Windows Phone 8 Music Library gets corrupted

[hillmanimpster]

well i've tried using that, but most of the album art doesn't tranfer, and need to use MPAtool to get 'most' of the album art reinstalled.

Is it true that an update to the OS will soon resolve this issue? I am at the brink of returning my phone as not fit for purpose, which is a damn shame as otherwise I like it.

 

[lukudav]

I have played for hours and my conclusion is that the database seems to be corrupted by doing almost anything. I have all relevant tags properly set up, but vast numbers of mp3s go into "Unknown Artist" which is nonsense as when one plays them the player shows the correct artist and album.

"Songs" almost invariably shows each track twice; but not always. I see no pattern in what appears once and what appears twice.

My last observation is that the dreadful "other" folder grows any time you do an experiment. So at some point the phone will become unusable (don't believe people who tell you the trick to recover the space; it's never worked for me.)

Unless you are a masochist, if you want to play music send the phone back. In my case it's a real pity as physically the Lumia I was given is a nice tactile object. I feel sorry for Nokia as their stuff seems good. But WP8 is not fit for purpose and I wouldn't employ the Microsoft WP8 development team to dig potatoes. Quite why so many people say "wait for the next update" when the "other" folder problem has been with Microsoft unfixed for about 6 months, is totally beyond me.

There are many things rotten in the very heart of WP8 and I fear it will be dead before they get fixed.

 

[Porto2112]

I'm glad I found this forum. I bought a Lumia 520 recently and I had the same duplicated songs issue.

I've tried several possible solutions mentioned here and none of them worked. I was about to give up, but then I did the following steps:

1. Unmounted the SD card on device.
2. Inserted the card on PC and deleted everything.
3. Copied the mp3 files directly to the card.
4. Re-inserted the card on phone.

Now the duplicated entries are gone for my surprise. I guess there isn't a formula to avoid this, the solutions are kinda random. Anyway, I guess I'll stick with these songs until Microsoft fixes this issue, I'm not gonna take the risk trying to sync new songs.

 

[eruptflail]

I'll be honest with you, when I came to WP8 I didn't expect the music app to be as bad as it was. There may not actually be a fix to your problem. What I'd want to know is what type of files are you using, and how are you tagging your media?

Also, please contact MS customer support. I think they've become too lax with support for their mobile platform. I expected a lot more updates than we've been getting. Bug-fixes are a totally different thing than OS upgrades, but Microsoft doesn't seem to see it that way. If there is a bug it should be fixed asap. It shouldn't wait until the next OS release, be it GDR2 or Blue.

 

[lukudav]

Since posting yesterday I have spent about 10 hours experimenting. Conclusion: the music subsystem is totally broken and there is no point giving it any more attention. There's also no point people posting "I tried such and such and it worked for me." It might do initially, until you add further music, when all hell breaks lose.

Now the question arises as to Microsoft's competence. It's clear to me that no-one in the team responsible for the music subsystem did any meaningful testing, or that the specification of the testing plan was done by an incompetent. It's very very easy to generate a small, repeatable example that shows the system failing.

In my dark moments I have degenerated into conspiracy theory. Perhaps Microsoft wants WP8 to fail initially so they can buy Nokia for peanuts. That way they get a superb hardware design team and competent developers.

I'm not going to spend any more of my time getting frustrated by the most untested operating system I've encountered. Microsoft should be ashamed of itself. Getting things wrong in software development happens; not acknowledging and fixing bugs in a timely manner is inexcusable.

 

[Nazmi Lao]

Hello everyone.

Right now I have two problems:
1. I recently updated my music by adding some more new tracks. During that time, some music that I already have are in the phone; when the popup box on W7 says "there is already a file named..." I just clicked copy n replace. When I checked my playlist there are TWO of the same songs. This is annoying.
2. When I put in the new songs, it shows up with the wrong album cover! It shows the cover of a Korean pop girl act. I dismissed it as maybe a little problem with that particular song, but after doing (1), some of the songs that don't already have an album cover now has THAT album cover instead!!!

I did a complete deletion of all my songs (included the greyed out copies in my internal storage) and re-inserted my songs. Now the album cover problem is getting worse.

How to remedy this? Gosh this is annoying. I didn't have this problem before. I'm using a Lumia 620 with a 16GB SD Card.

 

[Ayan Choudhury]

I sync using windows media player 11. No duplication or album art problems any more. But music only shows up under the songs list, not albums or artists or genres.

 

[iHusky]

Hi N_LaRUE , yes I have. Even Nokia Music shows the same duplicate entries (Problem 2). For problem 1, I haven't tried, will try replicating it the next time it happens.

