Poweramp can see music files but unable to put them into folder / artist / genre /etc

[Stuart S]

Hi 

Recently started using Poweramp - paid version, on Android 12, When I originally installed it it took weeks before I could get it to show anything under Folders / Genre / Albums / artist / etc views but it did show all the music files.  finally it started working properly, up until the point I added some new music and its gone back to how it was, only showing anything under All Music. I have read the FAQs and everything looks OK. I have restarted and reinstalled I have scanned and full scanned 10+ times, tried with and without file legacy mode, has anyone got any tips on how to get power amp to be less flakey on the file scanning front?

Thanks

Stuart

[andrewilley]

It seems odd that you are still experiencing the same issues after a clear reinstall. The effect you are describing indicates that during the initial 'Full Scan', Poweramp is able to determine the folder/file structure on your storage (hence the basic filenames being visible after the first crawl through the directories) but not then able to read the content of each file to see the tag data for each song title, artist, album, etc. What happens if you try another Full Rescan afterwards (in Settings=>Library), what information do you see during the progress of the scan?

Where are your files stored, internal memory or on an SD Card, and within what master folder level? Are you able to successfully grant access permission to that folder in the Settings=>Library=>Music Folders screen? Do you later see the Folders structure, but only see filenames within each folder? Or is 'All Songs' the ONLY place you see any content at all? Will the songs play OK from there, and what you do see if you view Info/Tags from the menu while a song is playing? 

Andre 

[Stuart S]

Thanks for the reply!  The files are on a SD card in a top level folder called music, and I'm able to grant access via the Music folders screen. All Music is the only place I see any content and if I long press a track it will allow me to see info/tags. This morning the app seems to be in a constant loop of scanning, and selecting any category is very sluggish. I have previously been able to play tracks, but possibly due to this constant scanning it doesn't seem to want to today so I can't test if I can see info/tags whilst playing at the moment. I have elected to try another reinstall to see if I can get out of this loop.

There is a great deal of music on the SD card (30,000+) but if I use the android File app I can access and see all the files in a timely fashion

Currently the scanning messages have gone from "Folders 0, Playlists 0, Songs 0" to (after maybe 15 minutes) starting to count the amount of Folders / files - only getting so far then going back to "Folders 0..."etc. Even so I can see music in ALL Music even though I cleared the app data on the reinstall. I have restarted another full scan which is currently showing "Folders 0..." again

 

[andrewilley]

Sounds like something is corrupted in one of the subfolders and is breaking the scanner. Drastic solution would be to reformat the SD Card and copy all the audio files back in from their original source (PC?).

To test first though, try creating a new folder on your SD Card (e.g. "My Music") and copy (not move) one or two of the subfolders from your main "Music" folder into it. Then use the Settings=>Library=>Music Folders screen to assign permission for ONLY that "My Music" folder (and hence its subfolders too) and take the original "Music" folder out from the list. See if that then scans as expected or if you still have the same issues. I would suggest using regular Android file access first rather than Legacy Mode, but you could try Legacy mode if the regular mode still does not work. One other thing you could do is put an empty .nomedia file in that "My Music" folder, which will prevent the Android system scanner from also looking in that folder at the same time.

Andre

[Stuart S]

Thanks, I'll give that a go this evening 

[Stuart S]

I didn't need to try your suggestion in the end, after my last reply I tried a full rescan a couple of times and the last time the scan stuck with it and completed though it did eventually take 12 hours to do so. All categories are showing correctly and it is playing properly. I'm still a little unclear on what I did that helped rather than just persistence, but I'm not complaining!
When I come to add more music next time I might try adding a new top level music folder and save them in there instead of adding to the current one and see if that makes a difference. 

Thank you for your time and advice

Stuart 

Edited November 21, 2023 by Stuart S
coherence

[andrewilley]

30,000 songs is quite a few, but by no means excessive. For comparison, on my own mid-range Samsung Galaxy 54 with all music on an SD Card, my 8,700 song collection takes about 3 seconds to do the initial directory crawl, and then another 90 seconds or so for the rest of the Full Rescan. So 12 hours is clearly still showing you have some sort of storage access issue.

Andre