oskado

Thanks. I had a look by connecting to a PC and did not see any backup file in this location, so I guess it was never generated. So be it, I will start fresh, maybe not so bad, except had a very well organised playlists and ratings for my library of over 30k tracks. I tested a backup on the phone of my wive (she's also using PA, on an S22+, Android 14) and had no issues, and was able to navigate using the above screen, save the backup-file, and retrieve. I have Android 12 on an S10+. Anyhow, I will see if the fresh PA re-install continues with the issues that I had: lost ratings and the mis-sorting of latest albums in the library. Cheers.

Thanks, but I cannot find any file with this name using the file explorer app I normally use, and then search, nor if I do a new 'Export Settings/Data' and then search (after the re-install of PA). Also, when selecting 'Import Settings/Data' no file is shown, nor can I navigate anywhere from this screen (see screenshot). When re-installing PA, I select File Access Legacy Mode to allow me to select the specific 'Music' folder containing the library, is this something that is causing this issue? Thanks.

Hi, the OP again, please don't give up on me just yet 😔 With the issues above continuing, and the more loss of song ratings (thumb up), I uninstalled and reinstalled PA. Before doing so, I did 'Export Settings/Data' selecting all tickmarks, but mainly concerned with keeping custom playlists and ratings. Now after reinstalling PA, selecting music folder, and scanning library, and all good, how do I re-import settings/data? When selecting this option in Settings, then clicking the 'Select File' optio, no file is shown for re-importing, nor a way to navigate to such a file. Will I ever get my ratings and playlists back? Thank you.

Hi again, just to add to the above and it may help, and it also argues against that this has something to do with file-system effects. If I go to the 'All Songs' group, and do the same sorting exercise, only the sort by 'By date added to library' behaves like described above (incorrect sorting), but not the 'By date added/modified (file system date/time)'. This last sorting is correct, ordered as it should be. Cheers, Oskar

Hi again, the OP here. Sorry to come back on this but this is very peculiar and I would like a solution. As suggested above by Andre, and I was also thinking, it looks like there's some modification to the file or the path so PA sees it as a new item. However, I've checked the file paths and all file dates, including parent folder dates etc., and nothing indicates that there are any changes, or that there are new file or folder dates assigned. The last example was this weekend; I added two new albums with the same artist to the Music folder. It's a new artist in my Library so I created a new folder for that artist in Music (in Android, using the My Files app by Samsung). The organisation for all songs in my library are Music > artist > album > songs, which is very typical. Just after adding these two new albums using this organisation, totally unrelated albums appear as more recent, than the two new ones just added, in the Album group when ordered 'By date added to library'. These are 9 albums, 8 of which are with the same artist (see figure). This suggests there could be a file change at the Artist level since these are all the albums I have with these two artists. When checking these paths and dates at all levels (from song file to album to artist) they're all from 4 years ago, so no changes in file dates anywhere that could explain this. I even re-ordered the Album group several times using different criteria, and then back to 'By date added to library', without any success. On the figure you can see eight Genesis albums and one by Donna Summer, all 9 appearing ahead of the two new ones just added with Laetitia Sadier. Hmmm. thanks. Oskar

Thanks. So if I understand correctly, it seems these issues may arise from some file changes that occur outside of PA. I'll do some tests and report back. Maybe change the way I import songs and albums into the library. It would be interesting to know how people are generally doing this.

