Groove Music Windows Phone 10 - how to force update media content?

[Windows Central Question]

I noticed a few days ago that music I have been adding to the phone has not been picked up by the Groove music app. I know I had problems with this before, but it eventually sorted itself out, however nothing I do now can trigger an update of the music database.

Yesterday, I completely deleted and re-added all music on my SD card (a lengthy process) and whilst when there was no SD card in it showed no music, when I put the SD card back in it still only showed the historic music (as in it didn't even detect a change, just showed what was on the SD card before I deleted and re-added music).

There must be a way (as there is for the PC build) to delete the database to force a refresh? I see that even VNC player uses the same database so cannot refresh it from there either.

Any help would be much appreciated (I'm on fast ring at the moment - Lumia 1520).

 

[T Moore]

Stop taking the SD card out of the phone. Put it in and leave it in.
Use the desktop sync program or file explorer to add files to the card when it is connected to the PC

YOu can try to fix this by power cycling the phone on and off or soft reset. It takes a while to catalogue music.

 

[marky9074]

I don't 'keep' taking the SD card out - I only did it once (to delete and re-add) to provoke some sort of response i.e. to kick the phone into looking at the media. All new music has been added when the phone has been connected to the PC, but it never gets detected. I haven't done a soft reset for a while, so will try that now.... normal power cycling doesn't do anything.

I cant sync all my music using the sync program as it locks up half way through (over 40 GB of music)...

 

[marky9074]

Actually I see there is no sync program now... its just windows companion that opens up a normal windows explorer session to copy files across (which is the same way I was doing it).

 

[marky9074]

OK, I just deleted all the music again, locally using an app, and am now waiting for something to happen in Groove.... so far nothing......

However, in VLC player I clicked on reset database and it removed everything. Then I added just one folder, and this was more or less picked up straight away (by VLC player). Groove Music was still sitting there showing ALL music, but after a while kicked into life.

Now just patiently adding one folder at a time to see what happens......

 

[marky9074]

OK, after a step backwards with a factory reset (and losing 5Ghz wireless in the process), I decided that I had nothing to lose by using the Windows Phone Recovery Tool. However, I soon found that it would not put the phone into recovery/flash mode, so spent too much time working on that (do a soft reset then hold the - volume until the ! appears).

Eventually I got the phone up again, though on 8.1 unfortunately. I set it to preview builds instead of fast ring this time and updated, and then spent a good four hours getting everything working again (my backup was semi-corrupt having done an auto back up following the fresh factory reset....)

Anyway, once back to square one I opened up the Groove Music app, and it started to add music. Then when I come back a while later the app was closed and when opened only a token gesture was imported. So, is the issue that Groove is force closed by power management? I opened up Groove again and it started importing again. Great! I left all the music on shuffle with it playing hoping that would keep the app open, but alas when I next looked Groove was open, but the import had stopped....

So I then connected the phone to the computer and was simultaneously viewing different directories on the SD card whilst playing music in Groove (I actually did a search for *.mp3 to keep the card/connection active). This seemed to work as I could see it adding music..... and disabling the lock screen helped too. I believe it is now all imported, though it has yet to pull all the artists info, which is odd...

 

[maly1995]

It' s just enough to delete all of the songs from Groove Music library (songs-tap and hold on one, then select all and delete), close app and open it again, in this way You won't have to remove music from phone or sd card to solve the problem, because after deleting all of the music only from library it's reset by itself and adding them again like on first run.

 

[ZeitholZ]

Interesting, I did not know you can delete content from Groove in this way. But, my problem (I guess it's the same as decribed in this thread) is still unsolved. After removing all songs from Groove they show up again after some time, but obviously using the same old database content. Files that could not be played from the SD card because the folder, filename or metadata was changed later on, still cannot be played. So Groove still does not completely refresh the database. What we need is a way to completely delete and rebuild the database.

 

[marky9074]

I guess nobody has found a way to delete the database? I just got a 950 and the lockscreen trick does not work, so I have half imported music now. On a positive note VLC player seemed to pick it all up this time.

 

[steeler4life]

I guess nobody has found a way to delete the database? I just got a 950 and the lockscreen trick does not work, so I have half imported music now. On a positive note VLC player seemed to pick it all up this time.

I was having a similar issue. What I did was save all my music to one drive then had groove music app retrieve/ download it from one drive. The music ends up being saved in your SD card under-music- music cache- OneDrive cache for offline use. I can update the list in one drive app without issues and they are automatically retrieved or deleted from the groove app and vice verse.

