How to get Groove to read 200GB of music from sd card?

[BlueEchoes]

What about album covers a good portion of my artwork isn't shown,yet the same songs on my ipod have all the artwork.

I gave up on ever thinking this will work. All embedded album covers on my MP3 files. Groove must not look at embedded artwork because it has a separate folder for album art that is collects from somewhere. How a music player does not just use the embedded artwork is puzzling.

On the laptop, Groove, Windows Media player, iTunes, WinAmp, and file explorer sees the embedded artwork. On the phone, Groove sees half of them. Just mind numbing why this doesn't work.

 

[BlueEchoes]

I have set my phone plugged in on my desk with the lock screen set for Never and then gone into Groove. This after a fresh hard reset. I have seen Groove get up to about 24,000 in the "Adding songs" toast, but never has it gotten to the 76k I have on the card. It would run for 8-10 hours then the toast would go away. I noticed that a few albums were missing, but most seemed there. Album covers of course were missing on a ton, but I have noticed that while this is "adding songs" it is building image files in the phone's built in memory in the \music\albums folder. They album art files would pop into that folder at about 10-15 a minute. Like I said in previous post, embedded artwork but yet Groove is either searching the web for artwork, or copying it from the file and storing it on the internal memory for some reason? So questionable on why this happens. I have Groove to not "Automatically retrieve update missing album artwork and metadata." I had that set once and it downloaded whacked out artwork for many files (repeating again, even though they all have embedded artwork).

Frustrating none the less.

 

[Lucien Immink]

Could you try "Universal MusicDB" (unable to link yet It's ID: 9nblggh6glxb)
I'm wokring on that app and like to know how it holds up with 45k+ songs
The ETA will give you an indication on how long the scanning process will take; and if on mobile; please keep the screen on while the scan is busy.

 

[Brian Stobbe]

Could you try "Universal MusicDB" (unable to link yet It's ID: 9nblggh6glxb)
I'm wokring on that app and like to know how it holds up with 45k+ songs
The ETA will give you an indication on how long the scanning process will take; and if on mobile; please keep the screen on while the scan is busy.

I certainly will try this app. The screenshots in the store look promising. Won't be until tomorrow though since I'm trying the last suggestion of loading the sd card up while its in the phone and connected to my desktop via usb. Turns out this takes twice as long as my usb micro card adapter. Going to take 16 hours to complete. One interesting thing to note on this method so far is that I got a pop up asking what to do with a track whose file name was too long. I said skip and apply to any other instances. Makes me wonder what was done with these files when I had copied via the card reader since I never got a similar message.

 

[Brian Stobbe]

Still copying to the card with phone connected to the desktop but I have high hopes for this approach. I've gotten a couple other prompts during the copy... one asking about converting m4a files to mp3 and one asking about copying m3u files. There's certainly some additional logic occuring with this "File Explorer copy". An ordinary file explorer copy wouldn't give a crap what I'm copying, let alone ask to convert files. I'm hoping all this extra time to load up the card is going to allow Groove on the phone to build out the library quicker. We shall see...

 

[John Hardy IV]

This issue needs to get more visibility, since there are probably not too many of us with substantial local collections like this; there is no real repro case yet when or how the database gets damaged and no new items are found (or removed via a time based autoplaylist sync for that matter). Use the Windows Feedback tool to report it from your PC or do it from feedback in the settings of Groove Mobile; they've recently added the ability to record or take a system snapshot when something is going wrong (make sure you choose 'problem' for the feedback type and you'll get a 'reproduce' button). Hopefully someone at MSFT is checking the telemetry.

 

[spazinvader]

Groove defaults to being allowed to run in the background. I have not changed that setting. I don't have "Film & Tv" in my list of apps under battery usage settings... doesn't sound like that's needed but even if it was I'm betting its default is to allow in background as well.

Not sure I follow your suggestion on syncing from my Desktop. Can you explain further or post a link to somewhere that details how to do that?

My suggestion is to turn it on in the battery saver as well and not just on the "background apps". In settings, search for battery saver and add Groove to the list of apps that run on battery saver. This seems to be a funny solution, but my Groove music is playing a little better in the background with this setting on.

Syncing from the desktop is by two ways. And both are kind of buggy even now.