Thank you Andre. No, unless Android does some file arrangements without any user intervention, but if so, many people would have the same issue I presume. The only thing I do is to add new folders (from a Mac usually via Google Drive) containing (the new) artist, album, and songs, using the Android My File app. This is the only "edit" I do to the Android Music folder. The old albums that suddenly show up as new, or loose their rating and links, etc., are not necessarily albums in the same artist folder as the new album I've just added, but totally non-relevant artist/albums from the next level up in the folder hierarchy. Thanks

Hi team. Love PA and use it constantly, it's the best non-streaming music app. I have 3 annoying issues, maybe related, but I cannot see that they are. As I've not seen anything on this in the forum, it's perhaps me doing something wrong. First, the info part: a well organised PA library of about 200GB on an S10+ running Android 12 (One UI 4.1). The PA is a paid-for ‘build-976-bundle-play’. The phone shows that I have both the 'Poweramp Full version Unlocker' and 'Poweramp Music Player (Trial)' installed. I normally manage my files using Samsung My Files app, basically to put them into the Android Music folder, sorted by artist > album > song, then PA scans (only the music folder) for adding to library. All songs have well maintained tags, using either Mac Music for mp3 and m4a or MusicBrainz Picard for flac, both on a Mac. The 3 issues with PA I have: 1) Ratings are lost (I use the thumb-up type). Some songs that have been rated thumb-up loose the rating, sometime single tracks from an album, but most often all songs that were rated in a particular album. Somehow I feel this is more frequent for flac than mp3, but it happens for both, and also other file-types. As a consequence, the number of songs in the 'Top Rated' category drops by dozens of songs all of a sudden, and this happens frequently. 2) I like keeping recently added albums on top of a list for quick access to new albums, and for this there are at least two solutions I’ve been using, the Poweramp own ‘Recently Added’ category ordered by ‘By date added to Library’, or use ‘Albums’ and sort by ‘By date added to Library’, and tick ‘Reverse’ to get the new albums on top. This was working wery well until I started having albums that were added to the library months or years ago starting to appear on top in both cases. I was thinking that Android was messing up with file-dates, as Windows sometimes did, with PA sorting them as newly added albums, but when looking at the assigned file dates, this is not the case. So why does PA mis-sort these albums as newly added? 3) I like using PA playlists, but all of them have had songs un-linked from the song in the PA library, thus just remaining in the playlist as a filename without any link to the parent file thus cannot be played from that playlist. This happens frequently and does not seem to be linked to the problems above. It requires deleting (should rather say ‘Remove’, right?) the entry from the playlist, and adding it again. Not feasible when you have long playlists, or a lot of them. I've been having these issues for about 2 years now, thinking an update may fix it, but all problems are still occurring, and in fact all 3 problems are getting worse. Thank you for your help.

Thank you Andre. This is what fixed it. Basically, to turn back on Android system 'External Storage' app permission. I would have never thought this was the problem since all music files are stored on the phone and are not externally stored (and having no issues accessing files in general on external SSD). I'm not sure why this was off, since it had started fine initially and then not working all of a sudden. If it happens again I know what to do. Best.

Have a new S22+ running Android 13 on One UI 5.0 and cannot play any files, as described by many of you above. This is the case for mp3 and FLAC. Occasionally I can play a file when selected directly from the folder (internal or external storage), and then selecting PA as the player, but this is not the way to use PA as it loads only a single song. I've tried all suggested solutions above, even moving music files to a different folder, played with permissions, legacy mode, rescan, app reinstall, etc. It's frustrating since I've liked PA and use it constantly, with over 25k song library. My old 10+ with Android 12 on One UI 4.1 works super well. Is there an incompatibility issue or is it something else? cheers

Hi there. I have a question and a comment for ratings in PA (I'm using unlocked full version, build 945, on S10+). PA is the best music app on Android for sure and I really like it. I chose to use thumbs-up/down for rating tracks, but what happens if I switch to stars? Will thumbs up be changed to 5 stars or what? Also, I've noticed lately that many songs have lost their rating (thumbs-up) which is annoying since I rely on this a lot. Is this a known bug? I don't see much on this, so wondering if it's common or not. I somehow feel it happens more with FLAC than mp3, and it happens repeatedly with some tracks. Is there a max number of thumbs-up that can be used for the library perhaps? I have about 2k thumbs-up out of about 20k tracks total. If this does not happen for star rating, then I want to switch but I'm wondering how it will be converted (hence the question above). Thanks!