yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] titi66200:
Works on lumia 830 denim Update 2
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] demon2112:
Its international and not locked,with a freshley installed denim
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] mcosmin222:
I checked with a few lumia 930 denim users, none of them report the problem.
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] mcosmin222:
I noticed that when using other players, like xbox music or VLC, the app bugs out and works very slowly in general. The black screen will eventually be filled by the UI (the app didn't crash, it just works very slow). This is either a bug in the OS, or the other apps don't play well with the shared background audio player.

Restarting the phone fixes the issue.
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] mcosmin222:
You will have 1 in the next update BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUT

I do not guarantee all setups will work properly. The UI will also not be user friendly. It will be dedicated to "power users" only.

5 and 6 will also be done.
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] anatoli_k:
I'm looking forward! Thanks a lot! :good:
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] anatoli_k:
Can the view be swicthed from the tree view to the current one if randomized or reorder buttom clicked?

Alternatively, can the list contain items like "#. Artist/Title"? (I understand, there is no room for album name there). It would be easier to overview the list then.
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] mcosmin222:
The problem is, that now playing list always reflects the order in which songs. Grouping and other stuff can be difficult to pull off and confusing for users.
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] mcosmin222:
The update seems stable. I will upload it on sunday. I can do so more in-house testing till then.
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] anatoli_k:
Which Sunday do you mean? I still don't see the update. Did something go wrong?
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] mcosmin222:
yes. Someone cut the internet cables o.O

I uploaded it now. It will be available in a few days.

I will turn this into an universal app come windows 10, so it can be used on all systems.
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] mcosmin222:
I've got some good news and I've got some "not so good" news.

The goods news is there will be a huge update coming soon (ETA 1 month or so if everything goes according to plan), enabling playback of most existing formats. It will also open up the possibility for some really cool stuff that wasn't possible until now due to...well...it is complicated to explain.

The not so good news (first piece) is that it will probably break a bit of functionality as the app moves once again to a new rendering engine.

Regarding windows 10...

There will be an universal version of this app that you will be able to download through the windows store on all things running windows (including hololens :P).

Here's the second piece of bad news. The code base is already pretty huge for windows phone 8.1, and the rendering engine will likely add around 100k lines of code to an already existing large code base (this will tilt the balance of numbers in favor of C++ :P), it will be quite difficult to maintain both a Windows Phone 8.1 AND a windows mobile 10 version. At the moment, aside from occasional glitches that occur mostly due to system bugs, the windows phone 8.1 app is stable. Once the new rendering engine becomes stable, the windows phone 8.1 app will be deprecated in favor of the windows 10 app. You will continue to be able to use the windows phone 8.1 app on your windows phone 8.1 devices, just as you are still able to use the windows phone 8.0 and 7.8 packages on your respective devices, only updates won't be coming anymore unless some major glitching occurs.

I will try to make sure the windows phone 10 and windows phone 8.1 versions both share the same package payload. This will allow an easier transition and all the settings, cached information, tops, favorites, themes and all other personalization will hopefully be preserved.

Once the app is able to run on more devices, some new interesting stuff will be added on top of the networking stack already in place.

There are also a few features of windows phone 8.1 that are not properly supported, such as voice commands (cortana never wanted to play with me :( ) and more automation through NFC tags.
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] VSparxx:
I'm eagerly waiting for the Win10 universal app. as for now the app is loading but just a black screen, nothing more, and i have to rely on another player for playing music on my JBL Nokia wireless speaker ((
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] anatoli_k:
Have it! And the new feature works cool. Thanks a lot!

I played a bit more with themes and seems there is a bit mess there. I wanted to make "Track titles and file names and metadata" to be Gold color (see 1st screenshot). If I save and then edit the theme again I see that "Page subtitles" become Gold but "Track titles" is not selected (2nd screenshot). So, "Now playing" looks like the 3rd screenshot. As I understand my accent color is used for Track titles.

More over, if I close and open the app again I see other colors (4th screenshot).

Also I often get "Something went wrong" message when saving theme. If I "Pick picture" each time before saving I don't have such message though.

Can you please check this and fix?
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] mcosmin222:
I will fix it tonight and upload it.

Thanks for report.

I fixed it already actually. it was a small bug that lead to be discovering a bigger one in themes. Will be available soon for download.
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] mcosmin222:
There will be some UI changes (the last round) in the next big update. The UI will be shared across windows phone 8.1 and windows 10.
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] Son Lam:
Good, better than default music app, thanks :)
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] guitarfreedom:
Sorry for the OT. Which smartphone do you use to test app? thanks
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] mcosmin222:
HTC 8X.
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] anatoli_k:
Hi mcosmin222,

I noticed that the main page and Now playing page are not refreshed when moving to next/previous song using buttons or gestures. If songs are changed automatically after finishing or you come from a list then everything is OK.

