"Failed to play file" after updating to Android 13 / OneUi 5

[artacar]

Hello,

Poweramp build number: build-945-bundle-play [945004-2d535bbf]
Device model: Galaxy A52 5G
Android version: 13 / OneUI 5.0

After updating my phone to Android 13 / OneUI 5.0, I am unable to listen to any music on my phone using Poweramp, and I am getting a "Failed to play file" error on almost every file (which consists mostly of FLAC files). Other music players working fine, and playback worked fine using Poweramp before updating to Android 13 / OneUI 5.0

What I have tried:

• clearing the app data 
• re-add the music folder with giving permissions
• create a new folder and put all music in the new folder
• uninstall and reinstall app
• reboot the phone
• verify that all permissions granted to the app in Android settings
• turn on "File Access Legacy Mode"

Nothing of this has changed anything. Is there something else I am missing, or this is a bug?

[Larry 609]

Same boat here, as shown in this link. Library seems to read the files, and other players do play them properly, but Poweramp won't seem to for whatever reason.

I tried some older versions of Poweramp too, to see if that'd make a difference, but unfortunately not.

 

Poweramp build number: build-945-bundle-play [945004-2d535bbf]

Device model: Galaxy S21 Ultra

Android version: 13 / One UI 5.0

Edited December 7, 2022 by Larry 609

[andrewilley]

So both of you are experiencing the same thing - you can adjust the Settings=>Library=>Music Folders option to point to the folder or folders that contain your music (not to a root location) and you can grant access to them. Then songs are properly scanned into the Library - i.e. you can see all the Titles, Artists, Albums, song-durations, cover art, etc. But when you try to tap on any of those songs from a category list such as 'Folders' or 'All Songs', none of them will play? And you've also tried using File Access Legacy Mode?

And it was working fine before the Android 13 upgrade occurred? Have you both tried reverting Poweramp to its default (just-installed) options for Android 13, which could be done by deleting app data, and letting it re-scan? (I see @artacar has already done this)

What happens if you long-press on any song in the list and select Info/Tags, do you see the correct path details and tag info?

Andre

[Larry 609]

3 hours ago, andrewilley said:

So both of you are experiencing the same thing - you can adjust the Settings=>Library=>Music Folders option to point to the folder or folders that contain your music (not to a root location) and you can grant access to them. Then songs are properly scanned into the Library - i.e. you can see all the Titles, Artists, Albums, song-durations, cover art, etc. But when you try to tap on any of those songs from a category list such as 'Folders' or 'All Songs', none of them will play? And you've also tried using File Access Legacy Mode?

And it was working fine before the Android 13 upgrade occurred? Have you both tried reverting Poweramp to its default (just-installed) options for Android 13, which could be done by deleting app data, and letting it re-scan? (I see @artacar has already done this)

What happens if you long-press on any song in the list and select Info/Tags, do you see the correct path details and tag info?

Andre

After I deleted the app (and data), I reinstalled and selected the usual Music folders. I'm not sure of the difference between that and the "root" location, but I chose the usual one like normal. I had tried using an alternate location earlier today, but it didn't fix the issue.

After Rescan, the # of folders/playlists/songs show up under the correct numbers. However, when I go to the song view, it does not list the artist name, album art or length of the tracks... just the song titles. When I try clicking on a song, it'll show the "Failed to Play File!" quote before going through a few songs the same way, and then automatically stopping.

The long-press appears to show the proper locations (mine would be something like "primary/Music/My CDs/Various Artists/(Album)/(Song).mp3"). Hitting the file folder icon next to it also brings me to the proper file location in the phone.

It was working perfectly fine before the Android 13 update. It was only after the update was implemented that the problems started.

The FIle Access Legacy Mode has been chosen, but does not work, unfortunately.

Edited December 8, 2022 by Larry 609

[Larry 609]

Update: The music files finally show up after going through the "File Legacy" option properly. I went into the Library's music folders, as you said, and selected the "Music" folder again... just under Internal Storage "File Access Legacy Mode" instead of the second one listed, which was selected the first time I started the app.

