Holy crap, syncing with WP8 is a trainwreck.

[WPenvy]

What's the current version of the Windows Phone for Desktop software? And how the heck are we supposed to update it?

 

[sketchy9]

I ended up doing the only sensible thing: I've started using my Zune HD 32GB again. Thanks, MS, you drove me back to a 3 year old device because, guess what, *it just works*. Which is exactly what you promised when you completely revamped your mobile OS from WM 6.5 to WP 7. And it did, for a while, until you decided that *working software* is apparently not one of the necessary criteria for a release product and farked it all up. Idiots.

-R

 

[zokstar]

Using WMP is just horrible I added a so h to a playlist but to get that song onto the phone in ten playlist I had to add the entire playlist and watch as it processed each songs realise it was already on the device and then move on to the next one. There is no way I can recommend a WP to anyone right now I know we mock Apple but boy did they make music syncing easy.

Story of my life ATM! Hate it!

 

[AdamUCF]

I've been tweeting with them. They've confirmed that syncing Xbox Music pass content to the phone is broken and the workaround is to download it directly from the phone. Massively annoying. I can't believe they shipped it in this state. Clearly they didn't test it.

 

[AZBrowncoat]

I ended up doing the only sensible thing: I've started using my Zune HD 32GB again.

I'm carrying my Lumia 920 in one hand and my iPhone 4 in the other with ~32Gb of music on it which was kind of my plan all along anyhow but considering WP8 is choking on my AAC files I'm definitely going to have to carry around both devices out of necessity (shrugs).

 

[fardream]

I've been tweeting with them. They've confirmed that syncing Xbox Music pass content to the phone is broken and the workaround is to download it directly from the phone. Massively annoying. I can't believe they shipped it in this state. Clearly they didn't test it.

No, there are many SDETs at MSFT. Guess MSFT testers knew it sucked, but the product team signed off any way.

 

[unit_three]

I have a terrible work around for anyone who still wants to use their Zune music, but it involves a double hop. Like I said, it's terrible. This works good if you just had 1 massive playlist that you synced to your phone (ex. "Phone Music" or something). You can move multiple playlists over but only the music is moved and will not be organized or related by a specific playlist item in your phone.

Things you need:

• Enough space to copy music into a new folder on your Computer or External Hard Drive
• Zunplex zunplex - The Zune Playlist Export Tool
• Windows OS
• Patience

Terrible Steps:

1. Create a new folder on your computer or external hard drive. You can name it anything like "music to be transferred".
2. Run Zunplex.exe and point it to your playlist (.zpl file).
3. Set the "keep no. of subdirs from right ->" setting to 2.
4. Point the Target to the folder you just created in step 1 and transfer.
5. Connect your phone
6. Drag and drop the contents of the "music to be transferred" into the Music folder on your phone. If it asks, use "Copy" rather than "Move" when moving the songs onto the phone since Zunplex runs faster on 2nd runs because it skips songs that it already transferred. Also, I chose not to convert m4a files and they ended up playing fine.

That's it. Remember, I said it was terrible so cut me some slack. But what I ended up using this for is creating 2 playlists for my wife. She has a Dance Music Playlist and then All Song Playlist. So I moved the Dance Music over first, hit play on the phone and saved that as a Playlist. Then I moved everything else over. Tedious? Yes. Did I get the result I wanted? Yes. Did she have to recreate her playlists in iTunes? No. Can someone at Microsoft automate this? FOR THE LOVE OF ALL HOLY, PLEASE!!!!!!

 

[sketchy9]

I know we mock Apple but boy did they make music syncing easy.

The really horrible part is that Microsoft made music syncing really easy and effortless too! All the way up to this god-awful mess that is WP8. But on WP7 & WP7.5 it really was a pleasure to use-- music synced over with absolutely no hiccups, ratings and play counts were synced, it was fantastic. How I miss that on this platform...

-R

 

[Digital Moe]

I have noticed quite a few times when I go to play some songs I get a error sating that it can not be played (I think it is something to do with codec) and then it just skips to the next song in the playlist. However If I then go back and try again it will play the song.

