Develop Bugs

[Q] HTC Music Player doesn't do well with WMA files after Android 2.2 update

Hello everyone,
I have an issue that is driving me CRAZY, and I hope some of you are having the same issue...or at least suggestions for how to fix it. I am running the new Android 2.2 update on my Evo. (It's just the normal, plain software from Sprint/HTC...nothing custom, none of that root stuff...just regular).
I always keep a few gigabytes of music (in WMA format) on my SD card. I noticed that after the update, the HTC Music player would no longer recognize (and sort) the music by Artist or Composer. The only things it could identify about each file were the Title, Album, and Genre. I miss the option of browsing through my music by Artist and/or Composer. This was not a problem with Android 2.1, but it is now. I even tried deleting all the music from my SD card and re-syncing it from my PC...same result. I also tried music from a different PC...same result.
So here's what I discovered this morning: If I convert my WMA files to MP3s, then the music player works just as before!! It recognizes all the ID3 tags within each file. This is a big problem for me. First of all, my music library is nearly 40 GB in size, and I do not want to have to convert EVERYTHING to MP3 before I sync. This is tedious and unnecessary. Secondly, the original specs/documentation of the HTC Evo state that it supports the WMA file format. I made sure of that before purchasing, because it was one of the big factors for me in making the decision to switch to Sprint and the Evo.
Does anyone have any suggestions for how to solve this problem? I'm about to call HTC now and complain. Thanks.

Why are you so attached to WMA? IME/IMHO it's not a very good format because the quality of the mp3 format is a little better plus the DRM that gets embeded in the tracks. Every track that I have *ahem* acquired or even recorded myself has time bombed on me at some point. I should be able to play the music I record at any time!
/Rant
Don't take what I said too personally. I'm just pissed off at Microsoft. That said, I do not know what is causing your files not be played back properly as I do not have any to test.

Just a guess but, perhaps the new player in froyo doesn't read id3 tags from wma files correctly.
sent from my HTC evo

Well, that wasn't the purpose of this post, but since you asked...
I've been ripping my CDs to my hard drive for about 10 years now. Windows Media Player made it sooo easy to organize my music library. Way back in the day, you could only rip to WAV or different varieties of WMA. To rip to mp3, I would have had to use a different program, or purchase a plug-in for Windows Media Player. Only in the last few versions has Windows Media Player had the "rip to mp3" option built-in for free.
When I originally started my collection, I read about the differences between WMA and mp3. I got the understanding that the two formats essentially offered the same quality and features, but WMA generally used about half the file size for the same bitrate. So I chose WMA and stuck with it all this time.
Even when I buy music from Amazon or iTunes, I've gotten in the habit of converting it to WMA...just for consistency.
I just got off the phone with HTC, who says they haven't heard of this issue before. I was advised to perform a factory reset. But if I can't resolve the issue soon, I'm considering just converting every piece of music I have to mp3. (Sigh). But at nearly 40 GB, and various bitrates, who knows how long that could take!? (Sighing again). I wonder what program could handle that amount of music all at once. And I pray it won't screw up all the ID3 tags and the ratings I've so carefully given.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App

I have a couple of WMA files on my SD card. They have always been listed under "Unknown Artist" along with a few mp3's.
when I click on unknown artist, the files show up listed under their correct names. When I click on the wma files (both by the same artist), they expand into individual file names.
After updating to 2.2 nothing has changed. Everything works normally. That would suggest HTC's advice may work for you.
On another note, don't you love it when you post a question, and the first response is, "I don't know how to help, but I don't like that kind of file anyway, and neither should you!!!

Hmmm...and your WMA files were never fully recognized? Not even on Android 2.1? Interesting. I guess I'll attempt a hard reset tonight, or maybe tomorrow.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App

I had the exact same issue and can report that a hard reset had no effect. I'll be looking to convert my library to mp3 as well. Froyo has its quirks.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App

Wow!! Thanks, pstar...I was literally 3 minutes away from starting the hard reset process and restoring everything. What is we gon' do? :-(
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App

helpwithmy8525 said:
Wow!! Thanks, pstar...I was literally 3 minutes away from starting the hard reset process and restoring everything. What is we gon' do? :-(
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Here's an idea: Go into a Sprint store with your Mini SD chip and see if they'll put in in another Android phone. See if it exhibits the same issue.

