Deleting a playlist without deleting the WMP database

[Chimel]

I made the "mistake" of deleting a playlist file manually, or more exactly, deleting a whole album folder I didn't care about that happened to contain the playlist, but the playlist still shows up in WMP left pane.
However, as many reported, left or right clicking it produces no action, as the physical file does not exist anymore.

Is there a way to access the WMP database or run some integrity check on it to remove the false entries?
Obviously the structure of the database is not corrupted, as WMP is able to retrieve these playlists from the database consistently, so it should be easy to just delete these entries, but I don't know of any WMP database utility to do so. Has anybody tried the WMP APIs in Visual Basic or something to see what actions work? Deleting a 3K albums database just for this ridiculous bug is really last resort.

This is a very bad WMP bug. I'm fine that it keeps the obsolete entries, it may allow to regenerate the playlist file if it was deleted by mistake, but I would expect at least the right-click Delete action to work, or some more contextual actions such as Restore when the physical playlist file does not exist anymore.

 

[speedgamer01]

try this:
Go into C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Media Player and delete all the files. That will delete your media library, and the player will re-scan next time you launch it. You may first need to go into services.msc and stop the Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service before you delete the database files.
source: How do I get WMP to rescan my media? - Neowin Forums

 

[speedgamer01]

sorry maybe this is a better solution (same webpage)
...use "Alt" to bring up the menu then "T" or click "Tools" | "Apply Media Information Changes"...

 

[Chimel]

@speedgamer01 Looks like you're the only person on Earth who knows what 'Tools|Apply Media Information Changes' does, even Microsoft doesn't or can't be bothered to document this cryptically named feature! ^-^
I think it's also run every time you launch WMP, but I ran it anyway (took about 40 minutes) after making a backup, and it did not change anything on the playlists. They are not 'media information' per se, so it's not surprising.

As for your other proposal, this is precisely what I want to avoid, see the thread's title. I really hate that the WMP library datase is not granular. It is a shame that users need to delete the whole database they spent dozens of hours to edit, just for 2 wrong playlist entries that are a result of a WMP bug in the first place...