 

[Digital Moe]

The really horrible part is that Microsoft made music syncing really easy and effortless too! All the way up to this god-awful mess that is WP8. But on WP7 & WP7.5 it really was a pleasure to use-- music synced over with absolutely no hiccups, ratings and play counts were synced, it was fantastic. How I miss that on this platform...

-R

It would be really nice if they fixed this train wreck quickly as possible it is just so slow using WMP and using it doesn't update mettadata.

 

[e_man11]

Re: Major beef with Xbox Music

Thanks OP! Been scratching my head all morning!! This has helped me out a lot.

 

[Ruined]

Re: Major beef with Xbox Music

The bottom line is that Xbox Music needs A LOT of work. It is nowhere even close to where the Zune player was 2 years ago!

 

[inteller]

Re: Major beef with Xbox Music

the metadata management in WMP and Zune was as close to flawless as I have found. Fortunately for me I made a copy of my music collection and pointed Xbox music at it, so it F'd up that copy of music and I got to see first hand not to let it touch my master copy. That app is a complete failure and I will not use it until it replaces Zune feature for feature.

 

[brmiller1976]

Re: Major beef with Xbox Music

It's a bit funny to see the much-maligned and slammed-by-the-press Zune now being missed so profoundly.

 

[jptbay]

WP8 won't play nice, trying to share family music collection with WP7 phones.

Picked up a Lumia 920 last Thursday to replace my wife's Lumia 710. I have a Lumia 900 and my daughter uses a Samsung focus.

After fighting all weekend to try to get our family music collection to work on the Lumia 920, I have given up and it's getting returned for another Lumia 900 with windows 7.

Microsoft should be ashamed. Xbox music is a joke, and both the desktop and metro app for windows phone 8 is horrible compared to the Zune client.

We have a Zune pass, and have tons of songs that were downloaded, but not purchased. None of them work on Windows 8 because the DRM (digital rights management) is not compatible between Zune and Xbox music.

So, no big deal I think. The music pass still works with Xbox music. I will just have to re-download those songs on the new phone. Nope. Cannot download hard copies of those songs to the phone. Songs previously downloaded show up as "in your collection" and must be downloaded over wifi or your data connection every time they are played. This is even with the cloud and sharing with Xbox music turned off. I refuse to burn up my expensive data plan to do this.

New songs that were not previously downloaded can be downloaded to the phone though, for off-line use.

This incompatibility between Zune and Xbox music has made Windows phone 8 unusable for our family, as we can't easily integrate it with our existing Windows 7 phones.

What a disappointment! I haven't been so frustrated in a long time. I can't believe Microsoft bungled this so badly.

 

[e_man11]

Re: Major beef with Xbox Music

So what's the trick to getting the missing album art to show on many of my albums? It's just all grayed out.

Mind you, my music was managed using iTunes before switching my ipod for a wp8

 

[vtective]

So what's the trick to getting the missing album art to show on many of my albums? It's just all grayed out.

Check out "MPAtool" for Windows Phone http://www.windowsphone.com/s?appid=a6056e5e-34bd-4098-9cd8-4ed5df611d97

You can download cover and artist art.
It's a great application.

 

[fardream]

It's really so sad to see people like you, who already invested a lot into windows phone's ecosystem, to be pissed off by Microsoft's halfhearted implementation and a lack of progress on fixing these quite basic features. The sad effect is.... If you are a happy mac user who never downloaded any thing Microsoft, you might be better off. My sincerest consolation to my fellow windows phone 7 and Zune music pass users.

 

[jptbay]

Re: WP8 won't play nice, trying to share family music collection with WP7 phones.

Yes, I love Wp7 and have been a big advocate for it's use. The music experience with Zune and WP7 is phenomenal.

I was excited to get a new WP8, but I am shocked to see how horribly Microsoft has broken this experience.

It is a travesty.

 

[cateyetech]

I have the same issue, 2 focus's & a titan. I have a 920 and I lost wireless synchronization (but gained wireless charging) and have to use a different program to sync.