Songs do not appear in the Windows Media Player library

Anonymous

WIndows Media Player 12 not adding songs

I got my new PC with Windows 7 this afternoon, and copied over 10,000 songs into My Music folder. None of these songs will show up in Windows Media Player 12 song library. My Music folder is one of the default save location in WMP Libraries. Only 3 songs are showing up in the Library, and these are the three on the Public Music folder. Yet when I add a song to the Public Music folder, it gets added to the Library. Then when I close WMP and re-open it, we're back to the original 3 songs! I spent an hour with HP support this evening and did not get any where. I have tried system restore. I have tried restoring media library. I think my WMP may be corrupt. Any thoughts on what I'm missing here?

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Anonymous

I read this on another topic, try it.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

Hi,

This problem occurs because the Windows Media Player library database has become corrupted.

To resolve this problem, clear the Windows Media Player database. To do this, follow these steps:

Exit Windows Media Player.
Click Start, click Run, type %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\Media Player, and then click OK.
Select all the files in the folder, and then click Delete on the File menu.

Note You do not have to delete the folders that are in this folder.

4. Restart Windows Media Player.

Note Windows Media Player automatically rebuilds the database.

If this does not resolve the problem, clear the Windows Media Player database cache files. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Exit Windows Media Player.

2. Click Start, click Run, type %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft, and then click OK.

3. Select the Media Player folder, and then click Delete on the File menu.

4. Restart Windows Media Player.

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Answer accepted by question author

Anonymous

I had same symptoms as cturner003 in a 64 bit Win 7 environment. But the problem was entirely different from everythin I read up to Nov 2010. As I started looking into the file properties under the details tab, I noticed that all of these files had file attributes 'R' and 'S' set. Turns out that somehow all of my music got marked as 'Read Only' \ 'System' files when I restored them. My fault I'm sure. Tried all of the solutions up to the Nov 2010 entries to no avail. Finally discovered the issue. Once I changed the file attributes, all of the music started showing up in WMP. Should have picked that up sooner.

For these files, I couldn't find any way to change the attributes except through the command prompt.

1. Click Start, Click All Programs, ClickAccessories. Thenright clickCommand Prompt and select 'Run as administrator'.

2. Type Attrib /? to get familiar with the attributes command.

3. My music is stored in the path c:\users\glym\music. So I fixed the problem with the following command string:attrib -r -s c:\users\glym\music\*.* /s /d

Once the file attributes are cleaned up, make sure Media Player is closed. ClickStart , ClickRun, Copy and paste in: %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft, ClickOK

Delete the 'Media Player' folder completely. That gets rid of the database and the cached entries.

6. Restart Media Player . . . Bingo!

Thanks Microsoft for several useful Knowldege Base articles that I plagiarized here.

I was having an issue like this. No new tv shows I was recording and adding to my videos folder would show on one pc, but showed fine on two others, all win 7 64bit home prem.

steps 4 5 and 6 worked like a charm for me. I didnt do anything but steps 4,5 and 6 Thank you.

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137 additional answers

Anonymous

2010-02-20T01:30:44+00:00

I have had similar issues with a clean install of Windows 7. I have found a somewhat simple solution to this problem. As I've replaced my motherboard and done a number of installs of the beta and the retail versions, I'm no stranger to this issue. This is what worked for me:

1> Right click on the folder where your music is and select Properties .

2> Click on the Securit y tab and click on the Advanced button.

3> Click on the Owner tab (make sure you are listed as the current owner and if not, add your current account) and click the Edit button.

4> When the next screen pops up, check the box that says "Replace owner on subcontainers and objects " and click OK .

5> Delete all default folders in Windows Media Player and add the folder where your music is stored.

It should find and organize all your music assuming it is already organized in folders by album. If you have any odd file formats like .flac, you need to download something like Shark007 Codecs if WMP is going to recognize those as well. If you are running a 64-bit operating system, make sure you read the instructionsbefore installing as you will need the x86 component for the x64 to work.

Please let me know if this helps you!

Ben

This worked perfectly -- Ben_Mo, you're a genius!!

JT
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Anonymous

2010-01-31T06:22:01+00:00

I have had similar issues with a clean install of Windows 7. I have found a somewhat simple solution to this problem. As I've replaced my motherboard and done a number of installs of the beta and the retail versions, I'm no stranger to this issue. This is what worked for me:

1> Right click on the folder where your music is and select Properties .

2> Click on the Securit y tab and click on the Advanced button.

3> Click on the Owner tab (make sure you are listed as the current owner and if not, add your current account) and click the Edit button.

4> When the next screen pops up, check the box that says "Replace owner on subcontainers and objects " and click OK .

5> Delete all default folders in Windows Media Player and add the folder where your music is stored.

It should find and organize all your music assuming it is already organized in folders by album. If you have any odd file formats like .flac, you need to download something like Shark007 Codecs if WMP is going to recognize those as well. If you are running a 64-bit operating system, make sure you read the instructionsbefore installing as you will need the x86 component for the x64 to work.

Please let me know if this helps you!

Ben
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Anonymous

2010-01-28T01:40:37+00:00

This is the problem I'm having too Most of my music has been added to my library, but there are some tracks missing. It's not like the player's completely incapable of reading the file, because it still shows up when I view the files on my MP3 player. Is there any hope of getting a real answer to this problem?
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