Media Player web address for album info changed in recent Windows 10 upgrade

Anonymous
2018-05-06T16:38:03+00:00

After a recent major upgrade for Windows 10, my Windows Media Player is trying to find Album information from a new website that does not work.  The old web address was (fai.music.metaservices.microsoft.com) and new web address it is using is (musicmatch-ssl.xboxlive.com) which is not a valid address.  How do I change the web address used for album metadata back to correct address?  Searched old message boards with no luck.

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Settings

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Anonymous
2018-07-07T13:27:41+00:00

Found a solution that worked for me:

  1. Start regedit.exe
  2. Navigate to "Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\TunerConfig"
  3. Look for setting PREFERREDMETADATAPROVIDER -- it should have a value "pmpMusicMatch"
  4. Edit the setting PREFERREDMETADATAPROVIDER, and clear the value so you have a blank value
  5. Save / exit regedit.exe
  6. Restart Windows Media Player, you should be restored back to fai.music.metaservices.microsoft.com

What an unnecessary pain in the proverbial.

Update: this DOES NOT WORK any more.

Microsoft appear to have strangled this option off entirely. We are now stuck with the much lesser offering that is "musicmatch-ssl.xboxlive.com".

Microsoft: thanks for nothing.

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  1. Anonymous
    2020-02-22T01:41:00+00:00

    After a recent major upgrade for Windows 10, my Windows Media Player is trying to find Album information from a new website that does not work.  The old web address was (fai.music.metaservices.microsoft.com) and new web address it is using is (musicmatch-ssl.xboxlive.com) which is not a valid address.  How do I change the web address used for album metadata back to correct address?  Searched old message boards with no luck.

    This thread says I am not subscribed but MS keeps sending me email about updates to it anyway. So how do I stop that behaviour?

    I can not find any elipsys anywhere to change my preference.

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  2. Anonymous
    2020-02-02T20:27:09+00:00

    I had this same situation on one of three PCs, which I resolved by performing "Reset this PC" process in "Settings" "Recovery". Now this process removes almost all applications as well so one would need to reinstall afterwards. Fortunately I did not have many installed on this computer. I would consider this to be a drastic measures fix.

    I also previously contacted Joel Hruska (The grumpy PC Technician) and he asked if I had ever modified the 'hosts file' and suggested examining the following link for possible solutions.

    https://windowsreport.com/windows-media-player-album-info/

    The number 1 solution "Editing the Hosts file" seems to be the likeliest solution to me. 

    The problem with solutions number 2 & 3 from my experiences in previous versions of Windows is the rebuilding of the database; which both processes do - will not restore or keep any information which the user has entered manually for ripped LP's, cassettes, reel-to-reel tapes or CDs that are individually/locally produced that do not have meta data in the files.

    Based upon my experience, this is something we did to ourselves - either by editing the hosts file or a registry edit.  Sorry.

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