Computer help forum: Recent downloads disappearing from WMP12

Hi Bob,
Unfortunately the first link is to my posting of this very question on the sevenforums.com site. I posted it yesterday but never got a response, which is why I posted it here today.

The other link is certainly similar enough to keep an eye on. I did previously attempt to do the same deleting & reinstalling of files as he described but it didn't work.

Thanks for taking the time to find these & respond. I've spent quite a bit of time these past few days searching online for answers & trying different things without any success. I really need to fix this, so hope you and others will join in with more suggestions!

Best,
Remy

You may be in one of those rough areas about file permissions. That is, if any title is not in your own folder you read where WMP runs afoul of file permissions. Find the missing item with Explorer then one that works and compare the "ACL" with tools and methods I'll link to in a bit.

http://www.computerperformance.co.uk/w2k3/utilities/cacls.htm

It's a shame you didn't tell what you tried because if you don't then folk may repeat the usual answer. Now that you told me you did the localdata delete I'm thinking ACL issues. But here's the rub. I can't fix that for you. It's user unfriendly to say the least.

There's a reason I don't use WMP. This is one of them.

Once in a while a member will lash out about Microsoft's apps, demanding others fix such for them. But as you suspect, even Microsoft can't seem to fix this one.
Bob

Thanks Bob. I didn't download any programs to do it, but did open and inspect all aspects of permissions (and everything else) within properties and everything is identical. I compared working & nonworking songs from the same and different locations, checked every advance & edit subfolder, but there are no differences as far as the properties & permissions go.

This is so frustrating! Why would an update cause WMP to go so haywire? I did everything the same as I always do. Nothing was moved outside of the music folders. Yet somehow WMP has stopped responding to all new files added into the music library since the update. Adding insult to injury, WMP just added my entire library of itunes podcasts (usually it will only add new ones, but I've never understood why it adds them at all).

I read through the entire second link you provided, about the missing video files, and he fixed it by resetting the library. This is exactly what I am hoping to avoid, having already done this twice in the past year. I suspect it's going to be the only solution, but am still holding onto hope that someone may read this and offer a different one.

Thanks again,
Remy

You did share a few clues.

1. You seem to have the collection in many places.
2. (guessing here) Video files are the ones that vanished.

The video clue is the best one. We know that WMP leans and depends on CODECS so if a codec has failed, the files that used that CODEC may vanish from WMP.

Take a good video and a missing one and see what CODEC is required. I'm going to note MEDIA INFO (see google) as one of the possible tools along with CODEC SNIPER to kill off the old CODEC and then go get a new one.

-> Again, all this is user unfriendly and I hope you see I'm dancing as fast as I can. Wish the maker of this system would try as hard.
Bob

Hi Bob,
I don't have any video files at all on my computer, only music. As I stated at the beginning of my first message, I've been uploading tracks from cds in an effort to rid myself of at least a portion of my truly massive cd collection. I only mentioned video because one of the links you provided was from someone who had a similar problem except his was with video files.

I keep all of my music files in one main folder ("music") with about 12 sub-folders inside. All 10K+ song files, nice and tidy and in one place.

Hope this helps! It's not that I'm purposefully holding information back, I guess I'm just not explaining things the right way, for which I apologize. I appreciate all your time and efforts, more than you know!

Remy

There are issues with WMP and many titles like that. http://superuser.com/questions/320142/windows-media-player-12-stops-importing-metadata-from-large-music-collections is one of thousands of posts that report the problem.

I've yet to hear if MSFT will be addressing such use.
Bob