Music Library sorting

I found that sometimes permissions can cause problems with Windows Search.

foreversilent004 said:

All of my music is properly tagged. I don't know why I can't see everything.

When you say that you can't see everything, do you mean that you see so few artists? Or is it because you don't see any details when in Folder view?

Perhaps if I show a few screenshots of my own music library.

1) Default "Album View"

This is my normal music library view, that shows each individual album.

2) Music Library, sorted by "Artists"

When I sort the library by Artists, this is what I get. I've highlighted "Adiemus" for clarity. It looks as though the is only on icon for that artist, but this is incorrect. Although the name of the icon is for the artist, the icon itself represents an album or albums for the artist. For example, if I go into "Alanis Morissette", I find 4 albums, not 4 songs:


3) Individual "Artist" album view

If I double-click the "Adiemus" icon in the screenshot from (2) above, then the view changes to show me the albums for only that one artist. If an album is that view is double-clicked, then I get the tracks for that album:


As you can see, all the tags are showing correctly. If in Windows Explorer you DON'T see tags for music that you know you have tagged correctly, then a few things could have happened here:

• You used Windows Media Player to perform the tagging of the files, but you have done so before the WMP Library was properly initialized, and the tags themselves have not yet been committed to the actual files. I wish Microsoft would do somrthing about this, because in my experience, even if the WMP Library is ok, it can take up to a minute to commit tag changes to the files. What I usualy do is edit the test-based tags first, and leave the album art for last. When I "Paste Album Art", it forces WMP to commit all changes.
• You edited the meta tags of the files in WMP, but you closed WMP before it had a chance to commit the changes to the files
• It may very well be a permissions problem that is preventing Windows Explorer from correctly viewing all files. Try this tutorial: Take Ownership
• You could also have a proble with your indexing options. Perhaps it is incomplete? Try these tutorials: Search Options, Windows Search.
• Worst-case scenario is that the ID3v2 block (in the case of MP3 files) is corrupt. This will results in the file being played properly, but any tags changes will not be able to be written at all, by WMP, Windows Explorer or even third-party problems. I discovered this myself recently after searching for a song in my library that I KNEW I had, but no amount of searching would find it, except by filename. So I used the LAME MP3 Encoder to re-encode the files, which also rebuilt the ID3v2 tag block in the files. I had to manually re-tag the music, but my problem was solved.

If I have misunderstood the meaning of your post, could you please clarify exactly what is meant by "you don't see everything"...

foreversilent004 said:

The problem is that I have about 100 GB of music and Explorer won't display them unless I sort by folder. I like your setup, it's what I'm trying to accomplish.

Winamp is my main music player and I use TagScanner to tag everything. Each mp3 of mine is tagged the same way.

Question: If you browsr the file using Windows Explorer (directly on the drive, not the Libraries), do you see the Tags displayed there? As I said, if the tags DO NOT show up in Windows Explorer, then the chances are that the ID3v2 part of the file is corrupted, and the only way to fix this is to re-encode the file.

Also, have you tried the taking ownership shortcut?

On other thing I've noticed is that you Music library is pointing directly to your "D:\". Did you re-locate your "My Music" folder there, or did you just add "D:\" to your library and remove "C:\User\USERNAME\My Music"? I moved the "My Music" folder to my K:, as shown here:


Maybe this has something to do with it?

I'm guessing you use WinAmp because you're old-skool and have grown to dislike WMP. This may come as a shock to you, but Windows MEdia Player 12 does a remarkably good job of managing music libraries and locating missing tag information. With the exception of it being a little slow to commit tags to file, it has taken me about a week to locate the missing information for about 400 or so albums in my library. I have also managed to REMOVE about 200 albums from my library after discovering duplicates.

It is unfortunate that many people are missing the advanced features of WMP simply because previous versions of the product sucked big time. In fact, poor performance of WMP in the past is what prompted me to write my own utility ("MP3 Media Properties Explorer") to manage the tags of my music. Now, with WMP12, MP3 Explorer has been relegated to secondary use for those rare cases where WMP i unable to find the album information, and I need to fallback to the FreeDB.org service.

Do you have Windows Search indexing all locations where you have your music?

foreversilent004 said:

I find it strange that only a select few albums are showing up when they are tagged all the same way..

foreversilent004 said:

Using Win Explorer, I can see all tags.

My music is located at 'D:\Music'

Music is indexed, I am rebuilding the index now.


And I do use WMP, but just for it's Play-to feature :)

When you say "My Music", do you mean the "My Music" folder, or My Music, and in your music?

Another thing. Is all your music files WMA and/or MP3, or do you have other file types, such as AAC or FLAC?