Good idea. I might try that tomorrow.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App

ptsar said:
I had the exact same issue and can report that a hard reset had no effect. I'll be looking to convert my library to mp3 as well. Froyo has its quirks.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I couldn't resist finding out for myself; I also tried a hard reset, to no avail...
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App

Funny, my wife is using the rooted stock froyo, first leaked build and all wma look fine with embedded art using HTC player. I am using cyanogen latest nightly and it still can't read wma tags at all. But I do like playing with the new DSP settings--worth the switch. As a workaround I converted the wma to mp4 and they read just fine.

I'm surprised anyone had success with wma on any version of android. For me, on 2.1, wma files wouldn't play (but a few DID, which confounds me to no end). Now on rooted 2.2, I experience the same behavior. Just for fun, I used astro and simply renamed the file type of some wmas to .mp3. Surprisingly, it seemed to work. I thought I was on to something. Then I tries that with some Audioslave songs. No worky. So probably the ones I did 'get to work', were some of the few that for no discernible reason, to me, already worked.
I would like to hear more about this issue, actually.

Its a problem in Froyo with both WMA and AAC encoded files. Reported in Google Code, so please go there, sign in to google, then star the issue so it gets some attention:
http://code.google.com/p/android/is...ag&colspec=ID Type Status Owner Summary Stars

music & sd card / memory

I've been trying to figure this out on my own for a while and haven't made any headway. I have about 3gb of music on the internal memory and about 10gb on my 16gb memory card.
In general I am having trouble getting all of my music to be seen and to play. In the HTC music player most if not all of the albums show up, but are missing songs and the like. DoubleTwist doesn't see any of the songs in the internal memory and has the same issue with not seeing all of the songs on each album. The cubed media player shows 89 albums of "unknown" artist that contain a bunch of the songs that aren't showing where they are supposed to, but have a length of 0:00.
All of the music appears when I browse the card in astro.
I've tried using SongBird's FolderSync to copy the music and I've used doubleTwist, along with just dragging and dropping the music folders. It seems no matter what I have some set of the same issues.
What are people doing to actually get all of their music to copy and play properly?

me too...finally someone else who is seeing the same issue....EVERY 2.2 ROM has done.this and it DID NOT group almost everything into an (UNKNOWN) artist folder ...
I've noticed no media player will read artist folders properly..root explorer and astrology...(file managers) have no problem seeing the files and the proper names its just the phone and its media reader
1900 songs on my media card and 1700 of them are grouped as unknown makes media player almost unusable...
Also I've noticed that if u are looking at artists and go to album view it even reads those and orders those properly but still lists them as unknown artist
anyone have ANY insight would be awesome
Sent from my ADR6300 using XDA App

I have spent about 2 days now tagging and retagging my music. I have about 2700 songs all on my internal storage and was upset when it went from being mostly, properly, sorted to all "Unknown Artist". I tagged and retagged and then tagged some more. I changed the album art and double checked all of it time and time again. I've formatted the memory, restarted the phone, flashed an updated ROM and have yet to figure it out.
I am currently using Virtuous 2.5. I had the issue using Virtuous 2.1 and 2.3 and Adrynalyne's Third Wave (but not his FrankenROM). It's pretty annoying. I am hoping that someone can shed the light on this issue. I haven't heard many people talk about it, but it is one of my main issues with 2.2 thus far.
I guess that I'm lucky to have a main gripe be something as trivial as the way it sorts the media, though.