1. create playlists in Windows media player in Windows 10 and sync it to your phone. To do this, connect your phone to the Windows 10 laptop, open Windows Media Player(Not Groove) and in the libraries, you can sync with the phone you connected. I use this only to sync (kind of)short term playlists that will have like 10 or 15 songs only. I use this to listen to new albums that are coming in, listen to them for a few days and if I do not like the album, I simply remove them in phone as well as desktop.
2. Kind of more buggy way is to use Groove Music Desktop app to Create a Playlist, add songs to it. And when your phone is connected to the system, it will sync automatically. This is very reliable if you add a few hundreds of songs at a time and let them sync with each other. Not recommended for thousands of songs at a time. If you are happy to do the exercise again and again, like 1000 songs per connection, this is more reliable(in terms of correct album art and other media properties). I used this at the beginning of syncing songs to my mobile. Never had to use this again. With all the improvements happened, I think it will be safe for you to try 5k songs at a time.

I know these are not wonderful solutions for a huge number of songs. But if you have patience and are willing to split the job and do it over and over again, these two are more reliable than Groove Music(mobile) automatically syncing things up for you. If we have the wireless sync(Zune and my old lovely Lumia 900!!), the above steps will be better. But this feature might only make a come back by this year(??!!). So until then, USB FTW!!!

 

[Brian Stobbe]

http://forums.windowscentral.com/mi...ts-albums-ui-when-theyre-deleted-file-sy.html

In this other thread someone pointed out where to kick off sync in the Groove phone app. I'm trying that now since my library is still incomplete even after trying to load the card via phone connected to the desktop with usb. I haven't seen the adding songs message yet since disconnecting my phone from the pc or initializing the sync but I'll let it sit for awhile and see if it does anything. I already have Groove allowed to run during battery saver.

 

[Brian Stobbe]

My suggestion is to turn it on in the battery saver as well and not just on the "background apps". In settings, search for battery saver and add Groove to the list of apps that run on battery saver. This seems to be a funny solution, but my Groove music is playing a little better in the background with this setting on.

Syncing from the desktop is by two ways. And both are kind of buggy even now.

1. create playlists in Windows media player in Windows 10 and sync it to your phone. To do this, connect your phone to the Windows 10 laptop, open Windows Media Player(Not Groove) and in the libraries, you can sync with the phone you connected. I use this only to sync (kind of)short term playlists that will have like 10 or 15 songs only. I use this to listen to new albums that are coming in, listen to them for a few days and if I do not like the album, I simply remove them in phone as well as desktop.
2. Kind of more buggy way is to use Groove Music Desktop app to Create a Playlist, add songs to it. And when your phone is connected to the system, it will sync automatically. This is very reliable if you add a few hundreds of songs at a time and let them sync with each other. Not recommended for thousands of songs at a time. If you are happy to do the exercise again and again, like 1000 songs per connection, this is more reliable(in terms of correct album art and other media properties). I used this at the beginning of syncing songs to my mobile. Never had to use this again. With all the improvements happened, I think it will be safe for you to try 5k songs at a time.

I know these are not wonderful solutions for a huge number of songs. But if you have patience and are willing to split the job and do it over and over again, these two are more reliable than Groove Music(mobile) automatically syncing things up for you. If we have the wireless sync(Zune and my old lovely Lumia 900!!), the above steps will be better. But this feature might only make a come back by this year(??!!). So until then, USB FTW!!!

Thank you for the suggestion but I'm not making playlists for my entire music collection. That doesn't make sense. I want a library of music organized by artist and album, not just a giant playlist of thousands of songs. I would like to reserve playlists for, you know, playlists. Like all the best songs of a band.

 

[Brian Stobbe]

This issue needs to get more visibility, since there are probably not too many of us with substantial local collections like this; there is no real repro case yet when or how the database gets damaged and no new items are found (or removed via a time based autoplaylist sync for that matter). Use the Windows Feedback tool to report it from your PC or do it from feedback in the settings of Groove Mobile; they've recently added the ability to record or take a system snapshot when something is going wrong (make sure you choose 'problem' for the feedback type and you'll get a 'reproduce' button). Hopefully someone at MSFT is checking the telemetry.

Submitted via Groove Feedback. Please find below and up vote.

Windows-Feedback:?contextid=293&feedbackid=a25dace9-5d14-4d15-a0e2-7c4a8cd4116e&form=2&src=2

 

[John Hardy IV]

http://forums.windowscentral.com/mi...ts-albums-ui-when-theyre-deleted-file-sy.html

In this other thread someone pointed out where to kick off sync in the Groove phone app. I'm trying that now since my library is still incomplete even after trying to load the card via phone connected to the desktop with usb. I haven't seen the adding songs message yet since disconnecting my phone from the pc or initializing the sync but I'll let it sit for awhile and see if it does anything. I already have Groove allowed to run during battery saver.

