Songs do not appear in the Windows Media Player library

Anonymous
2009-11-10T05:30:29+00:00

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?

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Music, photos, and video

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Anonymous
2010-11-08T18:58:41+00:00

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:

  1. Exit Windows Media Player.
  2. Click Start, click Run, type %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\Media Player, and then click OK.
  3. 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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Anonymous
2010-12-18T07:21:53+00:00

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

  1. Once the file attributes are cleaned up, make sure Media Player is closed.  ClickStart , ClickRun, Copy and paste in: %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft, ClickOK
  2. 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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  1. Anonymous
    2012-01-12T05:46:58+00:00

    That is the information/steps that I used and it worked for me.

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  2. Anonymous
    2012-02-18T13:30:13+00:00

    When I open my WMP sometimes the songs will come up as just added(all of them not just a few) and then it changes the properties of some songs. I have had to go into where the songs are stored and correct information.

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  3. Anonymous
    2012-05-02T09:10:59+00:00

    Thanks to "C0pperHed" for the registry fix!

    I just inherited a Creative Zen Mozaic from one of my kids, since we upgraded them to a 30GB media player from some company from Cupertino, CA. When I did so, for some reason during the reset process for this device my entire 30k song library disappeared from WMP12.

    So, folks - before doing anything else, check to see if you have odd or missing drive letters or changed directories in the Registry, and fix those before running any repair process, includng the Microsoft FixIt

    NOTE: Using REGEDIT.EXE or any other Registry Repair or Clean-up Utility without understanding the repucussions of changing Registry settings or values may cause your system to under-perform, have serious stability issues, or make it utterly useless and cause it to continually crash. EDIT WITH CAUTION!

    Start>Run>Regedit

    Navigate to:

    HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders

    Check the following keys:

    {DE92C1C7-837F-4F69-A3BB-86E631204A23} - This key should be where you want your playlists kept, and should be %USERPROFILE%\Music\Playlists

    My Music - You can safely point this to any directory you wish that contains your music, including Local Area Network (LAN) Shares.

    As soon as I fixed these, I was able to get the proper Library Management pop-up box and check the proper library folders.

    ScottK (Scott Kindorf)

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