Glad I'm not the only one, but really, did re-tagging help? I don't have the time to do all of that. A lot of my files won't even play, even though they appear on the card in Astro and have a reasonable file size. They show up in the media players as 0:00 length.
Anyone have any success? Is this a 2.2 issue? It occured on SkyRaider 2.5.2, 3.0, and the latest Virtuous ROM.

fastandlight said:
Glad I'm not the only one, but really, did re-tagging help? I don't have the time to do all of that. A lot of my files won't even play, even though they appear on the card in Astro and have a reasonable file size. They show up in the media players as 0:00 length.
Anyone have any success? Is this a 2.2 issue? It occured on SkyRaider 2.5.2, 3.0, and the latest Virtuous ROM.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The extensive tagging did nothing. It made me feel better, because I know that everything is right, but little more than that.
It seems like it is a 2.2 issue of some kind, I'm just not sure of where or what it is. Which is why I came here. I don't see many other posts concerning this issue, so I assume we are either a minority or are missing something very simple.

I just looked through my music more closely after a new sync using the new version of doubleTwist. It looks like the HTC Media Player is not seeing the first 4 or 5 tracks of my albums on the SD card. It looks like it is seeing most of the music on the internal memory.

fastandlight said:
I just looked through my music more closely after a new sync using the new version of doubleTwist. It looks like the HTC Media Player is not seeing the first 4 or 5 tracks of my albums on the SD card. It looks like it is seeing most of the music on the internal memory.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I ran a Media Go (some piece of garbage Sony syncing software) and Windows Media Player sync today. I synced them right over the top of each other, hoping that at least one of them would work. I see a lot of album art and I see a whole lot of songs, but for some unknown reason the Artists are all "Unknown".
Every. Last. One.
I have them split into albums and I've got plenty of songs that seem to be set up properly and have the art that goes with them, but under the "Artist" tab, it refuses to recognize. I never had this problem when I first got my phone and I am sure it has something to do with the newer ROMs.
Again, I don't see many people talking about this... so, I have to be a minority or an idiot. Maybe both. Hopefully I can get the problem fixed. I'm going to go on a tagging spree and try to get a dozen or so songs working so that maybe I can spend another couple of days getting all 2700 or so songs working. =(

Alright.
I did some digging. It turns out that there are either more people with EVOs or they communicate far better than the Incredible community, because I found several threads pertaining to issues similar to this with the EVO.
Thread 747895 right here on XDA.
Android Central has a post about a similar issue - (32456) problems-music-player-after-update under the Droid Incredible section.
Basically, it looks like WMA and AAC files refuse to acknowledge their tags, properly. Sorting them by song name or into folders by album seems to help a little, but the tracks still seem to have issues recognizing artists and track numbers.
There are other problems, apparently, but these seem to be the ones mostly likely upsetting my music player.

Tagged for
Experiencing the same PITA
TIA

I first documented this issue here, but did not have info at the time that is also affects AAC files:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=773905
Go to the google Code reporting thread, sign into google, and star the thread so it will get some bloody attention.
http://code.google.com/p/android/is...ag&colspec=ID Type Status Owner Summary Stars
Update - I discovered that the doubleTwist player will read the ID3 tags properly, so it is obviously not depending on whatever item in Froyo is messing this up that the other players are. The one downside is that it currently does not ignore ring tones, alarms and notification tones stored on the SD card. This is supposed to be addressed int the next upcoming version.

timehunter said:
Update - I discovered that the doubleTwist player will read the ID3 tags properly, so it is obviously not depending on whatever item in Froyo is messing this up that the other players are. The one downside is that it currently does not ignore ring tones, alarms and notification tones stored on the SD card. This is supposed to be addressed int the next upcoming version.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Using Songbird 1.8 and the MSC plug-in, I transcoded my library to OGG and it is working perfectly. DoubleTwist no longer sees any music, but the HTC player is working well and cubed seems to be running well, except for not seeing any music on the internal memory.
The bug is clearly in how the music players are reading the MP4 files from iTunes. F-ing Apple.