Can you please check and fix?

Also, can you please explain how Album Arts work? The app shows arts for some albums but I don't see such pictures in the music folders. Opposite, there are Folder.jpg and AlbumArtSmall.jpg (saved by desktop version of Windows Media Player ) in some folders, but they are not shown by the app. Can they be shown please?
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] mcosmin222:
Hey

I am on a business trip right now till next week, so no update until then.

I have been working on getting the new rendering engine up and running, and now playing fill be handled differently so I think the bug will be fixed in that version.

Now, regarding album art...

the app has 2 ways of using album art: embedded pictures, which are extracted when the app is opening a file and the app is in the foreground (it doesn't open the pictures in background, as the memory spikes can kill the player). When changing tracks, the app opens the album art and displays it.

The external cover is the 2nd mode. To detect the external cover, one has to place the file in the same folder, with the same name (aside from the extension). So if you have a music file called blablabla.ape (yes, this hints that .ape will be supported in the next version), you have to rename the external cover as blablabla.jpg or blablabla.png.
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] JLowe:
I am using the latest version from 9.5. and the app won't start on my Lumia 1020 with latest wp 8.1 denim update 2. Tried already to uninstall and install again and deleting cache.
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] mcosmin222:
Did it work before?

I can't find a way to reliably reproduce this issue. It appears to be related strictly to lumia denim.

I will have the new u[date ready by sunday. Unless someone else cuts off my internwebz cables again.
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] anatoli_k:
I have lumia denim on my Nokia Lumia 930 and it works.
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] JLowe:
It's the denim update 2. Windows phone 8.1 update 2 os version 8.10.15116.125. With just the denim update 1 it worked pretty well.

Is there any debug mode possible to get some error code?
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] anatoli_k:
Luckily I don't have the update 2 available yet :)

My ver is 8.10.14234.375. So this can be a reason why it works on my phone.
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] mcosmin222:
No. There is no way to debug the application if it was installed from the marketplace. I have some crash information from the marketplace, but I can't reproduce the issue on my HTC phone (apparently, the tile update task sometimes fails, settings are not read correctly, and all stuff which appears to be random). No problems occur when debugging, everything is clean, no silent exception or anything of the like. In fact, the app works flawlessly on my phone ^^.I think update 2 may break the app somehow.

There are some diagnostic troubleshooting tools I've built into the app (stop the music, clean file cache, album art manager) but these do not fix anything related to the startup bug.

I will overhaul the following backend systems in the next update, so maybe things will be unstable/more stable (?)

New rendering engine to match that of VLC in capabilities (it is not the VLC engine). -> already done, seems to work fine on 1GB devices...i don't know about 512mb* but I will get someone to test it.

New tagging engine to accommodate for the newly supported file formats. -> in progress

Now playing queue will be stored more efficiently for faster track change times -> already done

Audio endpoint switching (**) so you can decide where the sound will come out (headphone/bluetooth/speakers)

Tiles and settings will also be changed to reduce chances of random errors.

* Microsoft is slowly phasing 512 MB devices out of the market, there are 1 GB devices at pretty low end points now anyway.

** not actually guaranteed to work.

Considering it will be quite a big update, there might be problems after the next release.
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] titi66200:
Version 2015.508.1455.3271 (5/9/2015)

Works on my Lumia 1020 Os 8.10.15116.125 Update 2
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] anatoli_k:
So, if an album has 10 songs in a folder then I need to have 10 same JPGs with different names for each song? Isn't it wiser to have one per album, let say Folder.jpg (as Windows Media Player saves and use) or Front.jpg (as some mp3 sites have)? Can you look and show them in case you didn't find what you expected to find?
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] mcosmin222:
The problem is searching if a file exists or not is that it incurs quite a bit of performance overhead if I do not find what I am looking for (stupid API design). This makes searching for a particular file inherently...dangerous.

I can probably just add a few more options to album art when it comes to external covers, so you can look for a specific file in the folder, use the current naming policy or simply extract it from the file itself.
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] JLowe:
I reinstalled it and reset my app restrictions but still doesn't work. Cache I can't reset because program doesn't start.

Is there anything I can try without doing a hard reset?
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] mcosmin222:
Wait.

