XP/Vista tutorials (w/pics) for Music & Album Art Issues

thanks i am using this guide for my top zune probs thread i will quote u

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Zune 30 Black

A lot of people seem to be having problems with tags, try out my forum that is listed in my signature. I have done it this way myself and it is pretty much a basic step by step process so even those who are new to this can try to do it. I was just as afraid as some people were on here so I refused to change folders, delete data and all that stuff. Last time I did that, my computer got seriously messed up. It is a long forum that I have written to explain (the best I could) the steps that I did and it's in simple terms. Now my zune has right tags, and right album art without any songs syncing multiple times so please check it out

If you have any questions on what I posted, leave a comment on that forum and I'll answer you =]

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"You can pay for school, but you can't buy class"
---Zuning since December 2007

Thanks.  That fixed these issues BUT what about the feature to find new art and song titles.  The old version I could hit update album and it would go online and I could choose the cover and have t fill in the names of all the tracks for me.  Way quicker than typing.  This new version seems to have that?  What can I do to get the easy way going again?

Is it just me, or do I have this crazy idea that this software is by far the WORST P.O.S developed for such an outstanding mp3 player.  The player itself  is nearly flawless, but right now I HAVE A F*CKING BRICK thanks to this POS software.  Half of my ENTIRE LIBRARY is labeled incorrectly thanks to this glorious piece of software.  The Zune Software is so horrible that you honestly wonder why it has all these auto-features which are meant to HELP you, but instead nearly all of them screw you over in the end. Someone please explain to me why, after this software being out for a considerable length of time that, there is no working fix for EVERY problem created by the mixed tags?  Why don't they release a new update to fix all this, esp. since they "Care so much, and We LOVE You."  Great product Microsoft, you just forgot the most important thing however in using this product, software, which odly enough - your company was largely founded upon the concept therof.  Major rep points are being lost in respect to the Zune.  I trusted you microsoft, now you make me question my loyalty to the Zune.  My tags are wrong because of you.  I have Wasted Hours of my time trying to fix this, hours that I could have used to flawlessly listen to my library of music on your Zune Player, which I spent $250 dollars of my earned money on.  For the price tag, there should be NOTHING wrong with this player, period.

I'm having a very similar problem.  One album had been listed under Unknown Artist and I've gone through various steps to try to correct this with no success.  I have changed the particular album so that the artist is Tom Waits, the album info is correct and all of the other infor is correct.  When I look at it under List view in my collection, everything is there correctly.  When I look at it under Browse mode, the first 19 tracks are still in Unknown Artist and the last track, track 20 is where it should be, under Tom Waits and in the correct album.  I have absolutely no idea what is different about that last track.  I have tried mp3 tag editors and the works and for the life of me I cannot fix this problem. 

I tried this.  It wiped out my collection in the Zune software.  It should be simple enough to put it all back in, but instead all it does is make the now-empty software freeze up.  What do I do?  Please help me, this is terrible.

 StreetChariot wrote:

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NOTE: It has been suggested by many users on the forum that you disable the "Update Album Information" option under Settings...Collection... You will find it at the bottom of the screen below the file paths for music/videos/pictures/etc.
Do this before you follow the steps below.
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If you Have Windows XP:
Screen Shot T.....

Blah...Blah...Blah...

***   Thanks again to everyone who has helped contribute to this forum.

Oh, and before I forget, I do not work for Microsoft, I'm just an avid Zune fan, and want to see the player succeed. :)

Listen.  If you plan on posting something, please test it first to make sure that it works.  This doesn't work.  The Zune software is recognizing something other than ID3 metadata and using this to compile it's database for my music library.  I've gone through numerous Various Artist albums now that have 1(one) artist and nothing changes.  The only thing that your 'fix' did was delete most of the album art that I had changed.  Thanks.

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www.dazzleblab.com | www.ratemyeverything.net | www.clikked.com | www.noahwass.com

I agree with Yami.  The only thing that the Zune Media Collection Reset tool did was change the ZuneStore.sdf file into a ZuneStore.bak file.  Tricky, tricky!  That's stupid.  It doesn't fix a GD thing.  And I'm still stuck with going through and trying to tell the Zune software that Natasha Bedingfield is not a Various Artist.  Nor is Lupe Fiasco.  WTH.

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www.dazzleblab.com | www.ratemyeverything.net | www.clikked.com | www.noahwass.com

That Zune Album Fixer thing Microsoft made doesn't do a single thing!  Reseting doesn't help...at all.  It keeps spliting albums that should NOT be split!  WHY DOES IT KEEP DOING THIS!?  I'm serverely disappointed in Microsoft's stupidity when it comes to making a stupid media player.  Why can't we just use something else to put stuff on it, instead of glitchy, annoying, user-murdering Zune software!?  Even WMP11 would be better then this piece of!

If you were not using the old (Ver 1.4) software I do not think you will have the currentdatabase_365.wmdb file.

If you were using the old version are you sure you have the folder view set to show all hidden and system files?

Sorry you are having issues, it is a great device with bad software (that will be updated) when you get it working.

From the fine folks at zunerama.com this is the best collection of troubleshooting links I have found. http://zunerama.com/forum/index.php?topic=5040.0

Let us know how you make out.

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Welcome to the Social! Help if you can, Console if you can't or Be a Troll and call others a Moron if you are that awesome

I was able to follow the tutorial very well, thank you.

However I did not have a currentdatabase_365.wmdb  file?  is this a problem?

Thanks

Use Windows Media Player 11 to rip your CDs to your library.  The Zune software will pick up the changes.

Look at your tags with Mp3Tag ... especially with album art, sometimes there are MULTIPLE album art files in the song file, and the Zune only picks up the first one.  Mp3Tag allows you to see when there's more than one, and let's you delete anything that isn't correct.

WMP 11 allows you to get and set the art (including pasting).

Then, to ensure that the Zune software sees the change, the file you need to rename to *.old, is

C:\Documents and Settings\<your user>\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Zune\ZuneStore.sdf

After you do this, and restart your Zune software, you'll need to re-do the pairing of your Zune device with the software.  Once it does that, it'll resync things, and voila, things should work for you.  At least that fixed the problems for me.

I still use WMP11 to rip my CDs though.  I only use the Zune software to sync, to be honest.  And I haven't run into nearly as many tagging issues as I've seen others on here do.