ULTIMATE album art fix for Xbox Music app (FINALLY!)

[Mamoru-san]

Hey, everybody!

Yesterday I finally came across an ultimate way to get rid of the annoying issue where your phone won't show correct album cover arts in your collection. I know Microsoft pushed an update that is said to correct this problem IF the album art is embedded into the mp3 file, but most of us didn't get that fix RIGHT AWAY, because Xbox Music app cache can't be cleared through uninstalling the app or something like that.

Here are the steps you need to follow -- as far as I know, it will work to people signed up to Xbox Music Pass.

STEP 1. Go to your Xbox Music app on your PC running Windows 8.1. Go to Settings and UNCHECK all of the options shown. You may leave the last one checked. It means you won't allow the app to sync your collection to the cloud or update metadata tags within the songs. CALM DOWN: you can still stream songs through the apps on Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1. That's the whole point of paying for the service. Even if you don't have a collection ON THE CLOUD, you get to listen to everything you want or download any song the service provides access to.
PAUSE FOR AN IMPORTANT INFORMATION: If you want your collection tags to be untouched on your Windows PC, uninstall Xbox Music app from the PC, install it again, follow STEP 1 and then reinsert your library. All tag information will be reset and the app will use the ones you provided in the mp3 files.
STEP 2. Go to http://music.xbox.com and COMPLETELY ERASE your entire collection from the cloud. As I said before, you will still be able to download or stream songs.
STEP 3. Now the painfull part -- HARD RESET YOUR DEVICE. Even though Microsoft updated the app, its cache is still a mess.
PAUSE FOR ANOTHER IMPORTANT INFORMATION: If you own a device that supports SD cards, my theory is that you don't have to hard reset your phone. Format your SD card and you are good to go. If formating the card does not work, hard reset the handset.
STEP 4. After restoring your phone, update the Xbox Music app, open it and uncheck the option to show streaming media.
STEP 5. Reinsert your music collection through the Modern app or through the desktop version.

Voil?! Now your collection will be untouched, leaving all the metadata YOU provided. No song will be messed up because of the horrendous Xbox Music database. I know it is far from a perfect solution, but for those who really love the music library the way WE SET, it is a very handful fix.

Hope you guys liked it!
Keep up the support for Xbox Music App -- I know they'll eventually make it right.

 

[KingyOwl]

It's good to have a definitive solution but I refuse to hard reset my phone to get some album covers to display.
I'll wait for either a proper fix through an app update or switch to another music library player.
Thanks though, I'm sure some will find this useful.

 

[Mamoru-san]

It's good to have a definitive solution but I refuse to hard reset my phone to get some album covers to display.
I'll wait for either a proper fix through an app update or switch to another music library player.
Thanks though, I'm sure some will find this useful.

It looks like there's an update coming tomorrow. Let's hope it fixes everything up!
MixRadio still shows your entire collection flawlessly and it's not laggy. If you don't wanna go Xbox Music, it sure is a helpful replacement.

 

[David P2]

They should work on a fix for people experiencing this bug who don't use Xbox Music for its download/streaming service. It refuses to display album artwork regardless of how it ends up on the phone. I sync to my phone with WMP. Artwork is there, artwork shows in MixRadio, but not Xbox Music on the phone. All cloud/streaming services are turned off because I have no need for them.

 

[anon5997296]

Btw, how to uninstall Xbox Music app??



Sent by Cortana on my request from awesome red Lumia 920!

 

[Mamoru-san]

They should work on a fix for people experiencing this bug who don't use Xbox Music for its download/streaming service. It refuses to display album artwork regardless of how it ends up on the phone. I sync to my phone with WMP. Artwork is there, artwork shows in MixRadio, but not Xbox Music on the phone. All cloud/streaming services are turned off because I have no need for them.

Your cache must be a mess now. I used to delete songs, change their tags and reinsert on the phone. It caused the app to display erroneous album covers or not to display them at all. That's why there is the need to hard reset or to wipe the SD card.

I have a Lumia 925 set up to an account that is not linked to Music Pass and it shows the information perfectly. Maybe you should try hard resetting your device, specially if you upgraded from 8.0 and didn't perform a hard reset. Your device must be getting conflicting tags through the cache.

 

[Mamoru-san]

Btw, how to uninstall Xbox Music app??!

You just can't on Windows Phone 8.1. To uninstall it on a Windows PC, just select the app from the apps list, right-click it (or tap and hold if you're using a tablet) and choose UNINSTALL.

 

[David P2]

Your cache must be a mess now. I used to delete songs, change their tags and reinsert on the phone. It caused the app to display erroneous album covers or not to display them at all. That's why there is the need to hard reset or to wipe the SD card.

I have a Lumia 925 set up to an account that is not linked to Music Pass and it shows the information perfectly. Maybe you should try hard resetting your device, specially if you upgraded from 8.0. Your device must be getting conflicting tags though the cache.

All of the above has been done, and the issue persists. It's actually the first thing I look for when I put the music back.

 

[Mamoru-san]

All of the above has been done, and the issue persists. It's actually the first thing I look for when I put the music back.

You tried my steps and didn't get anything?
Have you tried using an app to edit your tags? Maybe WMP is like Xbox Musix -- it changes the tags INSIDE THE APP, but leaves the ones inside the file untouched. I don't know, I don't use WMP for ages.

I use MP3Tag to edit my songs. Sometimes, there are tags that aren't even displayed on players, but they are there. Songs bought through iTunes retain even your Apple ID in a tag. They could also conflict with the way other apps read tags.

But if you're OK with MixRadio, there's no need to use Xbox Music. I kept trying to get a fix because I'm a huge fan of the platform!

 

[asharma13]

Tired of re-syncing albums and deleting them again and again? :unhappysweat: MP3Tagging software, switching off streaming, hard-soft resetting, changing region solutions are not helpful anymore? :eck:

Checkout here is what I have find out to fix album art:
limitless • Fixing XBOX Music Album Art Problem