Microsoft Groove is now truly universal across Windows 10 devices (version 3.6.1886.0)

Hello, Insiders! We’re releasing an important update for Microsoft Groove to the Store just for you! Version 3.6.1886.0 of the Groove app will be available later today. We can’t wait to hear what you think about it.

So what’s in this update? Groove is now truly universal on Windows 10 across mobile and PC. The build you’ve been using on mobile is now the same build you’ll get on PC going forward. For those of you who’ve asked if the PC version of Groove would ever get features like gapless playback, today’s the day! We are very proud of this milestone and look forward to the increased velocity this change will bring as we work down our backlog.

This update represents another first for us – we’re publishing the update for Insiders before sending it to the Store for everyone. We’re flexing the app flighting rings for the first time and plan to push out today’s update as follows:

• PC: Windows Insiders Fast Ring
• Mobile: Windows Insider Fast & Slow and Release Preview Rings

Here’s what we’ve added to the universal app since the last update:

• Improvements to playback including:
  • When unplayable tracks appear in Now Playing, we properly gray them out and jump over them without displaying an error
  • We prevent you from playing unplayable content (for instance, if you are offline and try to play a streaming album we won't try to play it, we'll immediately tell you it can't be played and why)
  • We added extra telemetry to playback errors so that we can continue to improve the app
• We removed the app’s dependencies on Xbox Live which means you don’t need an Xbox Live account to use Groove (and sign-in is much faster and more reliable)!
• It’s easier to tell what’s happening when Groove is sync’ing your collection for the first time.
• You’ll see “Unknown Artists” less often in your collection because the app looks at both song artist and album artist metadata.
• The process we use to show additional metadata to what’s in your local files is 10x faster and gives better results
• The app defaults to Explore for search results if you have a Groove Music Pass and you have don’t have a limited data plan.
• When viewing artists, you can view their work by albums or songs. Try it by selecting “Songs view” when viewing an artist.
• Radio stations can be started from albums and songs – the app will start the radio based on the artist.
• The app now shows your collection size at the top of the collection views.
• On mobile, background art fills the screen so that it’s seen under the system icons at the top.
• You can use ‘Refine’ to filter your collection by source (OneDrive, Pass, Purchased, On this device only).
• If something gets really out of whack in your collection, you can now choose to ‘Reset’ your cloud collection.
• We added jumplist support for collection views organized by release year.
• The ‘hotlinks’ in Album reviews and Artist bios now work on mobile.
• We added a simple lockscreen setting for Continuum. We made lots of styling updates for Continuum too!

We’re tracking below known issues that will be fixed in a future OS flight:

• Tapping on the text in the system media transport controls stops playback – just don’t click on the text.
• Music playback error (0xc20200ae) in Groove right after cold start – give a minute and everything should be fine.
• Your file associations may default back to Windows Media Player after this update. You can always reset them by going to Settings/System/Default Apps/Music Player.
• Download of DRM-protected content may fail if your device name contains some non-unicode characters. A workaround is to adjust your device name.

Thank you so much for all the feedback you’ve provided. We sincerely appreciate your support and look forward to continuing to work together to make Groove great. See ya in the Feedback Hub!

The Groove Team