Windows Phone and Music: Tips & Tricks

[Sofaah Dalgarno]

Can someone please help me, I'm not sure if I'm just being thick, but i'm desperate to put music on my htc 8s and when i go to use the windows app to transfer music across it keeps saying my phone is locked when it's not!!

 

[Muessig]

Can someone please help me, I'm not sure if I'm just being thick, but i'm desperate to put music on my htc 8s and when i go to use the windows app to transfer music across it keeps saying my phone is locked when it's not!!

That's a bit of a weird one. Any chance you can post a screenshot or detail if there are any error codes? Does this still occur if you perform a soft-reset on the device?

 

[Muessig]

I might add a section about specific music apps. If you want to make any suggestions what to add to the thread now's the time as I'll be rewriting the original post soon.

 

[arywicaksana]

Hi there. So I just bought my lumia 920 less than a month ago (I'm in Indonesia, by the way). After about three days, I sync it with my laptop (windows 7) using "Windows Phone app for desktop", and put some musics and other stuff in it. I tried to play some songs after the sync, and everything was fine. Until today I realized, when I tried to play a song, the phone gave an error message: :Sorry, we're not able to play this file in your phone. Error Code: 80040154". This happens to all of the songs. How does this happen? I also remember when I did the sync, some files just couldn't be copied and the phone restarted by itself. I thought it was not a big deal, besides I was able to play some musics aftermath (although there was 1-2 albums were failed to be copied), so I thought there was no problem. What can I do to fix this problem? I tried google and found nothing helpful. Thanks.

Ary

 

[Muessig]

I've had a quick search around for that error code and it seems to be something to do with having a breach in connection while connected to a device or service from what I can make out. If I were you I'd wipe your music, try to transfer it again and see if you get the same error.

 

[arywicaksana]

Thanks, I'll try it. Should I use the "Windows Phone app for desktop" again or should I just copy them using file explorer?

 

[Muessig]

I'm not sure it makes a difference. Some people say they've had better results using the app others swear by the explorer. Maybe try one and if it doesn't work try the other.

 

[arywicaksana]

Hi Muessig, after I did some more googling today, and finally ended up on microsoft web, it turns out that Nokia Music app is the one that causes the 80040154 error. So I immediately uninstalled it, restart the phone, and it works. I have no idea how that happen, I might not want to install the Nokia Music app again because I'm afraid the error message will show up again.

I'm not sure it makes a difference. Some people say they've had better results using the app others swear by the explorer. Maybe try one and if it doesn't work try the other.

 

[fiveaces01]

I have been a loyal wphone user for several years now. I first had the HTC Surround and was very efficient with the Zune software. Probably would have helped if I had found this forum for some of WP8 music problems I encountered after getting my Nokia 920. I got a new Lenovo Windows 8 stand alone pc at the same time. I had my music stored on a flash drive and didn't have much problem transferring it to my phone thru first the Windows Explorer option and later thru the improved WP app. But what a learning experience trying to get all the album art and meta data to transfer correctly. You described all the methods I discovered thru trial and mostly error, but it is very clean now. Any thoughts about what the coming upgrade might add to the music experience?

 

[Muessig]

I have been a loyal wphone user for several years now. I first had the HTC Surround and was very efficient with the Zune software. Probably would have helped if I had found this forum for some of WP8 music problems I encountered after getting my Nokia 920. I got a new Lenovo Windows 8 stand alone pc at the same time. I had my music stored on a flash drive and didn't have much problem transferring it to my phone thru first the Windows Explorer option and later thru the improved WP app. But what a learning experience trying to get all the album art and meta data to transfer correctly. You described all the methods I discovered thru trial and mostly error, but it is very clean now. Any thoughts about what the coming upgrade might add to the music experience?

If the Windows 8.1 preview is anything to go by it'll streamline navigation and improve some minor features, but we're hoping Microsoft will completely rethink the way they're currently handling syncing on the WP8 platform. At the moment it's less than ideal. Definitely a step back from what we've seen in the past with Zune and WP7!

 

[Asrialys]

So anyone still having trouble getting Album Art to stick without using some app? You'll need Windows Media Player and the artwork. Just open the library on Windows Media Player and drag and drop the appropriate art on the appropriate song or album. Done.

Note: If there are any songs that don't have a set artwork, then the last artwork you used will appear for that song when played on Windows Media Player. However, that's just a weird quirk. That song doesn't actually have that artwork attached to it.

