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 Post Posted: Mon Sep 16, 2019 11:18 am 
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Over the years I copied (ripped) many of my music CDs to the WMP Music Library, as I often enjoy listening to music while I'm working on my computer. When I went to listen this weekend, it appeared that my Library was all messed up. Some albums were missing, and some songs were missing on other albums.

As it so happens, Microsoft performed three Quality updates a few days ago (9/12) on my Win 10 version 1903 computer. Do you think uninstalling these updates might temporarily solve my problem?

Or is there a way I can recover my Library and all the albums that were contained therein? I hate to go through the time-consuming effort of again ripping the 10-12 albums that are messed up.

Thanks in advance......

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 Post Posted: Mon Sep 16, 2019 1:35 pm 
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Check your Music folder to see if the files are still on the computer. It may just be the Library that's messed up and the songs are still on your machine. Then you can just rebuild your Library.


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 Post Posted: Mon Sep 16, 2019 1:44 pm 
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David, I checked my Music folder and all the albums and songs are there. So how do I rebuild my Library without screwing things up. Thanks.......

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 Post Posted: Mon Sep 16, 2019 3:42 pm 
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Open Media Player and go to "Tools". Under "Advanced" select to "Restore deleted library items". That SHOULD do it but, if not, you can select to "Restore media library" under "Advanced".

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 Post Posted: Mon Sep 16, 2019 4:47 pm 
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Jay, I had already tried the "Restore Media Library" and that did not resolve my problem. That action changed some things around in the WMP Library, but it did not restore all the albums I have listed in my Music folder.

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 Post Posted: Mon Sep 16, 2019 5:24 pm 
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Mayhaps David will have an idea but I wonder what would happen if you removed the files in question from the library and put back. What I'm actually thinking is to move the files to a holding folder then do a Restore of the library. Move the files back and restore again. Might not even need to do the second restore.

Since this would take quite a while I'd wait to see what David has to say.

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 Post Posted: Mon Sep 16, 2019 7:53 pm 
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Yea, I was kinda waiting on David to give me the 2nd half of the equation, i.e., how to easily rebuild my Library since I know all the files are still on my computer in the Music folder.

I'm not sure how I would remove the files in question from the Library since they are already missing. And I may have to resort to ripping the troublesome CDs again (where files are missing), as well as ripping again all the CDs that are now missing.

Since I have NEVER had a problem with WMP, I still wonder if the recent Win 10 updates caused my problem. What do you think....what do I lose if I uninstall these three updates?

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 Post Posted: Mon Sep 16, 2019 8:16 pm 
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I use Media Player for music also and have seen no difference since the latest updates. Of course that does not mean that they may not have still caused your issue. Still I doubt that the updates are the cause. I've had Media Player issues for a long time where it won't show most of my play lists. I just pinned my most used play list to my Taskbar and select that instead of the Media Player icon. If you remove the updates they will just install again. Still I guess doing so could be used as a test.

I didn't mean to remove from your library listing. I meant moving the files to a different location on the hard drive as you said they were there. My thought is that moving them then putting back MAY be seen as new additions to the library.

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 Post Posted: Mon Sep 16, 2019 9:17 pm 
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Not a real Media player expert, but if you open Media player and select the music line does it show you albums here. Look in the Artist, Albums, Genre sub menus that are under the Music line. If you don't see anything here, right click the Music line and select Manage Music Libraries. It will open a box and you can add folders to the listings that are the location of your ripped music.

You can also play around with the Groove Music player, it should look for your music the first time it's run.


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 Post Posted: Tue Sep 17, 2019 3:39 pm 
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David, I'm no pro on Media Player either and just use it as a music player due to liking one of the visualizations. I have had an issue with it since Windows 10 was first released. That issue is that it won't see my play lists within Media Player yet, if I pin the playlists to the Media Player icon in the Taskbar they all work fine. Usable work-a-round but does not help in this case.

Do you have any opinion on my thought of moving the songs/albums in question to another location on the hard drive and doing a library recovery. After the recovery move the songs/albums back to the library location to see if they are then seen as new additions and displayed within Media Player?

I'm not sure but we may be thinking in a similar direction. In your last post did you mean to move the songs/albums in question to another folder and then add the new folder to the library? If so that may well have a better chance of working than my idea but I really don't know...

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 Post Posted: Tue Sep 17, 2019 5:38 pm 
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David's idea didn't work for me......some albums that appear in my Music folder still do not appear in WMP. These same albums are then missing when I try Groove. However, the VLC player manages to find all my albums....I just don't like using that player, as I really prefer WMP.

So I am about ready to try moving my albums like Jay is suggesting, but I'm not sure of the exact steps to take. And if I move all my albums from the Music Folder, how then do I perform a Library recovery?

Or should I just move the albums in question to another folder and then add the new folder to the Library like Jay thinks David may be suggesting?

I've spent so much time building my Music Library that I don't want to screw it up.

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 Post Posted: Tue Sep 17, 2019 6:05 pm 
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I would suggest mixing my and Davids methods...

1) Move all songs/albums to another folder outside of your default music library.

2) Add this new folder to your music library.

