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
    2020-01-25T13:40:18+00:00

    Why people don't read what was said earlier?

    They won't fix it ever.

    The server is shut down permanently.

    The have stated multiple times they no longer develop WMP and they have ceased support for this product. It's basically abandonware, but without the license released.

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  2. Anonymous
    2020-01-25T18:05:36+00:00

    They also said if enough people signed the online petition to fix it that they would fix it

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  3. Anonymous
    2020-01-25T18:26:10+00:00

    And peopel believed that, like any petition to microsoft ever made any differance.

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  4. 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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