WMP not showing mp3 tags for all files

Off-Topic
#1

Hi, this is just a related question, since I posted this question on the MS forums to no avail and I can't find the right answer on Google no matter how much I try (and trust, me I'm really good with finding answers myself.)

This is about some Mp3 tags not showing in lousy WMP (yes, I could be using a much better media player, but I got used to WMP, even though it's MS and MS sucks often times.) The tags show correctly on Windows explorer though (Windows 10).

The first thing I tried to do was to recreate the WMP music database, but it takes really long to rebuild, it freezes, and only after a day it starts to not freeze, that's cause I have more than 60k mp3 and video files in the library. When I did this I only deleted the music database and a few other files, I didn't delete all the folders and files that I could've deleted to ensure everything was gonna be recreated, not sure if that's what caused the issue.

The first time I did this, the purpose was to refresh the names of many of my video files, I wanted WMP to show the new filenames, as it doesn't do it automatically.

Is there a way to force WMP to refresh and re-read all the mp3 tags without deleting and rebuilding the music database file?

My system is windows 10.

#2

Yes.
And now you should check if you have any entries of the type "unknown" in GENRE or YEAR.
Delete these entries "Only from the library" and then re-import them with (and this is my attempt to translate that from the German user interface):
Extras>Enhanced>Restore deleted items from the database
This forces WMP to re-read the files and sort them into the appropriate categories.
Use this method also, if you update the tags but keep the filename the smae and WMP won't show the updates.
WMP updates tag data fairly swiftly once it has created a database if the folders of the new files are included in the media library and the watched folders. You can set the list of folders in the navigation tree e.g. for "Music" or for "Videos" with the function to manage the media library.
Hope, this helps.

1 Like
#3

Thank you, I actually had a better idea which is seeming to work, at least for now, though it takes forever just the same.

The idea is to remove the two folders from the music and video libraries, wait for the files to disappear, then close WMP, wait a while and then readd the library folders for WMP to rescan all the files.

One of the issues I noticed is it didn't grab my automatic playlists, but I was able to add them manually. It seems this fixed most of the blank/wrong tags.

#4

Usually WMP updates the watched folders automatically. You can see that with the little scrolling arrow on the right of the play button.
If you are interested in which file or folder WMP is currently examining, open sysinternals process explorer, select the WMP process, scroll down to the list of file handles and see which get opened and closed.

As there seem to be many ways that lead to a similar result, I would not say that you

.
It is just a different one.
What I can say about the way that I described: as soon as WMP has found the files and/or updated the internal database, all playlists also show the updates. Automatic playlists, though, always show the state of the collection at the time of opening the playlist.

#5

Sorry, I didn't mean to offend you, Lol.

I said, better idea in relation to recreating the database, as I had done two other times before.

#6

Yes, there you are right: anything above 20,000 tracks in a collection takes ages to update.
I have been using WMP as I was forced to do so because of reasons.
I found that while adding a lot of tracks to the WMP library, WMP develops some kind of GUI error, where the animated parts turn black after a while.
This is usually the time when WMP does read the tags properly but registers the filenames.
The incompletely read tags are then classified as "unknown" - good categories are GENRE, COMPOSER - but you can get them back as I described above:
Select all the "unknown" ones, delete them from the library only, then restore them.
If you want to update tags in files, wait for WMP to finish updating the library (the little arrow stops moving), then start the updates. If the files are in the watched folders, the updates become effecitive more or less immediately - you can watch the updates happening if you display them.
This is much nicer IMHO than iTunes which you have to force to read the files again (and that takes ages as well).
A real fast player in all aspects, I found, is foobar2000.

1 Like
#7

Look at this, Lol.
See how everything is frozen:

wmp2
wmp21152×849 181 KB

#8

Yes, that is what I meant.
When WMP is in that state, the only way out is to close WMP, watch the task manager that also the background process finishes and then start WMP again.
Now you will find a number of tracks with "unknown" tag data. Proceed with these as described above (delete, then restore).
The whole procedure has to be repeated until WMP has succeeded to read all the files at least once.
From then on, updates in tag data should be shown after a very short time, esp. if you have WMP open while tagging.
(Otherwise WMP will start to scan all the files of the watched folders which may take a while)

#9

It seems my method doesn't work always. I had to replace the HDD which was failing with an SSD, and now the WMP disgrace went back to acting up.

I noticed no matter how long you leave it updating the library with the 60k or so files, it will crash in the middle and nothing will work after that point (messy screens, play doesn't work).

Let me give your solution a try.

edit:
I was able to apply your solution, now waiting to see if it will work. There were circa 8700 files with unknown tags (artist or artist+title).

#10

The library folders are not being updated, even if I close and reopen WMP.
I can't find the Extra option on the menu as you had mentioned.

Ok, I actually found the option under a different menu. It's re-adding the files now.

Yes it did work!

#11

I too have always had the problem with loading a large library into WMP. But once done it should take much to update adding new tracks as your library increases after that.

For iTunes, I have a script that I was able to find that does a pretty quick job of updating the library. You can select specific tracks, or filter for those that you may have changed externally with mp3tag, and when running the script it will only check those tracks. But if selecting all in a large library (23k+ for me) it does take almost an hour to process them all.
Full credit to Steve MacGuire for this, the script is titled "UpdateTagInfo" simply enough. A quick Google search will find it (amongst many other very useful ones), if the link is not permitted and removed here. http://samsoft.org.uk/itunes/scripts.asp