WP and Zune

I'm curious what the general consensus seems to be on WP7 users being forced to use the Zune software (as opposed to whatever they currently use on their computer, such as itunes). Do you think this creates an obstacle that may prevent some potential WP users from buying a WP7 device?
Zune software, for me, has been pretty buggy, sluggish, and problematic. The microsoft zune website only installs the 32 bit version - there's no option for the 64 bit version. I'm not sure if that's the reason for the app running so lamely on my computer and sucking up 20% of my i5 cpu.
Also, using the Zune software requires you not only to reorganize your music library, but to re-rate everything differently due to it having a completely different and limited 'ratings' system.
If Microsoft is interested in making things easy to use, adapting to their software should be as easy as possible. Zune is too big a change from the big music players currently being used by almost everyone.

Zune has been the best transition I've made in a long time. Windows media player is buggy and kinda does what it want, iOS is ram-hungry and too... Apple... i don't know how else to put it. Zune as a whole has been a clean transition and the first music player that almost seems like it knows me.

The transition hasn't been hard for me neither. But my music library is only around 7 gigs big.
My problems with the zune software are the following:
- Autoplaylists not as robust as in itunes. Cannot organize to your liking (only by some of their options).
- Autoplaylists refresh visually (they flicker every 5-6 seconds) and if you scroll down too far in a playlist, items appear as "not found" until the playlist refreshes itself and finds the files. This may sound confusing, but I'm basically saying this: Autoplaylists are very buggy.
-Uncustomizable UI (big fonts, lots of unused space, tons of marketplace links hogging up space).
-App takes up around 170mb, compared to 80mb for itunes. It also hogs your cpu (my i5 is at 15-20%, no matter what 'display' setting I have enabled)
-Cannot sync with anything but a zune or WP. Now that zune is discontinued, this software is officially only good for windows phones.
-Cannot tweak playback volume of individual songs, like you can in itunes.
-Cannot set start/end points, like you can in itunes.
-Cannot edit MANY id3 tag fields, such as comments.
-UI is sluggish compared to the basic text-based itunes UI.
-No global hotkeys - aside from next, previous, and play/pause, there are no shortcuts you can hit when the app is not in focus (such as change media player volume, fastforward, etc).
-When minimized, app toolbar flickers between song name, artist, and album. This is distracting. It should simply display the song title in the toolbar, and thats it. No blinking please.
-No minimize to notification area feature.
-Scrolling up and down too fast or too far is slow and stuttery. I've tried this on different computers that are more powerful and this is just how it is.
-The rating system.
-Disliked songs shouldn't play in a mix unless you manually click them (similarly to unchecked songs in itunes).
-Liked and 'unrated' songs are considered the two positive ratings, while dislike is the negative rating. this is weird but fine. However, if you sort songs by 'rating', it sorts Liked->Disliked->Unrated. What sense does this make?
-The 'check for updates' button doesnt work. Sends me an error. I've reinstalled the app twice now.
-Cannot show date of song, date added, etc columns in ANY of the apps views, other than the 'songs' view. Really irritating. You cant change the order of columns in anything other than 'song' view as well.
This probably isn't the place for this, but thought I'd flesh out why Zune isn't ready to be a proprietary app for a leading smartphone. Zune fans may put up with this, the same way itunes fans put up with itunes on Windows. But the masses won't.
Itunes works great on macs. Zune should work great on Windows. Instead, it feels like I'm using a flash app on a website.

i was using zune before i bought my phone, enough said

I don't even need half of the things op has men..tioned
Sent from my OMNIA7 using XDA Windows Phone 7 App

And I don't need any cable sync.. I am happy with cloud. Period.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1106841
Sent from my OMNIA7 using XDA Windows Phone 7 App

I am using this ****ty app so can't really post long but I will try to answer some of your questions...
I am guessing you are not a Zune pass user... Cosif u use zunepass you will never feel the need to edit id3 tags.
And the concept behind loving or disliking a track is to make ur personalized picks more accurate... The more tracks u like, more accurate picks section become...
UI is visually based and not font based... Gone is ur need to edit fonts... UI is designed so that u browse collection by album ar
Sent from my OMNIA7 using XDA Windows Phone 7 App

