XBOX Music - My Music no cover images ?

[cw-kid]

Hi

God only knows why but I decided to install Windows 8 Pro with MCE on to my laptop, biggest problem is the laptop is now randomly freezing and locking up solid and I have to hard reset the bloody thing. Hope I can get to the bottom or this of Windows 7 will be going back on soon.

Anyways looking at the new media apps which seem crappy. I can't get any of my photos stored on my WHS in to the Metro photo app. It does however in the Music app show my music that is on the WHS that I added in to the Windows 8 music library. However none of the albums have cover art just the default headphones image.

Why doesn't it just read the Folder.jpg's ?? Most of my music does not have cover art actually embedded in to the MP3 files.

Any ideas?

Thanks

[cw-kid]

I just spotted an album in the XBOX Music app that is showing cover art, if I look at that album in explorer it has cover art embedded in to the MP3 files. So that would suggest to display cover art in the XBOX Music app you must embed and it won't look for Folder.jpg if there is nothing embedded that sucks.

[gcoupe]

Anyways looking at the new media apps which seem crappy.

No, the new media apps don't seem crappy - they are crappy. I've never seen such a sorry collection of utter bilge. One might think that Microsoft would try and show off Metro in a good light, but they've done themselves no favours at all.

As you've discovered, the Photo App can't pick up images stored on Network locations that aren't indexed by the latest version of the Windows Index server.

None of them support "Play to", and they generally strip out functionality to the bare minimum.

I am not impressed at all.

The Windows 8 OS, on the other hand, I like. Sorry that it's not behaving on your laptop - may be a driver issue. The OS has been rock solid on my main desktop PC since the days of the Consumer Preview.

[cw-kid]

It seems there is more going on with cover art in the xbox music app than just displaying embedded images. I noticed an album that was displaying a cover but a different one than i have in the albums folder. I double checked the files for this album and nothing was embedded. Yet this album is showing a cover in the music app. Where it has got this from I dont know as its a completely different cover image than my folder.jpg and they arent being displayed anyways. I disabled the usual settings in WMP to stop it downloading different covers from the internet prior.

My laptop is so unstable I cannot use it locking up every 5-10 minutes Ive tried updating the intel drivers and other drivers but its still freezing solid. Ive tried the common solutions recommened on the web for Windows 8 freezing issues but no joy. I am seriously considering wiping again and going back to Windows7. Although I may use one of my Msdn support incidents first and see if MS can fix it as after 2 days Iam stumped which is rare.

[cw-kid]

The laptop was doing a chkdsk repair (Not in windows after boot up) and its even locked up now on that at 27% Windows 8 seriously does not like my laptop which is an Acer Aspire 4740.

Another thing I might try is to change the Sata setting in bios from AHCI to IDE mode wipe OS and reinstall Windows 8 as I think this is related to the problems?

[gcoupe]

It seems there is more going on with cover art in the xbox music app than just displaying embedded images. I noticed an album that was displaying a cover but a different one than i have in the albums folder. I double checked the files for this album and nothing was embedded. Yet this album is showing a cover in the music app. Where it has got this from I dont know as its a completely different cover image than my folder.jpg and they arent being displayed anyways. I disabled the usual settings in WMP to stop it downloading different covers from the internet prior.

The Metro Music App has its own setting for downloading metadata from the internet - it's under "Preferences", and I think it's on by default. The first thing I did was to turn it off.

[cw-kid]

It seems there is more going on with cover art in the xbox music app than just displaying embedded images. I noticed an album that was displaying a cover but a different one than i have in the albums folder. I double checked the files for this album and nothing was embedded. Yet this album is showing a cover in the music app. Where it has got this from I dont know as its a completely different cover image than my folder.jpg and they arent being displayed anyways. I disabled the usual settings in WMP to stop it downloading different covers from the internet prior.

The Metro Music App has its own setting for downloading metadata from the internet - it's under "Preferences", and I think it's on by default. The first thing I did was to turn it off.

I could not see any such settings? Will check again.

thanks

[gcoupe]

When you have the Music App running fullscreen, then bring up the Charms, and choose "Settings" - that gives you access to the settings of the Music App. "Preferences" is one of them.

[cw-kid]

Ok cool thanks.

Still trying to fix bigger problems. Clean install of Windows 8 again in IDE mode makes no difference, laptop still freezing up.
I just rolled back the Atheros AR5B93 wireless adapter driver from the one Windows 8 installed to an older 2009 Windows 7 x64 version from the Acer website and so far since its not frozen up. The Atheros WLAN has always caused problems on this laptop even with Windows 7. Fingers crossed.

[cw-kid]

I hate the fact they have removed the F8 function from boot up. Why? Which knob head thought that would be a good idea? No easy way to boot now into safe mode.

[cw-kid]

I think I may have fixed it? 3rd clean install I've set the sata mode back to AHCI rolled back the WLAN driver again. Hopefully it will remain stable and I can start installing my program's and apps again. Will then take a closer look at these new
Media apps and see what MS have got wrong. They should have had a proper beta as their own internal software testers all want sacking off the job!

[cw-kid]

Its not the WLAN driver, kept on freezing under AHCI mode. I have reinstalled again under IDE mode and laptop so far seems stable. I just fired in an email to Microsoft via our MVP group address. Also complained about the new media apps and why they didn't do a proper beta for Windows 8? Why do you think 7MC was so stable and generally bug free ? Because people like us tested the software properly and the dev team actually listened to our feedback. Who ever is now internally testing their software at MS should be replaced with experts in each field. I could have found more bugs around all the new media stuff than they did.