What app restrictions o.O ?
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] JLowe:
The new version of windows 8.1 update 2 has some settings where you can restrict Access to The Mikrophone, calendar, camera, contacts. also you can restrict app notifications . I checked this before and gave your app access to the MIC.
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] mcosmin222:
Bah I hate that thing.

There is no documentation regarding it, and phones randomly get the new update. I will try to make all the calls to permission protected resources "extra safe" and see if that helps.
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] JLowe:
Yeah, I hate this too. Made a hard reset but nothing changed for me. It starts but stays with a black screen. Other music apps works.

Perhaps titi66200 can clarify some settings how he get it work.
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] mcosmin222:
I think I might have identified the problem.

There was an internal API error occurring when registering the live tile update background task, and unlike most other internal API errors, this was one causing a delay in the app execution (about 2 seconds delay), which means the error was not contained in the internal API (yet still did not surface up as an error in the app itself).

The live tile update background task will be removed in the next update, thus eliminating the issue. The live tile will be updated when the user leaves the app.

The good news is the app seems to be quite stable in the internal builds. There will be a breaking change: now playing queue will not be saved in the update.
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] mcosmin222:
Update delayed, still some bugs left to fix.
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] mcosmin222:
Almost done.
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] mcosmin222:
I will submit the update on Wednesday if everything works fine.
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] VSparxx:
Maybe it will work on Win10 too, as it behaves the same on GDR2, black screen on opening .
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] mcosmin222:
Do you have many apps that do background tasks? You can check that in the battery saver.
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] mcosmin222:
New version coming soon....

A few bug fixes and performance improvements.

The songs page now allows the user to queue several songs at once.

taping on each song will now send you to a songs detail page, where you can play, pin to start, queue, delete or rate your songs.

5 stars rating system implemented locally: I can not fetch the rating system from windows yet.

And a surprise feature...

If times allows, smooth streaming: a.k.a. true gapless playback.
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] djtonka:
You mean equalizer?:)
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] mcosmin222:
Maybe...
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] sensboston:
Implementing equalizer without OS/hardware support is an extremely resource expensive :( To change audio signal, you need:

- decode mp3/aac media to the uncompressed PCM programmatically, in your own code;

- modify the waveform;

- play modified waveform;

"Software only" equalizer will drain your battery dramatically; you'll get a lot of customer complains about the issue...
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] mcosmin222:
I know. And I also can't get it to work properly.

This is why I keep delaying it. The performance cost isn't high. I can also decode most file formats to PCM. The real problem lies in the application of the filters. Software emulation simply is not accurate enough. It produces too much noise.
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] sensboston:
Check this thread (starting from the first post of user yuvalnv): https://naudio.codeplex.com/discussions/237421 and that sample: https://code.google.com/p/practicesharp/downloads/detail?name=NAudioEqualizer.zip

I believe, this guy (yuvalnv) has some good results (at least he didn't complain to noise or distortion)

P.S. Just tried NAudioEqualizer sample, sounds not too bad ;) I think, you may reuse/port DSP part of NAudio project on WP without significant changes...
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] mcosmin222:
NAudio has a equalizer sample? The version I have doesn't xD
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] sensboston:
No, it's not from the original Naudio sources; yuvalnv wrote that code (based on Naudio DSP sources). It works fine on Windows; can't test it on WP 'cause I don't have time to implement mp3 decoder and write a test solution. BTW, if you already have that part, it should be easy for you. Will be nice to have sources of the test/demo project posted here, on xda.
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] mcosmin222:
Well, if i ever get the equalizer to work, I will post the source code + decoders here.
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] sensboston:
Or you may share your code just with me (I have just an "academic" interest and I'll not use or publish your code). BTW, if you need any help - feel free to ask me.
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] Wagierek:
How to do it on WP8? I have no possibility to interop, so I can't delete built-in music+video app D:
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] mcosmin222:
You simply don't use the built-in anymore:P
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] Wagierek:
OK I get it, yet I have a problem, it just doesn't work :( I Uploaded 3 artists' music by desktop app and only one of them is seen by the player. What's more, while trying to play any of the tracks I uploaded, the player does nothing :(
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] thebaldconvict:
Think I'm either doing it wrong or hoping for something different but......

My music is stored in folders and not tagged properly at all which isn't a problem on my Android, Windows, Linux PC's etc using Poweramp, Subsonic, XBMC or my WDTV but Windows Phone on my 520 just isn't playing ball insisting it must all be tagged correctly.

