How do you rebuild the music library on the Droid?

[rlb]

When I first added my mp3s it seemed like the Music app scanned my SD card to find music files and built a library that way. Cool.

Now I've deleted some albums from the SD card (going through a music catalog re-organization) but the Droid still lists them in the library. Any ideas on how the library can be re-built?

I went into app manager and tried deleting all of the settings for the music app but that didn't work.

 

[Utzz]

Power down the phone and turn it back on. That's always rebuilt any lists that showed deleted items as still being there.

 

[qsg001]

Did you ever find an answer for this? I have a similar problem. Also, some music that is transferred to the SD card isn't showing up in the list of artists or songs, but is playable if I use the Astro file manager to browse to the song and play it that way.

 

[rlb]

Thanks, the power down did work.

However, I find it strange because I copied the filed directly to the SD card, so the phone was obviously off since I had to take out the battery to remove the SD card and copy the files to it.

One other notable step: I cleared all data from the music app (which seemed to do nothing when I did it) but maybe this coupled with the power-down was what worked

To clear the data from the music app:

From home screen go to settings>apps>manage apps

press the menu button, choose filter and show all

scroll down and select music.

Press the "clear data" option. You will get a warning that all data will be deleted blah blah

 

[rlb]

Did you ever find an answer for this? I have a similar problem. Also, some music that is transferred to the SD card isn't showing up in the list of artists or songs, but is playable if I use the Astro file manager to browse to the song and play it that way.

For the missing songs, is all of the tag data there?

I've been using a program called FUBAR for managing my tags and doing some serious re-naming. Its pretty powerful.

 

[qsg001]

All the missing songs appear to be there (hard to tell since I have so many), but now the list in the music player shows two and three copies of the same song. There is only one copy on the disk, but the library just seems to be confused. I cleared all data in the music app, and power cycled the phone, but multiple copies still show up in the library under "songs". Under the "artist" category, there is only one copy of the same artist.

Any other ideas?

 

[rlb]

I also deleted an album in the library (long press it) that I knew was no longer on the device before I powered off. worth a shot....

 

[rlb]

I did some more music updating on my droid, and the library fixed itself.

After updating the files, I powered on the Droid and I cleared all data in the music app as described in my earlier post.

Then I opened the music app and tried to play a song that I know had been moved/deleted

There was a little "spinning circle" icon in the upper right for about a minute. I'm assuming this was from the library being updated.

I then looked through my library and it seemed to be refreshed.

 

[moregrey]

Same problem, no success

I'm having the same problem. I've removed files under the Music directory on the SD card, and added others. In Music Player I only see the files that have been removed. But with Linda File Manager I can see the added files and even play them individually.
I tried clearing the Music Player's memory. I tried clearing it and shutting down the phone and restarting. I tried removing and reinserting the SD card. So far, nothing can convince Music Player to rebuild the list.
I love my Droid so far, but dang, Music Player may be the most cussedly stupid app I've run into on many a platform in a long time.

 

[rlb]

Did you try playing one of the removed files?

 

[moregrey]

Did you try playing one of the removed files?

I did, and it immediately pops back to the main screen (the Artists/Albums/Songs/Playlists screen) with the message, "Sorry, the player does not support this type of audio file."
I was hoping to get that rebuilding action mentioned above, but no joy.

 

[rlb]

It was annoying for me too...I guess I kept hitting the secret sequence of actions by luck. Like the Contra code.

If there was a way to browse the internal phone memory (has someone figured this out?) we could probably find & delete the library.

 

[moregrey]

If there was a way to browse the internal phone memory (has someone figured this out?) we could probably find & delete the library.

That's what I was thinking-- somewhere there must be a magic file that needs to be deleted and re-created. I hope someone can figure it out and post the results!

 

[RosarioM]

I had the same issues. A friend of mine told me about SDrescan (in the marketplace). I just tried it and it works great! No need to restart.

 

[moregrey]

I decided to try using the free Motorola Media Link software and see if that worked. I deleted the Music directory on the SD card and used MML to sync some tunes from my hard drive to the phone. It worked fine; all the tunes show up on the phone. Interestingly, they're in the Music folder on the SD card, right where I had tried manually copying files.
So I don't understand how Music Player decides when to refresh its lists, but I have a working solution.