mrpuny]

This program is beyond frustrating.

I've not found that anytime I play any music which I purchased through the Music App store... it refuses to play. Music now purchased through the store is fine. As long as it says "Streaming status: Unmatched". The file is on disk, the file plays fine in Media Player or Media Center, etc. If I remote the file... it says "downloading", but no file it there, or in the public folder. I tried removing the public folder... nothing. Then re-adding it.... nothing.

I've noticed that MS did away with the ability to play streaming music... great. But why does it still even talk about the cloud? Why does it show music on the cloud I can't play? Why is Media Player smart enough to just read the files on disk rather than this stupid cloud nonsense which I don't want.

So... a year worth of music purchases... unplayable!

Why is it that in 2014... Microsoft can't even make a music playing program which works as well as WMP?

I'm going to suggest you ask this question in the Xbox Music forum on this site, as you may get more attention there. I'd also suggest slowing down and explaining the problem better, because at this point I don't understand your issue. You wrote that you can't play purchased music through the Music App store, but then music "now purchased" through the store plays fine and it plays in Media Player and Media Center also. But then finally you can't play a year's worth of music purchases. So which is it? Purchased music plays or it doesn't? Or some music doesn't play, but it used to?

 

[Brett Watters]

I've contacted Microsoft and have been trying a number of things. We've tried pretty much everything. So far... the Music app is unable to play any .MP3 files. Further, any .MP3 file it downloads is unplayable in WMP, but does play in Zune? Most of my collection are .WMA files which play fine -- as do .M4A files. Purchased music through the store (.MP3) won't play, except in Zune.

 

[mrpuny]

I've contacted Microsoft and have been trying a number of things. We've tried pretty much everything. So far... the Music app is unable to play any .MP3 files. Further, any .MP3 file it downloads is unplayable in WMP, but does play in Zune? Most of my collection are .WMA files which play fine -- as do .M4A files. Purchased music through the store (.MP3) won't play, except in Zune.

That's certainly not normal. I just checked a few of the songs I purchased from Xbox Music from the holiday deals, and they all play in WMP (and Xbox Music) just fine. It's possible the files might be corrupt - some players can be more robust or tolerant of errors in the files, and maybe that's why the Zune software con play it back when Xbox Music and WMP can't. As a test, have you tried using an MP3 repair tool on (copies of) the files to see if that 'fixes' the problem? Another question, is have you tried using the files on another computer or a different device like a phone or MP3 player? Something to try to narrow down if the problem is with the files themselves or with the setup of the particular computer you're using.