Well, now I regret my purchase. Please help me fix these issues?

Ophanim

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So I just got a Lumia 920 last week, and it's been a blast, I couldn't say one bad thing about Windows Phone 8 ... Until I tried syncing my music to the device. I've used iOS and I've used Android, I've had several portable multimedia devices. This is easily the worst experience I've had trying to get music to and from the device.

Perhaps I'm doing something wrong, and I hope you guys can set me straight.

So I made a playlist in iTunes of the music I wanted to sync to my phone. I then downloaded the Windows Phone 8 desktop app and tried syncing my music via iTunes.

While it worked, my metadata/tags were all messed up ... Does Windows Phone 8 try to auto correct Music metadata/tags? What I'm seeing is the album "channel ORANGE" appearing twice as "channel ORANGE" and "channel ORANGE (deluxe)" and songs will just randomly populate either album. I am anal retentive about my metadata and I use an ID3 editor to manage my tags (I doubt this is my fault, in iTunes and the editor the tags appear alright, it's not until I sync it to the phone that I see the discrepancies).

Anyway, I decided to remove all the music from the device and try again. But the damn desktop app doesn't even have a "select all" checkmark, so I opted to use Windows Explorer and just batch delete them from the Phone's music directory (it worked, but according to Windows explorer the files are still on the phone, it couldn't delete them all but they're gone from the phone).

How do you guys sync music. I'm really really regretting my purchase right now, I need a pain free workflow for syncing music else this is not going to work out.

Thank you!
 

sketchy9

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How do you guys sync music. I'm really really regretting my purchase right now, I need a pain free workflow for syncing music else this is not going to work out.

Thank you!

There is none. Every workaround available involves a degree of compromise. For now a lot people are using drag and drop with file explorer or using Windows Media Player. But there is no true 2 way synchronization. If it's that important to you might need to look elsewhere.

-R
 

theprawn

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Unfortunately the media sync experience for WP8 currently really sucks... It's a shame, especially considering how fantastically it worked for Zune and WP7. If you search these boards there are a ton of threads about the sync situation.

I know MS knows how to do it right... hopefully they fix it soon.
 

eric12341

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Sync the songs through windows media player and then copy the playlist files to it via windows explorer. After that setup a partnership to sync with windows media player, at that point you can make playlists in windows media player and they will sync. Try that.
 

Ophanim

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Damn, how could they drop the ball like this? ... I tried the drag and drop method. It works, but it appears to ignore my metadata/tags ... Pretty much it's as if it refers to some online database and then I end up getting duplicate albums ... One will have the music recognized in Xbox music and the other album will have the rest of the tracks.

For instance, Kanye West's 808 & Heartbreaks appears like this:

Kanye West - 808's & Heartbreaks
[some songs from the album, maybe 4 or 5]

Kanye West - 808's & Heartbreaks
[the rest of the songs that aren't in the first album]

The album art, and metadata information is the same for every song (barring the track title and number obviously), yet somehow it's breaking up the album into two separate albums. Any idea how to tell the phone to not override my metadata?
 

Ophanim

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Okay, I solved my metadata problem. Wasn't paying attention to the settings in the 'music+video' hub.

I turned off the toggle that enables the device to obtain track information from the internet. I can deal with the other syncing woes.
 

Jake52

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Yeah, I'm having this same problem. I meticulously organized and tagged my music collection using Media Monkey and actually used that program to copy the music over to my 920. I thought everything was great until I noticed the phone changing the tags around and moving songs into two albums when they should be in one, getting rid of some album artwork, etc.

This is a huge shame because I really like the feature where it finds the artist and links their Xbox music page to your collection. It's awesome having the artist picture in the background of the page along with the rest of their collection from Xbox music.

I think a great fix for this would be to allow us to control exactly what information it's allowed to change. For example, we could allow the match service to only download artist images and leave everything else alone like song information and album images. Also, we should be able to specify the artist if it can't automatically match someone. Most of my library was matched but it missed Silversun Pickups and I know they are in the music store.
 

tebugg

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what i do is copy and paste songs to my phone through windows explorer and usb mass storage. then if i need to make a playlist, i create a folder in the music folder on my phone (still through windows explorer). then i right click the folder and create playlist. the playlist has to stay in the root music folder.
 