It looks like they use the same database. Also, the Windows Phone desktop app shows the multiple entries. However, i can confirm that there's only one file present.

Sorry, but Factory Reset is only one solution for this problem, I have this problems very often, but only if my songs are on SD Card, maybe music + video don`t properly read songs on SD Card?

 

[dainla]

I'm glad I found this forum. I bought a Lumia 520 recently and I had the same duplicated songs issue.

I've tried several possible solutions mentioned here and none of them worked. I was about to give up, but then I did the following steps:

1. Unmounted the SD card on device.
2. Inserted the card on PC and deleted everything.
3. Copied the mp3 files directly to the card.
4. Re-inserted the card on phone.

Now the duplicated entries are gone for my surprise. I guess there isn't a formula to avoid this, the solutions are kinda random. Anyway, I guess I'll stick with these songs until Microsoft fixes this issue, I'm not gonna take the risk trying to sync new songs.

I did the same. Duplicates returned.

 

[Wazzim]

They return no matter what, the best you can do is make playlists.

 

[gautam12]

Same problem....No solution on micrsoft forum , bug not addressed in GDR2 Update: Whew was proud owner of HTC Radar(7.8) but now wp8 disappointed me. Going back to iOS :'(

 

[dainla]

Same problem....No solution on micrsoft forum , bug not addressed in GDR2 Update: Whew was proud owner of HTC Radar(7.8) but now wp8 disappointed me. Going back to iOS :'(

That's really disappointing to hear.

Microsoft have their head's up their asses allowing this problem to continue for so long.

I was going to wait until GDR2 came to the 810, but now that seems pointless.

Off to iOS, which I don't like but at least has the basic functions down.

 

[MKairys]

The issue is with the microsd card

It is not. I have the problem on my 8X which has no SD card.

 

[BlueSkyOfLove]

Dear all
I just posted my solution to microsd card owners. hope it will work for you as well...

 

[OzRob]

Dear all
I just posted my solution to microsd card owners. hope it will work for you as well...

This does not solve the problem permanently or for everyone, and a quick read through the threads on this would tell you that it doesn't. Sure reformatting in the manner in which you suggest gets rid of the problem temporarily, but keep updating your library and eventually duplicates will start appearing again.

 

[SoerenO]

Hi all,
I also have problems with the playlist but on Lumia 820. Every time i restarts the phone then the playlist, artists, album information and more disappears. The music files is also still on the phone. I have tried more than one music player app with same results. I had a Samsung phone before where i did exactly the same - synchronizing music with WMP and everything worked perfectly, so my conclusion is that it has something to do with the Nokia software. I tried with or without ssd Card - same error.

 

[Levent Barlas]

I've contacted the support to make sure they're aware of this issue. They are well aware of it. Duplicate songs are due to a software bug and it's being addressed with Amber.

However, the disappearance of Artists/Albums is not bug related. It is solely due to bad software design. Some artists/albums disappear because the store don't have all artists/albums. WP8 syncs the library automatically and it removes the Artists/Albums it can't match with the store. As the store adds more artists it will improve but it will always be a problem since some artists will never be in the store. This design must be abandoned.

So please click on this link Continue to use Zune for media sync in WP to vote for a return to Zune for syncing media.

Complete Transcript of chat with support: http://sdrv.ms/1dF3Hln

 

[bikkhu]

None of the solutions suggested aply for me, I have Lumia 920, therefore no SD card, no connection to cloud, xbox or any database.

But I might find a solution which is logical unlike the other.

There is apparently error in software which seeks for MP3 tags in files and adds them to database (or database itself).
There are usually 3 types of MP3 tag in every file. Win phone 8 system seems to be rather dumb, so to simplify its task I have deleted all tags except tag v.1 by MP3tag editor.
You can do it at once for all files.

And it seems to work, so far.

Of course you have to do it in PC and copy again. I would say that this is what Zune does with files. Could someone with Zune take a look into his MP3's?

 

[Levent Barlas]

You should read my post which is just above yours and vote

 

[redChilly]

I too have been facing similar problem with Nokia and Xbox music.

I figured a way how this goes- I had 'Repeat' on in my playback and when I selected 'Shuffle all' in nokia music, it created duplicate entries of songs. And xbox player refers to this database!
Now, even if I delete those audio files from physical memory, I see its entry in player's list. And most annoying is when player picks up that song in playback, it's hung up there!

I loved wp8 on my Lumia 820 but this crap for a music lover as me is very disappointing!!!


Yet, a simple workaround for this--

remove memory card from mobile then insert into the card reader and then plz delete wpsystem folder(hidden folder) from memory card and insert into the phone all music and video will be update. Kinda brute force method!