I'm still unable to import the prior library/settings files though, which are located within that Music folder too. But the good news is that the files are showing up and playing again!

[andrewilley]

Yes, using the 'Music' folder is fine. What Android 11+ does not allow is selecting the whole of your storage area (i.e. without choosing any particular folder). I tend to set up my own 'Audio' or 'My Music' folder so I can avoid the default Music folder, as that system folder has a few minor restrictions placed upon it (e.g. you can't put a .nomedia file in it). But for most uses, 'Music' is fine.

The initial/ Full scanning process is in two halves. First PA crawls through the subdirectory structure of any folders you have designated, finding all of the contained music files. This is quite quick, probably just a few seconds. Then the longer phase two tries to access each one of those found files and read the tag metadata (Title, Artist, Album, etc). This may take several minutes, or even longer with large libraries.

If phase one worked, you will at least see the filename for each found song file. If phase two also worked (i.e. the contents of the files are properly accessible) you will see all the extra metadata information (Artist, Album, etc) instead of just the filenames. It sounds in your case like the directory crawl is working, but the files are not available via Android's Storage Access Framework for reading.

Andre

[Tana]

On 12/8/2022 at 4:02 AM, Larry 609 said:

Update: The music files finally show up after going through the "File Legacy" option properly. I went into the Library's music folders, as you said, and selected the "Music" folder again... just under Internal Storage "File Access Legacy Mode" instead of the second one listed, which was selected the first time I started the app.

I'm still unable to import the prior library/settings files though, which are located within that Music folder too. But the good news is that the files are showing up and playing again!

Thanks Larry 609, this worked for me! I did already try something like this before but dit not select the right directory under internal storage (with the legacy option). Make sure to de-select the other directory to avoid double files that still don't work.

[artacar]

I wrote a longer reply about a month ago, but it didn't get posted for some reason. The solution provided by @Larry 609 worked (thanks!) for making it work like before the Android 13 update.

For me it's unclear why it only works with the legacy mode (while other music apps work out of the box), and given the note on this option which says "The file access legacy mode won't be supported in the future versions of Android" this seems like only a temporary fix - until a future Android update breaks it. So I would wish there was a way to understand what is wrong with the "non-legacy" option.

[D.S]

"Failed to play file" after updating to Android 13 / OneUi 5

 

Whats the deal I just recently started to have this issue and I have clear cache uninstalled etc... Still get this "Failed to play file" with  Android 13 / OneUi 5

[andrewilley]

@D.SIs this happening with all of your music or just some files/folders? It most likely will either be app permissions having been revoked by the Android update, or the update changed some file access paths/processes.

Go into Settings=>Library=>Music Folders and ensure that your chosen music folder is enabled in the list. If it all looks fine, might be worth disabling it (to get to zero song/folders) and then going back in an re-enabling the correct location again. Make sure you are specifying a particular folder or folders, not trying to grant access to the whole root level of your SD Card (for example).  Note: this may remove any Ratings that you have defined, and also possibly cause issues with the content of playlists, so it would be a good idea to use Settings=>Export Settings/Data first so you've got a backup that you can restore later if you need to.

It might also be worth checking Settings=>Misc=>File Access Legacy Mode. Ideally on modern devices this should be turned OFF, but some people have more luck with it turned on (you'll need to re-specify the Music Folders permission after changing this).

Andre

[andrewilley]

Please see:

To summarise, sometimes the system's External Storage component can lose its normal access to files on Samsung Android 13 updates. Check the following:

• Go to Android Settings=>Apps=>(menu)=>Special Access - or just search for 'Special Access' and choose Apps/Special Access from the results.
• Tap 'All Files Access'.
• Tap the three-dots menu and enable 'Show System Apps'.
• Ensure that the 'External Storage' app in the list is set to 'Allowed'.

Then in Poweramp use the Rescan option in Settings=>Library (or Full Rescan if you wish) and check that all songs are now showing in lists with their correct title/artist/album/cover art/etc details.