I never said I'm against the rating system. I'm saying its got only 3 levels whereas a normal rating system has 6 (the 5-star rating system).
Also, I edit IDv3 tags for songs I already have because the Zune software is only able to sort auto playlists by idv3 tag data.
This will be the case for other people who are importing their entire library from itunes/winamp/whatever to Zune.
That is the whole purpose of the topic. People moving OVER to zune.
Also, the pass is not an option for everyone depending on where you live. Again, this is not itunse - Zune has no right demanding proprietary status imo. It's not up to the task, especially for users outside of the US

Browse albums by their art covers...
You can arrange songs/albums/artists alphabetical or by date added added... There com the date you were asking for... I don't know if it shows exact date or not.. But if you select arrange by date added.. Than your most recently downloaded album is on top...
Sent from my OMNIA7 using XDA Windows Phone 7 App

To you above 4 replies, about the 'sorting'.
This is basic sorting that has been around for forever. Sorting by date in album view is not new, nor not at all what I was talking about. Perhaps reread the post so you're more informed with what I was saying. That would be a good way to go about responding to a topic
Does anyone with some experience with other music management apps have anything to say?

I personally find it brilliant, looks really cool as well with a nice easy UI e.g. big chunky text and its really smooth.
I like the way on the now playing screen you have a giant wallpaper of your albums etc.
Half of those things in that big list someone mentioned sound utterly pointless to me, I mean no global hot keys? Who really needs that. I thought thats what a mouse is for.

I also use itunes on my pc as I have an iPad but I hate the interface
Sent from my TITAN X310e using XDA Windows Phone 7 App

I once had over 70g of nicely organized music UNTIL I got a 20g Zune mp3 player and was forced to use the Zune software...now I've got 120g of mixed up crap.
Zune's a piece of junk, I prefer to use MediaMonkey.

Why you need the 70g of music stored on your PC when you have it all nicely organized on zunepass cloud system for you and you can get it anytime you want and delete it back again...
I don't think Zune desktop is a music collectors device... Its an application to play music, not store and organize your music collection..
I threw away my 60GB of old tiesto collection once I found zunepass... It already has a better better music collection than why I had collected from torrents...
Subscribe to zunepass... And you will see that you are spending more time in listening to music than organizing and collecting it.
Sent from my OMNIA7 using XDA Windows Phone 7 App

???
Not sure I don't mind zune but my issue is not being able to sync with Outlook. I hate the cloud and would perfer to keep my contacts and calender info on my computer not out in the air for any hacker to find on microsoft. I use it because I wanted to upgrade to WP7. If there was a way to sync with Outlook(not Outlook Connector) I would.

Purple11 said:
Why you need the 70g of music stored on your PC when you have it all nicely organized on zunepass cloud system for you and you can get it anytime you want and delete it back again...
I don't think Zune desktop is a music collectors device... Its an application to play music, not store and organize your music collection..
I threw away my 60GB of old tiesto collection once I found zunepass... It already has a better better music collection than why I had collected from torrents...
Subscribe to zunepass... And you will see that you are spending more time in listening to music than organizing and collecting it.
Sent from my OMNIA7 using XDA Windows Phone 7 App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1. zunepass isnt worldwide.
2. if it is proprietary, then it MUST be up to the task of managing your music library, since it will be replacing itunes, wmp, winamp, and so forth.
3. Cloud requires constant data connection. Again, you're missing the point and living in a bubble.
This proprietary software doesn't have any business being proprietary. It's a great piece of software but it is not up to the task of being run worldwide on people's computers with full support and features.

guyver76 said:
Not sure I don't mind zune but my issue is not being able to sync with Outlook. I hate the cloud and would perfer to keep my contacts and calender info on my computer not out in the air for any hacker to find on microsoft. I use it because I wanted to upgrade to WP7. If there was a way to sync with Outlook(not Outlook Connector) I would.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
even so, email by defintion is cloud. when you email someone their contact and email info is whittled away to the cloud. The cloud is just a fancy term for how modern computers work anyways. So if you're worried about hackers on MS servers, you'd best not use the internet to communicate as any sort of data set over the internet can be intercepted.

well... you DONT have to use it.
i got a windows phone and sometimes i use it but usually i use jetaudio, the only reason for using Zune software for Windows Phone its for updating windows phone AND drag and drop music i want in my windows phone. after that i only use it because i want to.
i use it because its nice, it got a nice interface, and of course its not like you have to use everything from it, like, i use mp3tag to fix some music tag i got. but still you could find tag info from internet with Zune.
but only because you have Windows Phone, automatically you cant use some other player. its only for synching and updating not for playing music or fix tags if you don't like it.