3) I THINK the import would be automatic but, if not, go to Tools/Advanced and select to Restore media library.

Something to consider is the time being spent trying to fix this. Restoring your media library takes quite a while. It is possible that ripping the CDs again could take less time than is being spent.

Before you do anything let's wait to see what David thinks.

Also I'm trying something to see what happens. When I had Office 365 I had my music library withing the One Drive folder to sync to my on-line One Drive. Since I no longer use Office 365 I no longer have the on-line One Drive space to hold my music. I have moved my music outside of the One Drive folder which necessitates rebuilding my library in Media Player. At least wait long enough for me to complete this process to be sure that there is no harm. This process will take a while as I have ~40.2GB of audio files. The process is currently in progress.

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 Post Posted: Tue Sep 17, 2019 6:34 pm 
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Do anything that you are comfortable doing. I think the last time I did anything like that I just opened media player and my music folder and dragged the folders that had music in them to the Library.


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 Post Posted: Tue Sep 17, 2019 7:52 pm 
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dvair wrote:
I think the last time I did anything like that I just opened media player and my music folder and dragged the folders that had music in them to the Library.

That's new to me David. I had no idea that you could drag and drop to Media Player's library.

As to my experiment of moving my music to a new folder it seems to have worked as my play lists are all back within Media Player. That does not mean that it would solve the issue in this thread but looks better as to having a chance.

What I did:
1) Moved my entire audio library, music and audio books, to a new folder.

2) Managed my music library to remove the old library folders.

3) Managed my music library to add the new folders.

4) Selected to Restore media library under Tools/Advanced.

This is a LONG process and is still going on with my change. It all depends on just how much you have as to music. I have over 40 GB. A lot of the time is taken by retrieving media info such as cover art from the net. Also some time is taken by "normalizing" the individual volume levels. If you go this route keep in mind that you are totally re-creating your music library.

As a total side note I found an audio book I had forgotten about. If you know the movie Contact with Jodie Foster I have the audio book. Nothing all that odd about that except that the version I have is actually narrated by Jodie Foster which I find sort of cool. As per norm the book is a LOT different than the movie. For instance, in the book, 5 people took the trip, not just one as in the movie.

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 Post Posted: Tue Sep 17, 2019 8:51 pm 
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OK, I'm going to sleep on your suggestions, and then try with a fresh mind. But I do have a couple of comments and one new discovery.

Jay, I probably could rip the troublesome CDs (about 20 of them out of a total of 87) in less time. But without knowing what caused the problem and how to fix it, who's to say it wouldn't happen again?

David, the dragging didn't work. It appeared to be working, but the CD that I dragged over didn't appear in the Library.

OK, I just discovered a strange thing that I really don't understand (I know that really surprises you Jay, lol). So hopefully you can explain this to me and it might help solve my problem. Steps go as follows:
- If I open up File Explorer and go down and open the Music folder, I can see all of my 87 CD folders and 1,124 songs. None are missing, i.e., even my troublesome ones are there. That's always been the case, so at least my Music folder is not screwed up.
- If I continue on down the File Explorer listing (i.e., go on past Pictures, Videos, and all my drives), I reach a folder called Libraries.
- I never really understood what this folder is all about, but it contains 4 subfolders - Documents, Music, Pictures, and Videos.
- Now if I open up the Music folder under Libraries, there are all my troublesome CDs and songs....all those missing from the WMP Library. How they got there and why WMP can't find them is beyond me. Any suggestions?

BTW, to Jay and David, I do appreciate the time and effort that you are spending on my WMP problem.

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 Post Posted: Wed Sep 18, 2019 5:59 pm 
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I don't see the folder "Libraries" in my File Explorer but that is like due to our just having File Explorer set up differently.

Since you can see all the files that are missing in your "Music" folder it would be no surprise that you also see them in the "Libraries" folder. What you are seeing in the "Libraries" folder is just a copy/shadow/links of your actual libraries. It is probably showing because you have recently been accessing your library folders frequently.

Anyway, the Library folder is showing the contents of the hard drive locations for your different libraries. This has nothing to do with what Windows Media Player shows or accesses.

Here is my guess as to what happened to you and Media Player. I don't know what form but Medial Player must use some form of data base to store content info. This would be similar to these forums using a data base to store posts. Somehow this Media Player data base got corrupted causing your issue just like the same sort of thing probably happened on my system causing my loss of displayed play lists within Media Player. I'd bet dollars to donuts that, if you double clicked on a song missing in Media Player but present in your Music folder, it would open just fine in Media Player just as did my previously missing play lists.

OK, bottom line... I don't think that you are going to get your missing songs/albums back in Media Player without re-building the Media player library/data base by doing the steps I outlined in my previous post. If you do this expect it to take some time but not as long as in my case as I have over 10,000 songs/album art/etc..

It has to be understood that Windows Media Player is no longer being developed even though still available in the latest builds of Windows 10. This means that in future builds of Windows 10 more and more issues MAY develop. It is sort of like Internet Explorer becoming more and more useless in relation to many web sites. Both, apparently, are being phased out and will continue to see more compatibility/performance issues as newer versions of Windows 10 come out. I think that Microsoft would love to totally drop Windows Media Player in favor of Groove but there are just too many users still using Media Player for Microsoft to avoid a user uprising if they were to actually remove Media Player at this point.

