WMP Library Corrupted - No Solution Has Worked

[book1245]

I know there are hundreds of threads all over the internet that are about a corrupted library in WMP 12, but I've tried every solution I came across, and after not getting the right answer in Microsoft Answers, I turn to Seven Forums to see if there's anything I've missed.

First, the actual problem. In my WMP 12 library, there are several albums/artists that are grouped in as "Unknown". I import all my music through iTunes as MP3 files, so they can easily be opened in WMP. The very reason I care about WMP's library is that sometimes it's just faster to open, so I like to keep that in order (also I'm very anal about all my files being in perfect order everywhere ). I noticed the "Unknown" problem pretty recently, so I ran the troubleshoot, and it told me that the library was corrupted.

Every actual MP3 file and folder are in order and in their place in the library, and present. The quickest solution seemed to be to go to Tools and click "Restore media library". It seems to work alright until it gets to a certain point, after which any number of albums will be sent to "Unknown". Trying the process again never has the same results, and different albums end up in the purgatory.

I moved on to other solutions provided, such as going to the AppData and deleting the files associated with WMP and letting the library rebuild itself, only for it to continue. Also tried going to "Turn Windows features on and off", turning WMP off, restarting, turning it back on, restarting, rebuilding, but nothing.

The last thing I just tried today was a Microsoft Fix It, which completely refreshed WMP as if I had just opened it for the first time on the OS (selecting which types of files to associate it with, setting up a store, etc.). It began to rebuild my library but ran into the same problems.

Also if it's worth mentioning, when rebuilding the library, once it runs into "Unknown" songs, every time I maximize WMP, the window won't fully load. It's difficult to describe but it won't show certain things unless I mouse over them.

I would greatly appreciate any help about this, if there is some solution or guide that I've missed.

 

[NoN]

Depend how much files WMP 12 have to treat. It can be very slow for it to set "unknown" to the right name folder, as it search online the infos to display correctly the files. (if you have set it to do it, but it is by default anyway)

You should try to let WMP open for a while a wait patiently it does update your files.

Once in a time if you see things goes right, just close the player then reopen it. it'll refresh the search.

 

[book1245]

I had long since turned off the feature to get information for the library from the internet, as it seemed to change some of my iTunes information. If music was updated by WMP, then in iTunes the song info would change, or it would add gibberish comments, or delete my album art.

Now if there's some combination of settings that would allow WMP to get info from online, but not mess with my MP3 file settings like that, I'd turn it on in a heartbeat!

 

[NoN]

I had long since turned off the feature to get information for the library from the internet, as it seemed to change some of my iTunes information. If music was updated by WMP, then in iTunes the song info would change, or it would add gibberish comments, or delete my album art.

Now if there's some combination of settings that would allow WMP to get info from online, but not mess with my MP3 file settings like that, I'd turn it on in a heartbeat!

Have a look again at the options in WMP12 and see the tab "Librairy" and set how you would like WMP12 to retreive the infos from internet. There's not many alternate solutions for WMP not changing the iTune settings.

Unless you're creating another folder for some files and make WMP pointing to this folder to see if it does update correctly

 

[book1245]

I've been toying with a few "Unknown" albums, and for those sampled, changing the ID3 tag from 2.2, which I always went with because that was what iTunes seemed to do on its own, to 2.3 made the Unknown albums show up perfectly in WMP.
I think I once thought that changing them to 2.3 messed up some of the information (like blanking out the "Encoded with" information), for whatever reason.

I also know absolutely nothing about ID3 tags, but from googling, it seems like the consensus is that 2.3 is much better to use than 2.2, so I'll try converting all my music, one album at a time, of course, just in case, to 2.3 and see if everything gets resolved.