I thought this might transfer across onto the SD in the folder format I have, something like this:

A - Alanis Morisette - Jagged Little Pill

or

Now - Now thats what I call music 86 - CD1

I think I got it right using the desktop app and pasting the files into the "media player" directory on the SD card but it put all the files of the two disc compilation into one directory and for each file shows a seperate album (all the same name), am I doing it right? It's a pain dismantling the phone each time but hey if it works I'm happy...

Cheers in advance
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] mcosmin222:
can you provide a screenshot of the media player folder and the songs list in the app?

There is a tiny bug with the player on WP8, which will be fixed in next update.

You can not have folders inside the media player folder. Even if it is not tagged properly, this won't be an issue. Tags will be classed as unknown.
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] thebaldconvict:
Hi there, Thanks for your reply!

I think I might have made a mistake in my description, it's actually in the playlists screen where there is the album page that looks a bit odd, anyway I have attached screenshots but if you need any others please just ask

Tim
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] mcosmin222:
Hehehehe.

I probably forgot to .Distinct that query (just checked: yep, i forgot to distinct it ) xD

Will be fixed. Thanks for the heads-up.

They should all actually be the same artist, so regardless of which one you play, they will all play the same songs.

I will push the bug fix update latter today and should be available within 5 days.
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] thebaldconvict:
Oh Ideal!

I was thinking about this last night with the lack of folders (I assume another MS limitation). Where does it get the album name from? I assume that the desktop client pulls the details from the mp3 tag and then the actual app relies on the filename the desktop app created?

If so, it's a great way of doing it but I'll need to make sure my library is tagged properly. A task that I know I will eventually have to do but at over 150gb's worth something I've been putting off for years.....

Love the app by the way, had a play with it last night and it's looking great!

Cheers

Tim
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] mcosmin222:
Yes, the desktop app gives the tracks a name and changes the extensions for some formats (aside from ogg and flac), due to another MS limitation.

I can not move the files around in your SD card, so for now, you will have to deal with the lack of folders...not much I can do about it.

You do not need to tag your library properly. If a tag is missing, it will be classified as unknown, so the app can still work.

Be careful though, you have to re-copy the files again when you change tags, so the desktop app can change the names properly.

I've been thinking of implementing some sort of virtual folders. Like artist/album/genre but you will have to add files to those folders manually from within the app. No actual folders are created on the SD card. Hopefully, these limitations will be removed in the future:)
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] thals1992:
I actually just found a bug myself recently. The desktop app won't add a whole folder of flac files. I've got ~212 songs (all from the new Pokemon X&Y OST) in the same folder, but it only transfers 20 of them and won't let me transfer any others. I tried it over network and using SD, but neither seem to work.
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] JLowe:
background transactions allowed: Store, internet explorer, telephone, office, contacts, cortana
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] mcosmin222:
I will submit the update latter today. it may take a while to get past the marketplace verification, as it contains a lot of new stuff (you can tell by the increased installation size with is almost 7 times bigger).

A lot of things have been changed, so hopefully, the startup bug is also gone :(
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] mcosmin222:
App submitted. Pray to whatever is holy to you that it will pass certification :P

PS: it failed :(
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] TheIronMaiden:
Sounded like a good update too, is there a simpler way to play all of the files on my SD card without selecting them individually? Or am I missing something?
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] mcosmin222:
You can select whole folders if you want to.
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] JLowe:
Thank you very much for the update!!! It works now again :)
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] mcosmin222:
Soooo, no new unexpected crashes and lockouts?
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] p_lider:
Good day!

Unfortunatelly there is one annoying thing after last update. After I updated app to version 2.0.0.0 on my Lumia 730 Dual device, when I play music using bluetooth (I have an FM transmitter which is connected with my Lumia using bluetooth) the music on regular basis stutter (I hear small interruptions every minute or two, which are annoying). With previous version everything was working fine. I think, that this is a problem with your app and not with the bluetooth subsystem in my device, because the built in music app is working just fine.

This is very annoying bug. If you need some more details from me I would be glad to help.
[Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games] mcosmin222:
Hello,

This is a tough one.

I have bluetooth headsets and I do not have a problem with stutters which are not related directly to my devices or other obstructions.

On the other hand, there are some very big changes in the rendering pipeline, so maybe there is a problem with my app after all. Since you are using xbox music as well, I suppose you are not using any exotic file formats that the app supports.

I will add some new advanced settings for the player to give you more control over how the rendering pipeline behaves. But this is going to take a little bit (expect it to be ready by next sunday). You will be able to use the same decoders that xbox music uses, when it comes to system supported file formats.

I do not guarantee that this will fix the problem, I can only go as far as guessing.