Why doesn't USB added music show up in any music player?

[AC Question]

USB added music does not show up in any music player

Hello,

I have a serious problem involving my music files which I have transferred via USB to my Nexus 5. After a system

update to Android 5.1, my local music files still exist on the device but DO NOT show up in any music player. I have

tried to use Google Play Music (my default music player) as well as other music players from the Play Store. ALL

indicate that I have zero song files on my device which I know is definitely NOT true. I used to be able to play them

and view all albums in Google Play Music but now the music files are ONLY accessible via ES File Explorer.

Nexus 5, 32 GB
Android 5.1
Google Play Music 5.8.1836R.1787745

I do not wish to have to play music manually through the file explorer, and I NEED at least Google Play Music working

properly again. Therefore, help is greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

 

[B. Diddy]

Re: USB added music does not show up in any music player

Welcome to Android Central! Try an app like Force Media Scan to see if you can get the system's Media Scanner to rescan directories and find those files again.

 

[Bgeo25]

Re: USB added music does not show up in any music player

Hi thanks for the help. I'm the original asker, I just made an account.
There is a problem with media scanners: I have attempted to scan with 6 different apps. It seems that most media scanners on the Google Play Store either don't work with Android Lollipop (they crash) or scan and do not help..

 

[B. Diddy]

Re: USB added music does not show up in any music player

Hmm, let me ask Rukbat one of the other Ambassadors. He's mentioned one other app in previous posts to force a rescan, but I can't remember which one it is.

 

[Rukbat]

Re: USB added music does not show up in any music player

I haven't tried it on Lollipop yet (I wouldn't let that memory sieve near my phone), but try Rescan Media. If that doesn't work and the phone isn't rooted, you'll have to do a restart to do a rescan. (If it's rooted, install Xposed Installer and you can do a soft reset which is MUCH faster.)

BTW, copying files to the phone from another computer will not trigger a rescan automatically. Restarting should show them, though. Everything on my SD card (which was updated a few days ago, so it's all new stuff to the phone) shows in the Play Music app as local files. But the phone was off when I put the card in, so MEdia Scanner picked it all up when I turned the phone on.

 

[Bgeo25]

Re: USB added music does not show up in any music player

Rescan Media crashes immediately when started. Also, I had already tried restarting but it makes no difference. I know the phone is fast enough to scan media in almost no time just like it used to.

I did recently discover a media player called Poweramp which seems to work independently from the Android's media scanning "ways" since the music shows up perfectly. I will most likely grow to like it better than Google Play Music since it's faster, less prone to crashing the phone, and handles ID3 tags MUCH better. I will stick with Poweramp and maybe the next system update will fix the problem.

Anyway, thanks for your time and help (B. Diddy and Rukbat). Hopefully Google addresses the issue so that others don't run into it.

 

[SandeepGupta72]

Thanks Bgeo25. I was able to resolve using the workaround suggested "Poweramp" app