Andre

[Marinorama]

Tried EVERY tip in this thread. Nothing works. Most titles in playlists were skipped as "failed to play". Other players handle them properly so they are not damaged. VERY FRUSTRATING... 

Besides: I'm on Android 10,  there had been no updates and until some weeks ago everything worked fine... 

[andrewilley]

@Marinorama  If you are talking about the contents of Playlists specifically (as you mention in your post) then most likely the music files that were originally being referenced have been moved somewhere in your storage - maybe filename changes, maybe folder layout changes. Playlists store the specific location of the each required audio file in order to find the music - and if the exact file is no longer in that location, it can't be played.

Do all of the problem song entries in your playlists show as their filenames only, rather than as Song Title/Artist/Album/etc? If so, try using 'Rescan / Resolve Playlists' in the three-dots menu of the main Playlists category view.

If you aren't talking about Playlists then this could be a different issue, and some more information on what exactly is happening would be helpful.

Andre

[maxmp]

@Marinorama try to send the log from Settings / Support (PM me here with the email you sent it from) - the actual error will be logged there. Thanks!

 

[Marinorama]

Looked at the m3u8 file: A lot of entries have no path. Maybe that is the explanation. Surprised though cause other players (Musicolet) were able to open and play all files in the playlist, even if there are only filenames without path listed. 

[andrewilley]

@Marinorama  Is this M3U8 file something that Poweramp has subsequently saved back to storage - perhaps after you've made some minor changes to it within the app? To verify, PA will have included extra rating lines with each audio file, in the format "#EXT-X-RATING:<n>". There was a bug in previous versions of PA which could break playlists in very specific circumstances if the database and the device's storage were not mapped correctly at the time of re-saving a playlist.

Each line in a playlist should either be an absolute path (i.e. the full path, right up to the top of storage) or a relative path (which may perhaps only list one of two folders deep, and those locations are expected to be based from the same folder that the playlist is saved in). In fact, relative playlists might not contain any folder information at all, just a fileanme, in which case the playlist.m3u8 file must be located in the same folder as the referenced audio file.

Other than those same-folder instances, Poweramp discovers and matches audio files in its database to playlist entries by checking the exact filename and the first level of containing folder. It clearly can't use the whole path, as the file might have originated from a PC or other source with a complexly different storage layout.

Perhaps you could paste a few lines from a playlist that is causing you problems?

There's a bit more discussion about how playlists are resolved in: 

Andre

[Marinorama]

Yes, they were exported from PA. So I guess something in PA broke them some time ago cause lot of entries lacking the path information  Some lines:

#EXT-X-RATING:0
20. Solar Fire                    .mp3
#EXT-X-RATING:0
01 - Baby Batter.mp3
#EXT-X-RATING:0
05. Never Said (Remastered).mp3
#EXT-X-RATING:0
/storage/B8A6-1518/Music/Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66 - Righteous Life (Official Visualizer).m4a
#EXT-X-RATING:0
/storage/B8A6-1518/Music/OnePlus/09. New Town.mp3
#EXT-X-RATING:0

Anything I can do to fix this? 

[andrewilley]

@Marinorama You are correct that this was caused by a historical bug which is now fixed, but the broken lost folder names cannot now be retrieved as they have been permanently overwritten in the physical playlist file. Sadly, unless you have another backup copy of that M3U file, there is nothing automatic you can do to resolve this now and you'd need to recreate it line-by-line adding the folder names manually.

To explain in a bit more detail, what happened would have been this:

At some point in the past, an unknown file-system issue during a rescan may have occurred meaning that some songs were temporarily not present in the music database, and thus any entries in playlists that pointed to those missing files became orphaned. In such a case, the playlist entries would have shown as just filenames (no artist name, album name, cover art, etc). The audio files would probably have reappeared as soon as the storage became available again, and thus would appear back in the music database as 'new' files after the next rescan, but the existing playlists would remain broken without any path details to the files.

