Xbox music app issues

[mrdeezus]

I have a surface and windows 8 pc. I have cloud settings turned off and every time I load app it says its downloading music!!! I have installed all my paid for music in my xbox music folder for local listening. I would like someone to explain to me why this is happening? Also id like to hear from some Zuners what they think of the xbox music app because to me it has a lot of work to be done to it before it comes close to Zunes functionality. Thanks

[TrevorLahey]

Xbox Music sucks so far! They've got a lot of work to do. I am kind of regretting switching to Windows 8 on my PC.. I wanted to get my music to the cloud so I could connect to it on my xbox. (I know you can stream directly from PC but you don't get all of the visuals when you don't play from xbox music). I believe they've taken away song ratings which really ****es me off. It was so easy to create auto playlists for songs that I liked.

Anybody know if we'll be able to stream music that we've purchased from the cloud to the xbox? Or are we going to have to pay for a subscription to listen to music that we may have already purchased?

[~Johnny]

(I know you can stream directly from PC but you don't get all of the visuals when you don't play from xbox music).

If you use Play To from Windows Media Player in Windows 8 with the new 360 dashboard, it gives you a good number of the visuals as the music gets streamed to Xbox Music rather than the dashboard media player.

[Guest xiphi]

They definitely need to bring back a LOT of functionality that Zune had. I'm surprised there's no way to change the sorting of music when viewing by artists in your own collection. It just defaults to songs which is lame. It's also sluggish when it has a few thousand songs compared to Zune which handles it gracefully. There's no obvious way to change the position of the song. There's no "my picks" in the marketplace that shows relevant results. No Social, which was "removed" from Zune, but is actually still functional if you don't restart Zune after a fresh install. If it weren't for the free streaming, I wouldn't even use the app.

[TrevorLahey]

Microsoft really needs to get there stuff together. Everything they release they remove features from the previous release! They did it with windows mobile to wp7, now zune and xbox music. Why remove features?!

[coresx]

Yeah, truly awful app.

Microsoft need to vastly improve apps.

All they do is make me use desktop ones and despise the modern apps. Not a great start.

[scumdogmillionaire]

They just put an update out to this app. Hoping it fixes some of the BS. Cloud Sync is obnoxious so far.

[duddit2]

Got to agree, its lacking a lot of functionality and basic things like custom sorting etc.

I'm simply still using Zune though until its fully functional.

[KRazpopov]

I haven't used Xbox music since Windows 8 RP. I was very disappointed with the lack of features in it back then, and looking at what the current version is like, my opinion on it hasn't changed. It's seriously lacking in options, and still looks very much incomplete to me.

I'm surprised there's no way to change the sorting of music when viewing by artists in your own collection. It just defaults to songs which is lame. It's also sluggish when it has a few thousand songs compared to Zune which handles it gracefully.

These two points have especially got me not very happy. If the comment about the performance being sluggish is true, then it probably wouldn't handle too well on my end, considering I have something like 3600 songs. That, and the fact that selecting an artist just lists the songs,and not the albums is a big letdown, as I've grown a custom to Zune's three column layout: artists, albums, songs. Heck, the music+videos app on Windows Phone 7 lets you view artist albums, not just songs.

Xbox music just feels like something that's only designed to be used as a basic music player, and only on tablets. As long as Zune works, I'm probably going to stick with it.

[spudtrooper]

App just got updated on Rt for me.

[TrevorLahey]

There is a little bit of improvement as far as performance IMO, but they have a long way to go!

[THolman Veteran]

I can't speak for using Xbox Music as an all around media player (I've got other apps for that), but so far I'm really liking the streaming. There seem to be fewer ads than the other services, and there are some songs that Spotify doesn't have. On the other hand, I've also noticed that some of the ads are a bit longer... 30 second full screen video ads in a music app = bad

[Scirwode]

I too have issues with the Windows 8 Music App. Because I'm in Malaysia, I get even less access to Xbox Music and though all my Music already have ID3 info, it keeps replacing the info with low res Cover versions! It's so frustrating!

Scirwode

[NiGhtPiSH]

I personally don't like the playback experience and sound quality. Sure it looks shiny and the design is cool, but as my music is mostly lossless it just doesn't cut it for me.

So I'm sticking with good ol' foobar2000.

[RichardAZ]

Does anyone else search for a song they have locally and when they play it, get the 30 preview on Xbox Music? What happened to free streaming? Why are half the songs only the preview version? And why is there no visual indication that a song isn't available to listen to? I think this app is only an example for third parties to come in and replace...

[Guest xiphi]

Does anyone else search for a song they have locally and when they play it, get the 30 preview on Xbox Music? What happened to free streaming? Why are half the songs only the preview version? And why is there no visual indication that a song isn't available to listen to? I think this app is only an example for third parties to come in and replace...

This is another issue I have with the app. Searching has become a pain. One of Zune's best hidden features was that I could quickly go to an artist just by typing as long as the artists column was active.

As far as the 30 second previews goes, that entirely depends on the artists and record labels whether they want to allow it or not. I have encountered that same issue, though.

[drewho]

so far the program is useless for me, no matter how i tag my albums it mixes them up, gets the wrong tracks and then multiple versions of the same album, in fact it even deletes stuff if it feels like it. :(

i give up with it

[pinTero]

I'm wondering, is there any way to quickly get back to the Home Screen, to access My Music and stuff. When i'm doing multiple searches and reading artists bios, i have to hit Back tens of times to finally return Home. There has to be a better way .. or there just is'nt. :s

And there definitely isn't any way to see or even edit the Now Playing playlist!?

Who the hell wrote this app? You can add songs to current playlist, but you can't see them or edit them in any way. This kind of simplicity is torture.

It's a shame actually, because the music collection is awesome..

[Cloud Geek]

My biggest problem is missing podcast features http://winsupersite.com/window...one-8-tip-enjoy-podcasts-go I enjoy the free streaming the responsiveness of the search charm searching over wifi to find music and everything else I just miss the podcast features from zune and from what I have read you can't install zune software on windows 8.

[Guest xiphi]

My biggest problem is missing podcast features http://winsupersite.com/window...one-8-tip-enjoy-podcasts-go I enjoy the free streaming the responsiveness of the search charm searching over wifi to find music and everything else I just miss the podcast features from zune and from what I have read you can't install zune software on windows 8.

That's a flat out lie.

[MorganX]

Xbox Music sucks so far! They've got a lot of work to do. I am kind of regretting switching to Windows 8 on my PC.. I wanted to get my music to the cloud so I could connect to it on my xbox. (I know you can stream directly from PC but you don't get all of the visuals when you don't play from xbox music). I believe they've taken away song ratings which really ****es me off. It was so easy to create auto playlists for songs that I liked.

Anybody know if we'll be able to stream music that we've purchased from the cloud to the xbox? Or are we going to have to pay for a subscription to listen to music that we may have already purchased?

Yes and no. Yes, it does. No, it doesn't always. The streaming service, the matching service, and the music app are in development IMO. There's a multitude of issues. I think it has lots of potential but I would not have RiTM. IMO it's beta quality.

[TrevorLahey]

App was just updated last night again... I didn't seem to notice any difference with my PC..

[TrevorLahey]

Here's a Microsoft Community/Answers post about a WHOLE list of issues with Xbox Music. More people should get onboard with this.

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/winphone/forum/wp8-wpmusic/master-list-of-issues-with-xbox-music-on-wp8/b1c64834-de43-4af6-8069-4626090289a3