If you want your mp3 player to be synched to your computer, with the same playlists and everything, you have to use the same program. WP doesn't allow you to sync with your winamp playlists or itunes playlists or so forth.
Yes, you could just plop files into your WP in an unorganized fashion if you like. Clearly that isn't the point of view of this thread. Come on now

Smart Playlists in Zune kind of suck compared to iTunes

[Q] Coming from Iphone - 2 questions

Hi everyone,
i just switched from an Iphone to the One X and i'm super happy with the hone, much better than the Iphone in most departments. There are only two things that bother me right now and i was wondering if there are solutions for them or at least upcoming software mods:
1. i have a great headset, the Sony XBA2-ip, with integrated Iphone controls, which I really want to keep. Right now I've gotten the play/pause button to work by downloading the headset button app. However the volume up/down buttons dont work and I cant seem to find a n app that will enable them. Is it impossible to make these buttons work?
2. The One X is a great phone for watching HD videos, esp. with Dice player. However I'm limited to 4GB file sizes when i transfer. I realize this is a limitation of the FAT32 formatting of the internal memory. What i wanted to ask was if there are ROM mods that allow to bypass that limit?
Thanks in advance.

I don't know the head set your referring to, however try some different players like power amp, winamp and n7 player and see what results you get, failing that a mod could be created but specifically for your headset i'm guessing that it won't happen so I would guess that there isn't a way around it, unless theres an app to map buttons to controls from within the device, u might get lucky, google it.
Not too sure about the 4GB limit, personally i've never had to transfer something so big onto a phone, if it's one file then i can only assume it's HD content, what i would do is split the file into smaller chunks using video editing software at least until a work around is in place.
Welcome to android by the way, it is better by the way More freedom, something apple knows very little about.

Also depends on the file systems that are natively supported by your PC's OS. Some custom ROMs will probably try try to format the internal storage into ext4 but it's not natively supported in Windows XP I think. By that I mean if you plug it into your pc, it won't recognize it as a USB Storage. I think Windows 7 supports ext4, but I think you need some driver updates or something. Ext4 has a much larger file size limit

I think PowerAMP is the most powerful one with lots of options and wouldn't be surprised to see it supporting those volume keys.
I'm wondering about 4GB limit too, hoping there is a workaround or maybe custom ROMs will solve it. Most of my files are 4-9GB in size.
But as long as I'm in range of my network, DicePlayer plays them brilliantly over the network, I use ES File Explorer to map my LAN drives.
For players that are not able to play from networked drives, the solution is to use CIFSManager which mounts networked drives as a local subfolder, fooling player apps into thinking they are playing local files. DicePlayer doesn't need that workaround.

Thanks for all the info guys. I will try these solutions and will report what happens. Hopefully once custom ROMs start popping up many of these problems will be resolved, esp. the 4GB limit, it must something many users are struggling with...

just testing this theory but it should be possible to take the file that is bigger than 4GB, use a program such as winrar to split it into 2 or more files so that they are small enough for transfer, then use unrar from the play store to unpack them.
A long method, but a decent one when given the limitation of a fat filesystem.
Hopefully i'll confirm whether this works as soon as i've had chance to test it.
EDIT: I realise this won't work unless there is a media player that can play files straight from part-rars... don't know of any with this feature.
An alternative would be to split your video file into so many parts and just put them in a queue when watching.