Jake52

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For music lovers I think they have a chance to create a killer feature with the integration of Xbox music. 99 bucks a year for unlimited music across a Windows Phone, a Windows 8 computer, and an Xbox console is pretty sweet. Plus, if they can fix all the matching issues then it's really cool to be able to link an artists page with photos, bios, and all their albums that you don't own to your personal collection. And the SmartDJ is like a built in Pandora feature.

They are a long ways off though, like mentioned in this thread they really need to fix the syncing issues. And they need to fix the Xbox music match feature or give people a lot more control on what it can and can't do to your music.
 

M A Cabral

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I turned off the toggle that enables the device to obtain track information from the internet.

First thing you should have done, even before getting an app :)

Oh, a word of advice. Stop using bloody iTunes: it's a terrible program for mac, it's a worst problem not program for Windows. Makes even less sense for someone so demading and invested in MPv3 tags. Specially if you let it choose it's settings like it did.
It WILL mess your things, it WILL take ages, it WILL go crazy with DRM ("so... if I buy this podcast in amazon I can use it any way I want BUT if I use iTunes I have an account, login, AND it WILL make a simple drag&drop sound like a murder mystery. Sorry, too much. But am I wrong? Unless it changed since the last version I saw a few months ago, in my nephew's computer. I'd never use it. By jove, Windows Media Player, an average program, is god-like in comparison... In fact, if you had used it in the first place you would have less problems syncing:-D

Quite honestly, unless there is something hidden in the manual this is yet another thing that wasted a very good and potencially great phone. Nokia can't catch a break
 

sudakoma

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I have to sympathise with the op, whoever decided to ditch zune at microsoft should be fired. Xbox music is dire and we shouldn't be forced to use media player to carry out things that zune did so well with wp7. This needs to be sorted out quick as a lot of people use their phones for music and this problem will not help wp8 gain ground.
 

paulm187

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Xbox Music needs fixing and hopefully we will have an update soon. For the time being it works very well if you have a music pass and wish to go cloud only. Otherwise turn off connect with xbox music and xbox music cloud collection in settings music + video.
 

aeschylus

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I agree that the syncing situation with wp8 is currently terrible. The problem I've encountered is that I used to have the 15 dollar Zune subscription which included the ten songs a month. These songs are now in my Xbox cloud collection automatically. But if I download the rest of the album that contains one of these purchased songs, Xbox music automatically splits the album into two, one for the DRM free tracks and one for drm tracks. If I turn off add tracks from the cloud in settings it makes it so that I can only see the DRM enabled songs!!! (I.e. It won't allow you to see the songs you purchased through the Xbox music store, even if download them from the store, without having cloud back up enabled). This seems like a huge oversight. This makes me want to go back to using my focus as a dedicated music player.
 

sketchy9

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For music lovers I think they have a chance to create a killer feature with the integration of Xbox music. 99 bucks a year for unlimited music across a Windows Phone, a Windows 8 computer, and an Xbox console is pretty sweet. Plus, if they can fix all the matching issues then it's really cool to be able to link an artists page with photos, bios, and all their albums that you don't own to your personal collection. And the SmartDJ is like a built in Pandora feature.

Haha that's pretty funny because they basically had that with Zune/WP7. They just decided to blow it up and replace it with c**p.

-R
 

Dr. Impossible

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Ugh.
Really?(Not you Alex)

I just read this article and I don't have the words. You know what? I don't want to deal with any of that. I don't want to and shouldn't have to do any of the crap listed in the Pocketnow article to sync music, this is ridiculous. Through all the hoopla over WP8 the last few months, I simply assumed, like a johnson, that Xbox music would totally cover all things music in WP8 ala Zune and possibly even make it better.

This is a big disappoinment, and as the author of the article said, a huge step backward. IDK what to think of WP8 now.

Sorry, a little off-topic ranty.

Thanks

-Doc
 

Jake52

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Haha that's pretty funny because they basically had that with Zune/WP7. They just decided to blow it up and replace it with c**p.

That really sucks. I never experienced Zune/WP7 because I came from an iPhone. I was never a fan of iTunes but at least I knew when I synced music to my phone all the album art would be there and every song would be in the right place. I really hope Microsoft fixes these issues because they are making a lot of people mad.
 

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