 

[marky9074]

That's not a bad idea (and I was just literally wondering the same). I have a Synology NAS and could sync all my music up, then I guess back down again. Will look at that, thanks

 

[marky9074]

I was having a similar issue. What I did was save all my music to one drive then had groove music app retrieve/ download it from one drive. The music ends up being saved in your SD card under-music- music cache- OneDrive cache for offline use. I can update the list in one drive app without issues and they are automatically retrieved or deleted from the groove app and vice verse.

Stupid question, but how exactly do you tell it to make all music available offline? I can only see the option to download individual albums?

 

[steeler4life]

Stupid question, but how exactly do you tell it to make all music available offline? I can only see the option to download individual albums?

Not stupid at all that is why we come here to get help... Pick the option to download and it will automatically save them into the SD card ( or wherever you have set your device to save music in storage settings). Since the file is already saved on OneDrive it will download it to your phone via the groove music app as a cache in the OneDrive folder. On the groove app you can see the progress of songs being download (I have 5,000 songs so it took awhile) there is an option when you use the hamburger menu to pick your groove, albums, artist, etc... Pick songs or albums. There is a REFINE option at the top of the list, click on it, then click on FILTER and you'll get options on all songs, available offline, streaming, etc.. That will sort them to how you want your songs to show/ play on groove app.

 

[marky9074]

So there is an option to download all? At the moment I have the filter on for OneDrive only. Groove kicks into life every now and again, and shows more music (that on occasion has the bio info as well). So far only A to E has uploaded to OneDrive from my Synology NAS. At the moment I have the storage for music set to SD card, but where does the OneDrive cache go to. It sounds like you are saying that you can manually download an album (and it goes to the default music location) AND there is a OneDrive cache, so potential for the same music to be downloaded twice? Sorry for all the questions.

 

[steeler4life]

So there is an option to download all? At the moment I have the filter on for OneDrive only. Groove kicks into life every now and again, and shows more music (that on occasion has the bio info as well). So far only A to E has uploaded to OneDrive from my Synology NAS. At the moment I have the storage for music set to SD card, but where does the OneDrive cache go to. It sounds like you are saying that you can manually download an album (and it goes to the default music location) AND there is a OneDrive cache, so potential for the same music to be downloaded twice? Sorry for all the questions.

The steps you took should work fine. Groove app does that and it will take awhile for download. I had songs still downloading for a couple days not sure why, but eventually all my songs were downloaded. On the filter instead of OneDrive check the filter with 1)available offline to see the total songs on your device which have downloaded, 2)streaming to see the total needed to download, and 3) All to see the full total of songs streaming/ and offline match the songs you have saved in OneDrive. There won't be a duplicate because OneDrive and groove music go hand in hand with each other with streaming(the only way you'll get duplicates is if you have saved the music to the SD card with other apps or download songs directly to the SD card). If you do the download all like you said you did from the groove app it takes the song from OneDrive and puts them in the OneDrive cache folder automatically ( the only issue is you wont know the name of the songs you downloaded because the files show up in this format "1197_5E2D3982F6336B6D!20000") ***take note the numbers change for each song***

 

[steeler4life]

If you go to the file explorer app click on SD card and do a search of a artist name or title of a song the results will show you the file the song is in.

***once you have downloaded all your songs*** I also use a app created by Denita Global called Duplicates to remove any song files duplicated if your worried of having duplicate songs taking up space

 

[marky9074]

At the moment when I select available offline it doesn't show anything..... and selecting streaming shows the same as on OneDrive (makes sense). I'm afraid I'm still missing the obvious - how to make all tracks download and be available offline...

 

[steeler4life]

At the moment when I select available offline it doesn't show anything..... and selecting streaming shows the same as on OneDrive (makes sense). I'm afraid I'm still missing the obvious - how to make all tracks download and be available offline...

So is it still not showing anything downloaded in the groove app? When songs are stream only they have a little sign next to them and when they are downloaded to the device it goes away showing its available offline. Try download one song at a time and see if that changes.

 

[marky9074]

As a test I manually selected one album and toggled it to download, which it did, and I see the folders you say for the OneDrive cache and the files in them. But the only way I can see of downloading everything it to create a playlist or similar and then download all. I find this bizarre give I just downloaded the Groove app on iOS and can see a 'sync all music' option under settings.... meh!

 

[marky9074]

On a separate note. I see that when you play a file it goes to a different site:

https://music.microsoft.com/collection/artists?target=web

I was not aware of this before. It seems that OneDrive is scraping the files (which is great) but I see no way of forcing it to find an artist when it has not scraped it properly. I have issues with quite a few artists that should be found (Green Day, Lionel Richie and the Commodores, the list goes on...). Any idea what scraping service they use?