Trouble with Itunes Import to Lumia 920

[BRISTOL86]

Hi All

I'm a brand new Nokia Lumia 920 user, having spent the last few years on an iPhone, and I love it so far, but I'm having a bit of trouble with my music library.

Perhaps I've been spoiled by the ease of use on the iPhone, but I've used the Windows Phone app for Windows 7 on my PC, which seems to detect all the music from my iTunes. I've then chosen which artists I want to sync to my Lumia, but now that it's done, there are problems all through the library on my phone.

Lots of my music has no artwork, even though it's there in iTunes, and a lot of things seem strange, for example, I have the album "Every Kingdom" by Ben Howard. This shows all as one album in iTunes but on the Lumia, it's split into "Every Kingdom" which has the artwork, and all but one track, and "Every Kingdom Disc 1" which has just one track, and no artwork. This is not how it shows in iTunes.

This is just one of several similar examples.

Could anyone please point me in the right direction as to how I can clear this up?

Thanks

 

[BT_man]

I'm in the same situation as you are, coming from iPhone as well. From what I gather so far, it has something to do with id3 tags and how wp8 does not read the latest version of the id3 tags. Check the sorting tab in the info window of the "Every Kingdon" album. I bet that one track as a different album name in the sort options. I have been going through my iTunes library and making sure that my music has the correct id3 tags(big undertaking). Does anyone know of a better way to do this?

My issues also goes as far as the entire artist not showing up on my phone in the "music+videos" player. But somehow, the albums show up and the song is plays, it just that the native player does not read the artist name or something. Funny thing is that the Nokia Music app reads the artist name, but when I swipe over to albums in Nokia Music, it says that there is no albums associated with this artist. BUT, looking at the phone when it is connected to the sync app, it says that all files synced properly and exist on my phone. Do you experience anything like this? Anyone have any ideas how to fix it?

It is a software issue? (maybe even human error in how I add music files?) I am approaching the end of my return limit for the phone and would exchange it for another one if it proves to be a hardware issue.

 

[JGtz]

I personally use Mediamonkey to manage my music since the WP app on Win 8 blows in terms of syncing. With mediamonkey you get to pick what version of id3 tags to use, embed album art to music file, and every other thing you can think of. However, not all my embedded album art gets transferred for some reason so I use:

Using your WP8 phone look for the app called "MPAtool" by hppDev in the Windows Phone app store, using it is pretty straightforward. Results are mixed but it's enough until MS fixes these syncing shenanigans.

If you prefer more control over what Album art is embedded to your music files I recommend using Album Art Downloader (SourceForge.net: album-art) to find HI res pictures and then use Mediamonkey or MP3Tag (there's a tutorial on the Album art downloader webpage) to tag the files with your pictures... It's tedious work.

 

[AZBrowncoat]

I don't have time to get into the issue extensively as I should have been in bed an hour ago - however there has been extensive coverage on the forums about issues with iTunes + WP8 in various threads that you might want to peruse.

http://forums.windowscentral.com/windows-phone-8/209502-aac-format-not-supported-windows-phone-8-per-microsoft-support.html

http://forums.windowscentral.com/nokia-lumia-920/207742-media-monkey-sync-not-showing-up-phone.html

http://forums.windowscentral.com/windows-phone-8/202388-8.htm

Try the different things mentioned in those threads - like turning off Xbox music, drag-n-drop files instead of syncing etc and see if that helps?

 

[BRISTOL86]

Thanks all. I might give MediaMonkey a try.

 

[BRISTOL86]

I've just imported all of my iTunes music into MediaMonkey and the Ben Howard example I mentioned in my first post all shows as I expect in MediaMonkey, as it does in iTunes. The only album is "Every Kingdom", there is no "Every Kingdom Disc 1" that shows up on my Lumia.

If I sync through MediaMonkey am I going to get the same result when it's on the phone?

 

[BRISTOL86]

I believe I've now answered my own question.

The issue I was having in my first post regarding disc numbers, was due to "deluxe" versions of albums, which have a second disc with bonus tracks. These were numbered as disc 2 in iTunes, and then when synced onto WP8 this was causing an "Album Name" and "Album Name Disc 1" to show, one of them without artwork.

I have edited the info in iTunes of the album and changed it all to Disc 1, with sequential track numbering and this seems to have solved it.

Not an ideal way around it but seems as good as any quick fix for now. Hopefully at some point there will be a better solution for syncing for those with extensive libraries in iTunes. You'd think this would be a priority given the target market of iPhone converts.

 

[BRISTOL86]

Scratch that, appears to be a premature victory.

It's now gone straight back to how it was on the phone. Argh.

God, you know things are bad when you're actually LONGING for something that works as well as iTunes!!

 

[BT_man]

God, you know things are bad when you're actually LONGING for something that works as well as iTunes!!

Yeah, I know what you mean. But iTunes is a pretty good ID3 tag editor.

 

[gladesmellzgood]

Scratch that, appears to be a premature victory.

It's now gone straight back to how it was on the phone. Argh.

God, you know things are bad when you're actually LONGING for something that works as well as iTunes!!

I was having major issues with iTunes as well. What I did was change my entire library's id3 tag from 2.4 to 2.3. Then I turned off all the Xbox music features on the windows phone connector settings. Also I've turned it off in the phone music settings. Once I did all that, my music showed up exactly the way it is on iTunes with proper album art as well. I'm really OCD with my music, so it was worth all this extra trouble. Good luck with fixing it.

 

[BT_man]

I was having major issues with iTunes as well. What I did was change my entire library's id3 tag from 2.4 to 2.3. Then I turned off all the Xbox music features on the windows phone connector settings. Also I've turned it off in the phone music settings. Once I did all that, my music showed up exactly the way it is on iTunes with proper album art as well. I'm really OCD with my music, so it was worth all this extra trouble. Good luck with fixing it.

I just figured that out too! I kinda want to turn on Xbox music again after I sync everything to see if it would screw up the ID3 info.

 

[gladesmellzgood]

I just figured that out too! I kinda want to turn on Xbox music again after I sync everything to see if it would screw up the ID3 info.

I'm happy it finally works now, don't want to mess with a good thing.

 

[gladesmellzgood]

It's funny I fixed my Windows Phone 8 album art issue but now my Zune HD which had no problems before is no longer syncing with all the album art! In fact even the metadata on a few songs are incorrect.

 

[Apand21]

I have been exp. the same thing. Except with my Lumia 928, I have a laptop running Vista's operating system. When I plug in my phone, it syncs fine, most audio files transfer.

Anything from itunes must be converted to mp3, I guess? Not sure. I'm not able to see any of the converted files on y phone, but I can see them easily when I plug in the phone, back to the host device, (my laptop) it shows I have two tracks, which, don't show up on the phone under " music + videos"

 

[bozza72]

I just drag n drop all my music straight to my 920 & only had to edit a couple of albums in mp3 tag