Yeah, the 'Sync my music' button in Groove Settings never does anything for my local collection, I think since it's grouped next to the Groove Music Pass header it's for that feature and is trying to sync against OneDrive or anything you have on music.microsoft.com. I just get a 'Syncing...' message in grey when I hit it and let it sit for extended periods of time. That responder may not have the volume of music we do.

I should note that it took about 6 hours to work through 33K songs when the last build of Groove came out and on first launch it had to update the database. Frustrating to not have new music show up.

 

[Brian Stobbe]

Yeah, the 'Sync my music' button in Groove Settings never does anything for my local collection, I think since it's grouped next to the Groove Music Pass header it's for that feature and is trying to sync against OneDrive or anything you have on music.microsoft.com. I just get a 'Syncing...' message in grey when I hit it and let it sit for extended periods of time. That responder may not have the volume of music we do.

I should note that it took about 6 hours to work through 33K songs when the last build of Groove came out and on first launch it had to update the database. Frustrating to not have new music show up.

Agreed...sync button does not kick off the adding music process for me either.

 

[BlueEchoes]

Just installed. I am liking the ETA page. I am adding 76k songs. Lets see how it goes.

 

[BlueEchoes]

Unfortunately, the Universal MusicDB app gets to about 5100 songs and then gets booted out on my Lumia 640. I rebooted it and started again and it got to about the same.

 

[BlueEchoes]

So, I have tried pretty much every possible music player app and they all bomb out trying to add all that music. I have probably rebooted my phone 50 times the last 3 days. I may have one that looks promising: Loco. So far, it looks like it is able to add all the songs. artwork is not there, but it is adding them. It sees all of the songs (folder view) and it is slowly populating. Knock on wood but if this keeps going, we may have a substitute for Groove.

 

[John Hardy IV]

Some potentially Groove related fixes and SD stuff on the new build 10586.71 heading out to fast ring-ers. Who knows, may impact us, particularly the second part of this bullet point:

Reinstalling Groove Music from the Windows Store no longer causes DRM music playback issues. Groove Music local song collections are now more quickly imported within the application
SD card detection has been improved on boot and after insertion; File Explorer now handles the removal of an SD card when the default for apps or photos are set to SD.

That said, I did a hard reset and pruned my song number on the SD card from 33K to 24K and it processed it and seems to be updating/adding music when I do an autoplaylist by date sync from WMP. We'll see how long that lasts before the database gets corrupt.

 

[BlueEchoes]

I installed .71 and then did a hard reset and did not restore a backup. I went right to a new phone setup. Groove found about 60% of the music on the SD card. Of that 60% (all with embedded album art), about 50% of it has album art. It has been about 30 hours since I did the hard reset and all of a sudden, out of the blue, it started adding more music. It has been stuck at 130 songs for about 2 hours. The results I am getting with this update are worse than what I was getting before. Bummer. I so want to be able to carry my entire music collection on this phone, and I so want this phone and this OS to succeed, but it just ain't happening.

 

[BlueEchoes]

So, Groove is finding new music when it is copied to the card much faster. But it is struggling with files that were on the card originally when I did the hard reset. I have it plugged in with no screen timeout and sitting in the Groove app for the last 30 hours or so. The phone is not a phone anymore, it is just a music player with no additional software added to it, so all memory usage should be going into Groove. It will add 10 songs here and there, so it is trying. I keep hitting the Sync option (I think that is just with the store though which I do not use) as well to poke it into doing something.

 

[BlueEchoes]

And yes, I was the one on the block that purchased a Zune when it came out. I now carry a Lumia 640 Zune! HAH!

 

[EricJennings]

Thank you for the suggestion but I'm not making playlists for my entire music collection. That doesn't make sense. I want a library of music organized by artist and album, not just a giant playlist of thousands of songs. I would like to reserve playlists for, you know, playlists. Like all the best songs of a band.

To sync via Windows Media Player you don't need to make giant playlists. You just drag and drop an album (or more than one..... There might be a maximum but I don't know what it is) into the sync list at the rhs and then start the sync. However I've found that it doesn't always sync all of the tracks... And for some reason if you sync say 6 albums at a time most will be ok but one or two will have (usually) tracks 2 and 3 missing. Clear the sync list and just pull over the missing tracks and try again, always works for me.
My music is all on NAS so usually I just copy it to my SD card over wifi using Sharefolder Explorer.
I'm doing it in bits and bobs, at the moment I've copied over 90gb, still got a way to go to fill up my 200 card.
I can say definitely (in my experience) that it takes artwork from the mp3 as some of my artwork in iTunes is no more than a photo of the artist when I am unable to track down the real artwork. But sometimes it takes 4 or 5 days from Groove finding the album for the artwork to appear