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Windows Media Player splits up my albums.__

Anonymous
2010-03-10T19:56:43+00:00

I am having problems with the Media player splitting up my music into several different albums.

I still have the originals intact in My Music but the Media Player has made a mess out of everything when you view them from the Media Player!

I have taken away the inhereted permissions from the Media Player and I am the only one who has the permissions to access the Media Player.

I have deleted all the music from the Media Player's library but it won't let me add them back in from My Music.

How do I fix this?

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

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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  1. Anonymous
    2010-03-11T16:45:25+00:00

    Hi,

    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.

    1. 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.

    Note: Windows Media Player automatically rebuilds the database

    For more information:

    You cannot view, add, or delete items in the library in Windows Media Player 11

    http://support.microsoft.com/kb/925718

    It is also applicable to windows media player 12.

    Also see: http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7music/thread/e68d4e33-897c-421d-8d4b-dbf53c9ee4a5

    Thanks and Regards:

    Swati Keni- Microsoft Support

    10+ people found this answer helpful.
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  1. Anonymous
    2011-05-18T02:35:05+00:00

    Probably because the ID3 tags don't match exactly from track to track. 

    Namely, if the Album, Almun Artist, and (sometimes) Genre tags aren't exactly the same for all tracks in an album, it'll split it into two albums.

    Unfortunately, there's no tag editor in WMP anymore.  But, that functionality is still there in Explorer.

    Open a folder with an affected album in it.  Right-click a file > Properties; Details tab.  Find another file (same album) that WMP 'thinks' is a different album.  Open its properties sheet, too.  Compare the two side-by-side, and you should find what's different between the two.

    You can mass-edit the 'common' tags (contributing artist, album artist, album, year, and genre) by selecting multiple files > right-click > properties.

    Or, you can use a third-party MP3 management app (MP3 Tag and Rename, and MediaMonkey, are two that come to mind ATM), if your library is too much of a mess.

    HTH,

    Chris

    8 people found this answer helpful.
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  2. Anonymous
    2011-05-18T02:53:42+00:00

    If we're taking a vote, I think splitting up an album should be user selectable or not at all. Arbitrarily splitting an album is ludicrous. I spent hours recording old vinyls and many were "Best Of" or Genre related by different artists on the same album that I wanted kept together. Now I have a multitude of "albums" scattered all over or don't even appear in WMP. About the only way I can find what I want to hear is via Windows Explorer. This part of WMP is a really bad design.

    5 people found this answer helpful.
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  3. Anonymous
    2011-05-17T22:16:39+00:00

    This does not address the root problem - why is WMP chopping up albums.

    5 people found this answer helpful.
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  4. Anonymous
    2011-07-05T07:54:57+00:00

    WMP does what it does due to poor design. 

    What you deem mistagging is, in fact, correct tagging which isn't catered for by the design. I'm not a rap aficionado, but many of the albums I've bought in the past 10 years have tracks featuring a guest artist on 1 or more tracks.

    The first rule of design should be to cater for user requirements, rather than ease of coding.

    Do you think any user wants their albums split up ? Of course they don't. And they also don't want to spend hours editing tags so that inadequate software can be made to work.

    3 people found this answer helpful.
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