If you had at that point run another Full Rescan, or Rescan / Resolve Playlists, the original M3U file would have been loaded from storage again and properly matched up with the 'new' files, and everything would have been fine. But until the orphaned playlist entries within Poweramp had been repaired, those broken entries presented a vulnerability. If you did anything at that point which caused the playlist contents to be written back to storage - something as simple as moving a song up or down the list, or removing a song, or even just long-pressing to open the playlist editing screen for viewing at one point - then the broken entries (audio filenames only) would all be written back to the existing file, erasing the original file contents. Once this has happened, there is no way to get back the original folder details.

Not that it's much help to you now, but the latest builds of PA should no longer do this. Even if a playlist is still missing some songs (maybe due to a moved folder or renamed song files) the contents of the M3U(8) file written back to storage will still refer to the originally-used path details, so any later rescan can recover the contents once the missing folders are back in place.

Andre

[maxmp]

@andrewilley thanks for the detailed explanation. I would add that recent Poweramp builds will try to resolve entries even without the last folder, only based on file name (if no folder part exists), though this may match wrong tracks (as some folders/albums may have just Track 01.mp3, Track 02.mp3 named tracks).

[andrewilley]

3 minutes ago, maxmp said:

I would add that recent Poweramp builds will try to resolve entries even without the last folder, only based on file name (if no folder part exists)

Certainly worth a try in this case, even matching up some of the songs by filename-only would be better than none at all. As you say, might be a few mismatches where titles are the same - e.g. same artist and song but from a live or studio album folder, collections, poorly named tracks, etc.

As I've not tried the new resolve feature, would this happen automatically on a Full Rescan, or only by using the special Rescan / Resolve Playlists option?

Andre

[Marinorama]

Yes, thanks for your explanations. Found a way to restore the damaged m3u8-files: Opening and importing them in Musicolet had the effect, that M. finds ALL of the listed tracks in the library (not only the ones with a correct path). Then I was able to export the imported M. playlist to a .m3u file - and when i copy this file into the folder where PA usually finds all those .m3u8 files then it can play again ALL tracks... ;)

[maxmp]

@andrewilley playlist scan happens when playlist is first time seen, on full rescan, or for in-playlists Rescan / Resolve Playlist header menu action.

[oskado]

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

[andrewilley]

54 minutes ago, oskado said:

Have a new S22+ running Android 13 on One UI 5.0 and cannot play any files, as described by many of you above.

Do the songs get scanned into Poweramp's music library at all? If not, you need to use PA Settings=>Library=>Music Folders and enable access to the specific folder or folders where your music is stored. Do not try to grant access to the overall (root) level, but to actual named folders.

If during the Full Rescan process (in PA Settings=>Library) you see the song and folder count increasing, but at the end you see only filenames in the list (but no Title, Artist, Album, etc) then check that you don't have the Samsung Android 13 issue where the Android system 'External Storage' app has been denied its required access permissions. Of course this should never happen to a system app, but somehow it does seem to occur sometimes:

If you still have problems, start the process from scratch by deleting PA app data in Android Settings and when you next run it, you should see a clean start. You can Export Settings/Data before you try this if you've got anything you want to carry over (playlists, ratings, etc) but it sounds like you haven't been able to get properly started yet anyway.

Andre

[oskado]

11 hours ago, andrewilley said:

Do the songs get scanned into Poweramp's music library at all? If not, you need to use PA Settings=>Library=>Music Folders and enable access to the specific folder or folders where your music is stored. Do not try to grant access to the overall (root) level, but to actual named folders.

If during the Full Rescan process (in PA Settings=>Library) you see the song and folder count increasing, but at the end you see only filenames in the list (but no Title, Artist, Album, etc) then check that you don't have the Samsung Android 13 issue where the Android system 'External Storage' app has been denied its required access permissions. Of course this should never happen to a system app, but somehow it does seem to occur sometimes:

If you still have problems, start the process from scratch by deleting PA app data in Android Settings and when you next run it, you should see a clean start. You can Export Settings/Data before you try this if you've got anything you want to carry over (playlists, ratings, etc) but it sounds like you haven't been able to get properly started yet anyway.

Andre

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.