Thanks for the extra info.
FYI, I tried different music players (DBpwoeramp, Winamp) and headphone apps and none of them even see my volume buttons. I did some more reading on the forums and it seems no one has ever found a solution for this. it sucks cause my headphones are great...
On the 4GB file size front no dice yet but I remain more hopeful that it will be fixed once people start tinkering with the file system.

i dont know if it will work but archos fans forum has a program that seems to split hd movies that will play
heres the thread
http://forum.archosfans.com/viewtopic.php?f=63&t=42082
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
im gona give it a shot when i have a few moments spare.

Hi everyone,
just wanted to update this tread to say i found a partial solution to the headset problem. I downloaded the free Jays app that controls headsets and mapped volume up/down to long keypresses of the main button. It's not perfect but at least i regain most of the missing functionality, and i dont have to change my headset (as i mentioned I really like the Sony headset).
Now if the ROM developers could find a solution to the 4GB limit (fingers crossed), I'd be all set.

great find on that headset app, i was about to buy headset control but jays is free!

Just got Pixel XL how come it's not playing my M4a files?

I've been a long time android user but for the last 6 months went with the iPhone 7 plus just to try something different, long story short iPhone failed me so I decided to give the pixel XL a try. I love it but I acquired a lot of iTunes music over the past couple months and for some reason when I put them on the Pixel no matter what player I try it wont play them. I have tried Poweramp which was always a favorite, blackplayer, stock google player and nothing seems to work. Any ideas? I have googled the issue and it seems the Pixel can play M4a so what's going on?

rbtrucking said:
I've been a long time android user but for the last 6 months went with the iPhone 7 plus just to try something different, long story short iPhone failed me so I decided to give the pixel XL a try. I love it but I acquired a lot of iTunes music over the past couple months and for some reason when I put them on the Pixel no matter what player I try it wont play them. I have tried Poweramp which was always a favorite, blackplayer, stock google player and nothing seems to work. Any ideas? I have googled the issue and it seems the Pixel can play M4a so what's going on?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi... Maybe a DRM issue? iTunes purchased music is protected and can only be played on a device having the same iTunes account no?
Good luck...

Ya, I thought they got rid of that years ago. I know Apple used to do that but the files work on all my other devices like computer, laptop, but I guess it's not the biggest deal. I converted them to MP3 and now they work fine.

I don't think Google Play Music (assuming that's what you're using) supports .M4a natively. You could upload them using the music manager or try a third party app. VLC tends to play just about everything.
https://support.google.com/googleplay/answer/1100462?hl=en

rbtrucking said:
Ya, I thought they got rid of that years ago. I know Apple used to do that but the files work on all my other devices like computer, laptop, but I guess it's not the biggest deal. I converted them to MP3 and now they work fine.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ah... Strange. Still it would be better to get them working without the need of reencoding once again. It certainly kills the audio signal a bit more.
Hopefully you'll find a way to play the originals
AJZ12 said:
I don't think Google Play Music (assuming that's what you're using) supports .M4a natively. You could upload them using the music manager or try a third party app. VLC tends to play just about everything.
https://support.google.com/googleplay/answer/1100462?hl=en
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Strange, he alsp tried also Poweramp. Playstore description says it should play m4a. Apple certainly did something here...

5.1 said:
Hi... Maybe a DRM issue? iTunes purchased music is protected and can only be played on a device having the same iTunes account no?
Good luck...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In theory, only files downloaded from Apple Music streaming (.m4p files) should be affected by DRM protection. .m4a files should have no issue on Poweramp.
This doesn't mean Apple didn't do something to encrypt the .m4a files so they can only be played on Apple devices. It wouldn't surprise me. This is a big reason why I don't really like Apple products. Apple pretty much tells you how to use the device and almost force you to use it that way just to try to lock you in their ecosystem.

