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Dunno if this should be under Windows or Mobile or where, so I'll leave that up to the mods...

So I recently purchased a Windows Phone and so far I really like it... however, I've run into an issue and don't know if it's just me being dumb, or if others are having the same problem or can point out to me the dumb thing I'm doing and how to fix...

On my home desktop, I opened up the Xbox Music app - the one that's built into Windows 8. It asked me if I wanted to add the songs from my library and I said yeah, what the hell. So it did. No problem there.

It also asked me if I wanted to make my music available on my other Windows devices via the cloud... and again, I said yeah, what the hell. I have a nice new Windows phone, might as well be able to play my tunes on it.

The thing is, after it finished "matching" my songs (apparently it doesn't actually upload your songs to the cloud, it just matches the ones you have with whatever Microsoft has in their catalog) which took forever, once it was done I figured that I'd have access to those songs on my phone. I use the same Microsoft login on my phone as on my PC, and I told the Xbox Music app on the phone to include my cloud songs in my collection.

But it doesn't seem to work. I don't see those songs on my phone at all - I only see the songs I've placed on the local SD card.

Is there some setting I'm missing? I can't find anything on the PC app or the phone app; and Microsoft's help hasn't been, well, helpful.

I have this problem too, and based on this link I think the actual problem is a missing Xbox Music Pass.

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/winp ... 9e46f31a0f

•Match process does not extend to WP8 unless you have an XBOX Music Pass. Your old Zune Pass has been converted to XBOX Music Pass.

Xbox Music is notoriously abysmal. Unfortunately my HTC 8X doesn't have a micro-SD slot, so I haven't even attempted to use it.

Are you using 8 or 8.1? with 8.1 streaming of your stuff is supported through xbox music and cortana. Outlook.com will also be getting integrated music support for backing up your specific tracks. with 8 it's not great, but 8.1 solves most of the issues. However, 8.1 isn't rolled out yet, so today it's still annoying.
what phone did you get?

sweatshopking wrote:

Are you using 8 or 8.1? with 8.1 streaming of your stuff is supported through xbox music and cortana. Outlook.com will also be getting integrated music support for backing up your specific tracks. with 8 it's not great, but 8.1 solves most of the issues. However, 8.1 isn't rolled out yet, so today it's still annoying.
what phone did you get?

I have a Samsung ATIV... so far I am really liking it. It's very responsive, the sound quality on calls is excellent. I like the OS quite a bit - everything flows really nicely, and setup is a breeze for most things. Honestly, in my opinion if Windows Phone had more apps it would kick android's ass.

I've heard good things about 8.1 but unfortunately I just learned today that the Samsung ATIV has some compatibility issues (firmware related) so it's advised to not upgrade. Supposedly, it'll be resolved by the time 8.1 is pushed out to everyone, but for now I'm stuck at 8.

As far as the music thing goes, I got my answer from a tech on the Xbox Music chat thing... apparently, you can only steam music for free to a web browser - to use a device (phone for example) you have to have an Xbox Music Pass. That's ten bucks a month so I'm going to have to decide if it's worth it. I'm feeling more inclined to search for alternatives

Aside from the cost, there are some other things I don't like... for one thing, it took me forever to match my music to their cloud, and the reason is pretty frikkin' stupid. Apparently, the app slows down considerably when it isn't up on the screen. It's a Modern UI app, obviously, and if it's up on the screen you can watch the count of files it's gone through move fairly well, between 100-200 every minute or so. But if you minimize the app, or alt-tab to something else, or even lock your machine apparently, it slows WAAAYYY down. That's just bizarre.

The other thing is that for some reasons, a lot of my songs match (ie. they're in their store) and the premise is that if I have a local song, and it's in their store, I get to stream it. But not so fast... if I go to the music.xbox.com website, all of my Metallica albums are there for example, but I can't actually play them - it has a flag with a message saying that the album is unavailable for playing at the request of the copyright holder. All of my music is legal - it's either been ripped from CDs I purchased, or bought from places like Amazon. Damned if I'm going to pay 10 bucks a month and not be able to play my entire collection because Lars Ulrich still has a bug up his ass about online music.

Sooo.... anyone know of a good, free (or reasonable) streaming app for Windows Phone?

Well.....I was going to say get a 128GB microSD card, but then I saw they cost almost $1 per GB, which is insane. 64GB cards are much more reasonable at around 50 cents/GB. How much music do you have?

Xbox music is just garbage. I've had Windows phones since the very first Samsung Focus with 7.0 all the way up to 8.1 on my Lumia 1020.The music experience has been really bad post 8.0.

The original Zune music + Zune Pass was waaay better. They went and made everything metro with 8.0 and Xbox music. Sometimes, I really wonder if Microsoft is run by a bunch of clowns.

The Egg wrote:

Well.....I was going to say get a 128GB microSD card, but then I saw they cost almost $1 per GB, which is insane. 64GB cards are much more reasonable at around 50 cents/GB. How much music do you have?

Right now the library on my PC is about 42gb... I have a a bit

I probably will go the route of a 64gb card...

cphite wrote:

I have a Samsung ATIV... so far I am really liking it. It's very responsive, the sound quality on calls is excellent. I like the OS quite a bit - everything flows really nicely, and setup is a breeze for most things. Honestly, in my opinion if Windows Phone had more apps it would kick android's ass.

I've heard good things about 8.1 but unfortunately I just learned today that the Samsung ATIV has some compatibility issues (firmware related) so it's advised to not upgrade. Supposedly, it'll be resolved by the time 8.1 is pushed out to everyone, but for now I'm stuck at 8.

As far as the music thing goes, I got my answer from a tech on the Xbox Music chat thing... apparently, you can only steam music for free to a web browser - to use a device (phone for example) you have to have an Xbox Music Pass. That's ten bucks a month so I'm going to have to decide if it's worth it. I'm feeling more inclined to search for alternatives

Aside from the cost, there are some other things I don't like... for one thing, it took me forever to match my music to their cloud, and the reason is pretty frikkin' stupid. Apparently, the app slows down considerably when it isn't up on the screen. It's a Modern UI app, obviously, and if it's up on the screen you can watch the count of files it's gone through move fairly well, between 100-200 every minute or so. But if you minimize the app, or alt-tab to something else, or even lock your machine apparently, it slows WAAAYYY down. That's just bizarre.

The other thing is that for some reasons, a lot of my songs match (ie. they're in their store) and the premise is that if I have a local song, and it's in their store, I get to stream it. But not so fast... if I go to the music.xbox.com website, all of my Metallica albums are there for example, but I can't actually play them - it has a flag with a message saying that the album is unavailable for playing at the request of the copyright holder. All of my music is legal - it's either been ripped from CDs I purchased, or bought from places like Amazon. Damned if I'm going to pay 10 bucks a month and not be able to play my entire collection because Lars Ulrich still has a bug up his ass about online music.

Sooo.... anyone know of a good, free (or reasonable) streaming app for Windows Phone?

Spotify, nokia music (which is really very good, but you can't use, so idky i mention it), isn't there more? i've never streamed music before, so idk. beats? idk how beats works, so idk if you pay or not, but it's there.
as for the ativ, guy who's staying with me has one, and he has a few quirks, but i think for the most part he's pleased with it. it DOES randomly restart though, but that's typical for samsung products. 8.1 brings in what you want, if i was you, i'd just install it. it works well enough on the ativ. of course it's metallica you want. they're like the worst in the world for copyright whining.

as for the xbox music app, yeah, some of the power saving stuff can be annoying. i wish they detected plugged in or not and adjusted.