Where's my music? - Samsung Galaxy 3s not finding music on SD card
January 18, 2015 10:55 AM Subscribe
I have a Galaxy 3s. I've been using the Google Play music app to listen to music but using the Windows Media Player to rip CDs and sync to my phone. I've been storing music on my SD card. The music is there on my phone but the app doesn't seem to find it when I search for the name. I am sad because those vital tunes are not available while i'm on the go!
I've downloaded some music to my computer and syned to the SD card on my phone. When I search for it using the Google Play Music app doesn't find it. When I try re-syncing, Media Player tells me it's already there! and if I search the music folders on the SD, I see it there and I can click and play it using the Samsung app (which is terrible to navigate so I don't use it.) What's weird is that some things sync and some don't!
What's the best solution to make sure that everything I download or rip from a CD gets onto my phone where I can listen to it?
Should I ditch Windows Media Player and switch the the Google Music Manager? Tweak some settings?
I've downloaded some music to my computer and syned to the SD card on my phone. When I search for it using the Google Play Music app doesn't find it. When I try re-syncing, Media Player tells me it's already there! and if I search the music folders on the SD, I see it there and I can click and play it using the Samsung app (which is terrible to navigate so I don't use it.) What's weird is that some things sync and some don't!
What's the best solution to make sure that everything I download or rip from a CD gets onto my phone where I can listen to it?
Should I ditch Windows Media Player and switch the the Google Music Manager? Tweak some settings?
I would replace that sd card ASAP. They're just a few dollars and small problems like this can be signs of imminent breakdown. Or not. It depends whether $10-$15 is in your budget and if you store other important things on it.
I had some weirdness with mine in a GS2 a while ago and soon after I lost a bunch of pictures that I really wished I hadn't. It happened to be in a 4 day period that my Owncloud server was down while I replaced a motherboard. Better safe than sorry!
posted by dozo at 4:10 PM on January 18, 2015
I had some weirdness with mine in a GS2 a while ago and soon after I lost a bunch of pictures that I really wished I hadn't. It happened to be in a 4 day period that my Owncloud server was down while I replaced a motherboard. Better safe than sorry!
posted by dozo at 4:10 PM on January 18, 2015
There are a confusing variety of music apps for Android. Adding to the confusion is that the Google Play Music app:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.music&hl=en
is not primarily for playing music off the local storage of the phone - it's for playing music that you own in Google Play Music:
https://play.google.com/music/listen?u=0
If your music is not in the web app there, I don't think the android app will be able to play it. There are two solutions:
1) get another music app for your phone. There are lots. Most of them play music off the device.
2) upload your music into Google Music, and then tell the app to make it available to play offline (this is not difficult).
I do #2. It works great for both offline play of my most favoritest music, and online play of my entire music collection.
posted by contrarian at 4:20 PM on January 18, 2015
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.music&hl=en
is not primarily for playing music off the local storage of the phone - it's for playing music that you own in Google Play Music:
https://play.google.com/music/listen?u=0
If your music is not in the web app there, I don't think the android app will be able to play it. There are two solutions:
1) get another music app for your phone. There are lots. Most of them play music off the device.
2) upload your music into Google Music, and then tell the app to make it available to play offline (this is not difficult).
I do #2. It works great for both offline play of my most favoritest music, and online play of my entire music collection.
posted by contrarian at 4:20 PM on January 18, 2015
Have you tried shutting down phone and turning it on again while the SD card is inserted? My Galaxy Nexus doesn't have an SD card, but if I manually copy MP3s into the music folder they won't show-up in the music player until I restart the phone. I guess there's some task on start-up to look for music files.
posted by duoshao at 5:29 AM on January 19, 2015
posted by duoshao at 5:29 AM on January 19, 2015
What version of Android are you running, and have you recently upgraded? I forget which recent version it was, but at some point, Android made it a lot harder for Apps to access files stored on an SD card.
posted by radwolf76 at 7:00 AM on January 19, 2015
posted by radwolf76 at 7:00 AM on January 19, 2015
The Google Music Player ("Play Music") will happily play music from the SD card right up to the current version. Sure, they want you to buy music from the Play Store, or upload all your music to the Google cloud and use the App to play your music from there so that you're even more dependent on Google, but it's quite happy to index & play music stored locally.
It's possible that the App doesn't like files with bad or non-existent metadata tags - I haven't tried it with untagged mp3s. Might experient & see what happens.
posted by pharm at 4:26 AM on January 20, 2015
It's possible that the App doesn't like files with bad or non-existent metadata tags - I haven't tried it with untagged mp3s. Might experient & see what happens.
posted by pharm at 4:26 AM on January 20, 2015
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posted by pharm at 11:28 AM on January 18, 2015