AJZ12 said:
In theory, only files downloaded from Apple Music streaming (.m4p files) should be affected by DRM protection. .m4a files should have no issue on Poweramp.
This doesn't mean Apple didn't do something to encrypt the .m4a files so they can only be played on Apple devices. It wouldn't surprise me. This is a big reason why I don't really like Apple products. Apple pretty much tells you how to use the device and almost force you to use it that way just to try to lock you in their ecosystem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's right boy am I getting sick of there crap! Honestly I am HUGE into music and consider myself an audiophile and get a lot of my music in either FLAC or WAV directly from CD and the iPhone was always very picky about what WAV files it would support and it doesn't support flac at all, wont even let you transfer it to the device. I've had instances where I would go to my music library and ALL the music that I hadn't bought from iTunes would just be GONE out of the blue. I googled it, and it turns out it's a very common issue and even the guys on macrumors suspect's it's a tactic by apple to get you to only use iTunes purchased music on their devices.

AJZ12 said:
In theory, only files downloaded from Apple Music streaming (.m4p files) should be affected by DRM protection. .m4a files should have no issue on Poweramp.
This doesn't mean Apple didn't do something to encrypt the .m4a files so they can only be played on Apple devices. It wouldn't surprise me. This is a big reason why I don't really like Apple products. Apple pretty much tells you how to use the device and almost force you to use it that way just to try to lock you in their ecosystem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not surprised at all. Since Poweramp is supposed to support m4a, it's definitely an issue with Apple. I remember 10 years ago when my wife had the first or second iPhone and i had to convert songs in mp3 or flac to aac or whatever format to play them. Now she uses my ex N6P :angel:
rbtrucking said:
That's right boy am I getting sick of there crap! Honestly I am HUGE into music and consider myself an audiophile and get a lot of my music in either FLAC or WAV directly from CD and the iPhone was always very picky about what WAV files it would support and it doesn't support flac at all, wont even let you transfer it to the device. I've had instances where I would go to my music library and ALL the music that I hadn't bought from iTunes would just be GONE out of the blue. I googled it, and it turns out it's a very common issue and even the guys on macrumors suspect's it's a tactic by apple to get you to only use iTunes purchased music on their devices.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Now you're free to play whatever you want on your phone :good:
(Except original m4a Apple files <-- sarcasm )
Cheers...

rbtrucking said:
That's right boy am I getting sick of there crap! Honestly I am HUGE into music and consider myself an audiophile and get a lot of my music in either FLAC or WAV directly from CD and the iPhone was always very picky about what WAV files it would support and it doesn't support flac at all, wont even let you transfer it to the device. I've had instances where I would go to my music library and ALL the music that I hadn't bought from iTunes would just be GONE out of the blue. I googled it, and it turns out it's a very common issue and even the guys on macrumors suspect's it's a tactic by apple to get you to only use iTunes purchased music on their devices.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And with the development of USB-C and the state of modern hardware, lossless file formats will actually be lossless on phones instead of just a waste of space. Most apps converted lossless files to lower bitrates while playing and if the app didn't, the DAC did.
It's ridiculous. In my eyes, Apple looks like they are making desperate attempts to hold onto as many customers as possible by making it as inconvenient as possible to switch to a different platform. iOS is lagging behind Android now in settings menu organization and overall functionality, and I think they know it. I'd use to have to root a phone just to do some of the things an iPhone could do until the OG Moto X, which was the last phone I rooted and that was only for hotspot access when I had my original unlimited Verizon plan. I have lost interest in root access on my daily driver now that Android does everything I need plus more. I thought I'd root my 6P once I experienced a limitation but there wasn't ever a time with the 6P that Android let me down (besides a software-based noise canceling mic issue but Google replaced the phone for free because of it). I didn't even root the only Nexus phone I ever owned and still haven't seen the need to root the Pixel.
I was using my friend's old iPhone while I was waiting for my replacement 6P to arrive and ran into so many inconveniences that I kept asking my friend if I could jailbreak it. He didn't want me to so let's just say it was a horrible experience. You can't even put the cursor in the middle of a word to correct a typing mistake unless you use the magnifying glass long-click thing or the spacebar slide feature on the keyboard. On paper, the functionality of iOS and Android is "closer than ever" but the little things make a huge difference.
P.S. iTunes is absolute garbage. It's the modern day Windows Media Player. I feel bad that iPhone users are basically forced to use it to transfer music from a computer to the phone.