No Music in Music Library

[bob_p]

Stumped on this one - and hoping someone else has encountered and fixed this problem...

Tried to play music yesterday through WMC (on Windows 8.1) - and found that I can't add any Music to the Music Library - in either WMC or WMP.

I can add the top-level music folders to the Library list - in both WMC and WMP - but neither application will show any of the songs.

If I manually add a single song to WMP - it will show up in WMC - but if I tried to add any folders, the songs in those folders are not displayed.

I tried everything I could find through Internet searches - deleting the .wmdb files and the Media Player folders, running SFC, checking indexing, checking security, ... and so far nothing has helped. I've verified that setting up a new user account on the same system produces the same result - so it's not a corrupted user profile. I haven't tried uninstalling/reinstalling WMP because that also uninstalls WMC - and I don't want to mess up my Media Center configuration (if at all possible).

Interesting WMP is having the same problem also displaying pictures and videos - but WMC is able to display video and pictures from folders and subfolders without any problems.

Any suggestions???

Thanks...

[bob_p]

Another data point - in WMP, also unable to turn media streaming on. The button grays out for a second and then waits for me to click it again.

Unless I can find a way to fix this - my only other option may be to scrap the OS and reinstall. Still hoping to avoid that - and not lose the copy protected programs I haven't yet watched...

[bob_p]

For anyone else who may see this problem...

The online help primarily recommends deleting and rebuilding the Media Player database, which did not fix the problem I was having with WMP and WMC not seeing songs in folders added to the library.

While not a complete solution, I was able to get songs added from folders and subfolders by first adding the library in WMP, and then in Windows Explorer selecting the first folder in the new library, selecting "Play All" in WMP, and then in WMP, once it began scanning the folder, pausing the playback. After a few hours, all of the songs in the library had been added and are now visible in both WMP and WMC.

To make this work, I had to set WMP to automatically add songs from local and remote sources to the library in the WMP settings.

This probably isn't a complete solution, since any new music added to the library will likely require a re-scan of the library by WMP to make it work.

But at least this is much better than re-installing Windows...

[Crash2009]

When I first got into this WMC thing, I had to do a lot of experimenting to figure out what works for me, and what doesn't. My last experiment seems to be the one that I stuck with. As you know, WMC likes to organize your stuff for you, and gives you several choices of how you want your stuff displayed. There likely is some "SuperSetting" somewhere, but rather than spending a week trying to find it, or risk "breaking something" I just went with the flow and created one folder and named it Music then told WMC where to find it. Then I threw a couple thousand mp3's in there.

Regarding WMP-I don't remember ever having to configure anything. It seems to me that however you setup WMC just carries over to WMP.

I do the same thing for Recorded TV and Pictures.

Movies on the other hand need a folder for each movie.

[Crash2009]

Media browser (MB3) organizes things a little differently and with a bit more eye candy. Dual monitors on this box, tonight's hockey game on the left screen and the music library on the right. Sometimes I have 2 games on in this room.

The point is get rid of all the folders and let the software do the organizing.

[Crash2009]

XBMC, different again, but with some pretty nice visualizations. The visualizations remind me of the old Psych Screensaver. All these different media players all feed off the same folder back on the HTPC D:\Music

Come to think of it, the TV is feeding from the same place HTPC D:\Recorded Tv