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 Post Posted: Thu Sep 19, 2019 9:02 am 
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jaylach wrote:
I don't see the folder "Libraries" in my File Explorer but that is like due to our just having File Explorer set up differently.
I guess so. I think I just accepted the default configuration.
Since you can see all the files that are missing in your "Music" folder it would be no surprise that you also see them in the "Libraries" folder. What you are seeing in the "Libraries" folder is just a copy/shadow/links of your actual libraries. It is probably showing because you have recently been accessing your library folders frequently.
But my Libraries folder was different. It contained all the files in my Music folder PLUS separately listing all the albums/songs that were missing in WMP. That's the part I don't understand.
Anyway, the Library folder is showing the contents of the hard drive locations for your different libraries. This has nothing to do with what Windows Media Player shows or accesses.

Here is my guess as to what happened to you and Media Player. I don't know what form but Medial Player must use some form of data base to store content info. This would be similar to these forums using a data base to store posts. Somehow this Media Player data base got corrupted causing your issue just like the same sort of thing probably happened on my system causing my loss of displayed play lists within Media Player. I'd bet dollars to donuts that, if you double clicked on a song missing in Media Player but present in your Music folder, it would open just fine in Media Player just as did my previously missing play lists.
That is correct. A small Media Player window popped up in upper left corner of my screen, and the song started playing.
OK, bottom line... I don't think that you are going to get your missing songs/albums back in Media Player without re-building the Media player library/data base by doing the steps I outlined in my previous post. If you do this expect it to take some time but not as long as in my case as I have over 10,000 songs/album art/etc..
I was finally able to get my missing songs back by doing what David previously suggested....dragging them over from where they appeared in the Libraries Music folder. Since my hand is not always steady enough to drag folders, I actually did a "Copy To". All folders/songs were successfully copied, although some of the album skins (photos) were missing.
It has to be understood that Windows Media Player is no longer being developed even though still available in the latest builds of Windows 10. This means that in future builds of Windows 10 more and more issues MAY develop. It is sort of like Internet Explorer becoming more and more useless in relation to many web sites. Both, apparently, are being phased out and will continue to see more compatibility/performance issues as newer versions of Windows 10 come out. I think that Microsoft would love to totally drop Windows Media Player in favor of Groove but there are just too many users still using Media Player for Microsoft to avoid a user uprising if they were to actually remove Media Player at this point.
Actually, Groove presented the same problem....it was missing some albums & songs. So both Microsoft players proved to be very disappointing. I am looking into other players.

Thanks again for all your help.


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 Post Posted: Thu Sep 19, 2019 9:04 am 
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Jay, I forgot to mention. I tried many different solutions for rebuilding a corrupt WMP database.....none of them worked.

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 Post Posted: Thu Sep 19, 2019 9:34 am 
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If looking at different players I would suggest Media Player Classic.
https://mpc-hc.org/downloads/
or the VLC Player. I think that you mentioned already trying this one.
https://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-windows.html

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 Post Posted: Thu Sep 19, 2019 12:30 pm 
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OK, I will do that. There is another one that I never heard of but is getting good reviews. It's called Musicbee, and I plan on checking it out also.

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 Post Posted: Thu Sep 19, 2019 1:03 pm 
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I never heard of Musicbee either. Let me know what you think.

For what it's worth I used to use VLC and Media Player Classic a lot but for video, not music. I use Power DVD for videos now primarily due to it being able to handle Blu-Ray well.

<edit>
Here are some other players that I've used in the past that worked well.

NG Media Player
https://www.ngmplayer.com/ngb/wm/lpb2/index.html

DIVX (Not sure but this MAY just be video. Been a long time.)
https://www.divx.com/en/software/divx

Winamp (Only in beta it seems as it is being redone. Last update was in 2013. This used to one of the most popular players.)
Article on the re-do.
https://fossbytes.com/winamp-coming-back-2019-whip-llamas-ass-once-again/
Download link.
http://www.winamp.com/

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 Post Posted: Fri Sep 20, 2019 11:09 am 
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Well, I finally got Windows Media Player (WMP) to work and look like it use to.....all albums, songs and album cover art work are now present. Here are the steps I took:
(1) As previously mentioned, when I used File Explorer and drilled down to Libraries, I found my Music folder all intact. But I also found separately listed all my troublesome folders, i.e., all those CDs and songs missing from the WMP Library. How they got there and why WMP couldn't find them is beyond me. So I deleted all these troublesome folders since they were also correctly contained in my Music folder.
(2) I then decided to restore my WMP Library via Tools>Advanced>Restore Media Library>Music.
(3) With the troublesome folders removed, the restore process worked....WMP finally found everything, although some album covers were missing.
(4) I went online and searched for the missing album covers and then did a copy/paste.

I am still going to play around with some other players, since who knows when WMP will screw up again. After I took the above steps to restore the WMP Library, even Groove may properly work now. This player called 'Musicbee' is also highly rated (like Jay, I had never heard of it before).

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