Playing music stored on an SD Card

[pktchunk]

I got my Chromecast yesterday at Best Buy, and played around with it last night. Love it so far, but am struggling with playing music through the device. I understand that you can't play music only from your SD card, but is there a way around it if you also have that music stored on the cloud (other than just removing the SD card, which worked fine for me). I'd like to avoid having to remove the SD card, as I want to retain the ability to play music when I don't have internet. Is there potentially a way to tell google music to only play music via the cloud, which would allow the Chromecast to play it? Thanks!

 

[Devlyn16]

I'd think any music the play music app shows should play on chromecast. What are you using to play music?

 

[pktchunk]

Just using Google Play. If I have my SD Card in (which has music on it) I get a notice saying error: can't play sideloaded music. If I take the SD Card out it plays the music just fine.

 

[zachavm]

At the moment, most of the Chromecast functionality works like this.

-Device gives chromecast command (play XXX from netflix, or play xxxx from google play music).
-Chromecast then connects to the internet source and streams it/plays it from there.

The device is simply telling it what to stream from where. The tab sharing shows it can stream from devices, but at the moment all other functionality is only streaming from internet locations. It is not set up to stream the music from your device. I would suggest you upload your SD card music to google play. It would then be a part of your library there and available to stream. I'm not sure, but google might offer unlimited free storage of your music on google play.

Note: This is my understanding, but I haven't tried it myself on my new device.

 

[pktchunk]

I believe that is how it works. I have all of my music on google play already. My problem (or at least what I'm trying to figure out) is how to get google play to play the cloud music, so that it will play through the chromecast...without removing the SD card. I don't actually need to play from the SD card, since I have the music in the cloud...but I don't want to have to remove the SD card everytime I want to stream through the chromecast. I hope that makes sense.

 

[junglejunkie]

There is a setting in Google Play Music that selects "All Music" or "On Device" music, you may want to check that. My Chromecast is sitting in a box at my front door at the moment...so this is just a guess on how to tackle your problem.

 

[pktchunk]

That setting was where I looked first. Unfortunately it doesn't have the option to select "cloud only" or something to that effect. It seems like it automatically looks to the SD card first if there's music on there.

 

[radyoactive]

You might be on to something here. As I was trying out all the different apps this morning, I happen to choose to play Beastie Boys Paul Revere and it played. I tried another song but got the same error mentioned about about the song being sideloaded. After reading through the thread, I looked and Paul Revere is not on my SD card but I must have uploaded it to the cloud back when I had the GNEX.

I almost exclusively use Power Amp as my music player to play songs loaded on my SD card.

I doubt you will see the option of which music you want played as this is Google's plan to move everything to the cloud as seen by no SD cards in their Nexus devices, the new Droid phones and the new Moto X phone.

For me, I prefer having the SD slot but if they want me to move to the cloud, no problem and Verizon will have to pull my unlimited plan from my dead hands!

EDIT: Just remembered, Chromecast was setup to pull from the cloud so unless Google provides a way for 3rd party devs to allow streaming from your SD card, I don't think it's going to happen.

There is a setting in Google Play Music that selects "All Music" or "On Device" music, you may want to check that. My Chromecast is sitting in a box at my front door at the moment...so this is just a guess on how to tackle your problem.

 

[mbj8448]

Just using Google Play. If I have my SD Card in (which has music on it) I get a notice saying error: can't play sideloaded music. If I take the SD Card out it plays the music just fine.

It seems like a few people responding to the OP are trying to be helpful but are confused about what you are saying is happening. But I am experiencing the exact same thing you are. If I try to play a song from my GS4 that has that song on the SD Card, I get that same error message about not being able to play sideloaded music. If I try to play the exact same song from my Nexus 7 where it is not stored locally, it works perfectly. The song is in my Play Music cloud which is why I can play it from the N7. But since it is also stored locally on my GS4, I get the error message.

For me, this is simply an annoyance right now. I can play songs from my N7 or N4 with no issues because I do not have songs stored locally on those devices. I just cannot play those songs from my GS4, although songs not stored locally play just fine even from my GS4. However, for somebody with only one device who stores songs locally, I can see how this would be incredibly frustrating. Hopefully this is something Google will fix in an update. My fear is that Google might never fix it in an effort to push everyone to the cloud only. I GET IT BIG G! The cloud is great. I live in it. Gmail, Drive, Voice, Calendar, Play Movies, Play Music, etc, etc. I use and love it all. But I also like the option of playing my music with no internet access. But this should not hinder me from playing music I have in the cloud from a device that also stores it locally.

 

[pktchunk]

I agree that it is really more of an annoyance than anything at this point, but it is something I'd like to figure out. Like you, I'm perfectly fine with the cloud, but I don't want to have to remove my SD card as using the cloud isn't always realistic (low service areas, airplanes, etc.). Hopefully it gets sorted out in an update, or someone puts together a work around (that isn't just removing my SD card).

 

[GadgetGator]

I was all gung-ho to get a Chromecast to specifically stream my Google Music but now that I just discovered my TV directly works with the BubbleUPnP app and that even my All Acess music works through that, the Chromecast looks a whole lot less attractive to me. Even less so now with this SD card issue. Although it sounds great for traveling. I might pick one up still if I start traveling again. Hopefully this SD card thing gets sorted out cause that really sounds like a PITA.