Geez. Don't abandon something useful like Zune until you can replace it with something just as useful, if not better, Microsoft. It's not like everyone has songs that are in your store. None of mine are

 

[Daves6]

Hey guys, posted a thread few days back and got a reply to here but didn't find the solution here. Any help?
this is the problem: http://forums.windowscentral.com/wi...ts-albums-arent-visible-wp8-music-player.html

 

[Whachusay]

One of the moderators led me to this thread because I'm having a weird but annoying issue on my Lumia 920. All of my music appears correctly in Windows Media Player but for some reason, weird text shows up on my phone when it comes to music I have in other languages. I read your post, downloaded Media Monkey to make sure my tags were correct, everything appears fine in Media Monkey, but it still is coming out weird on my phone. Any idea what the issue is and how to fix it?

Here is my post with screenshots of my problem.

I really like my phone but I am very particular about organization... Hehe. rly:

 

[Asrialys]

One of the moderators led me to this thread because I'm having a weird but annoying issue on my Lumia 920. All of my music appears correctly in Windows Media Player but for some reason, weird text shows up on my phone when it comes to music I have in other languages. I read your post, downloaded Media Monkey to make sure my tags were correct, everything appears fine in Media Monkey, but it still is coming out weird on my phone. Any idea what the issue is and how to fix it?

Here is my post with screenshots of my problem.

I really like my phone but I am very particular about organization... Hehe. rly:

I can get Japanese characters (haven't tried anything else) to appear on my Lumia 925 just fine. However, I edited my tags using the Zune software. Apparently, editing the "TItle" on Windows Media Player doesn't actually change the file's Title tag. Trying to edit the tag from File Explorer doesn't seem to work either. What the heck Microsoft?

Anyway, I would thing Media Monkey would work. Haven't tried it myself, but I would think any tag editor that does its job properly would work...

How are you modifying the tags, if at all? Are you retyping the characters? Copying and pasting?

 

[Muessig]

I think the MusicBrainz Picard tool I mention in the OP will let you edit your actual file data, but I'd have thought Media Monkey would let you do it too. Try MusicBrainz Picard and see if that does the trick for you.

 

[Whachusay]

I can get Japanese characters (haven't tried anything else) to appear on my Lumia 925 just fine. However, I edited my tags using the Zune software. Apparently, editing the "TItle" on Windows Media Player doesn't actually change the file's Title tag. Trying to edit the tag from File Explorer doesn't seem to work either. What the heck Microsoft?

Anyway, I would thing Media Monkey would work. Haven't tried it myself, but I would think any tag editor that does its job properly would work...

How are you modifying the tags, if at all? Are you retyping the characters? Copying and pasting?

That's the thing, my music appears fine in iTunes and in windows explorer - the title, everything. But when I sync to my phone all these weird characters come up. It doesn't happen with all my music though, just some. I have Korean and Japanese songs that show up fine on my phone and some that doesn't, so I'm starting to think its the files itself. Although everything appears fine on my computer. I would stop by to my local Microsoft store, but they aren't the most helpful there.

 

[philippefv]

Thanks for the very informative article. I have a Nokia Lumia 810. I have both "Music + Videos" and "Nokia Music" on my phone, but I do not have "Xbox Music". I also have a 6 Gig SD card in the phone. Everytime I rip and then sync Windows Media Center to the phone, I find that I have two (2) complete recordings on the phone. How do I delete an entire "album" from my phone? I only need one copy and the extra copy eats into my free space on the SD card.

Many thanks.

 

[WPhoney]

All of my music appears correctly in Windows Media Player but for some reason, weird text shows up on my phone when it comes to music I have in other languages. [...]

Here is my post with screenshots of my problem.

My guess: the tags were written using a particular Character Encoding (perhaps UTF-8, Korean JOHAB, Chinese Simplified GBK, etc). The software in your computer supports the particular Character Encoding your tags are using, but the app on your phone does not.

The solution is to re-write the problematic tags using a Character Encoding that is supported by both your PC applications and your phone app. Alternatively, you can install a different music app and see if it supports that particular Character Encoding.

 

[Whachusay]

My guess: the tags were written using a particular Character Encoding (perhaps UTF-8, Korean JOHAB, Chinese Simplified GBK, etc). The software in your computer supports the particular Character Encoding your tags are using, but the app on your phone does not.

The solution is to re-write the problematic tags using a Character Encoding that is supported by both your PC applications and your phone app. Alternatively, you can install a different music app and see if it supports that particular Character Encoding.

Thank you, that makes a lot of sense. Some of the characters work so, so I'm going to assume (could be wrong) that some of the character encoding is supported and some of it isn't. I downloaded Nokia Music and it's not any different than Xbox Music - still having the same issue. I understand what you are saying by rewriting the problematic tags using a supported Character Encoding, but I am not knowledgeable as to how to do that. rly:

 

[WPhoney]

I understand what you are saying by rewriting the problematic tags using a supported Character Encoding, but I am not knowledgeable as to how to do that. rly:

I don't know either. Try asking at a Music/MP3 forum. The iTunes forum, for example.