Google Play Music....... Hogs Large chunks of memory storage

bizzybazza

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i found something strange today which reminded me of a post about storage problems with play music.
Yesterday i streamed a few tracks whilst testing an FM transmitter for my nexus 5.
everything worked perfectly but today i went out and about and as another test i turned off WiFi and mobile data and then went into play music and all those tracks i streamed yesterday played !!!! .
i checked the tracks and none of them were down as being stored for offline access on my nexus 5.
i checked my music folder .....nothing there
then i checked my apps and found that play music was taking up nearly a Gigabyte in data storage.
i cleared all the app data and cache went back into play music and had to reestablish my google account and found that now none of the tracks were playable until i switched wifi back on.
this shouldnt be happening... unless i select the download link in a track to keep it on my phone the music should just stream.
anyone know exactly whats going on with play music?
as it stands i can see if i had a real session of streaming the app will hog great amounts of memory ,i'm not bothered as such as i have lots of memory but someone with just small amounts left could find themselves running out without realising why.
any comments appreciated cos i think this needs some discussion
cheers!!!!

PS i have turned off all caching when playing music and everytime i select a track not played before clearing data now adds 7MB (average mp3 size) to the apps memory
 

anon(847090)

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i found something strange today which reminded me of a post about storage problems with play music.
Yesterday i streamed a few tracks whilst testing an FM transmitter for my nexus 5.
everything worked perfectly but today i went out and about and as another test i turned off WiFi and mobile data and then went into play music and all those tracks i streamed yesterday played !!!! .
i checked the tracks and none of them were down as being stored for offline access on my nexus 5.
i checked my music folder .....nothing there
then i checked my apps and found that play music was taking up nearly a Gigabyte in data storage.
i cleared all the app data and cache went back into play music and had to reestablish my google account and found that now none of the tracks were playable until i switched wifi back on.
this shouldnt be happening... unless i select the download link in a track to keep it on my phone the music should just stream.
anyone know exactly whats going on with play music?
as it stands i can see if i had a real session of streaming the app will hog great amounts of memory ,i'm not bothered as such as i have lots of memory but someone with just small amounts left could find themselves running out without realising why.
any comments appreciated cos i think this needs some discussion
cheers!!!!

PS i have turned off all caching when playing music and everytime i select a track not played before clearing data now adds 7MB (average mp3 size) to the apps memory


they are cached...everytime you play a track its is cached for later playback to save bandwidth.

you can disable this behavior by opening google music-->menu-->settings-->uncheck "Cache during playback"

there are 3 options under download. do "clear cache"
 

bizzybazza

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if you look closely at my post in the post script i stated that i have turned off "cache during playback" and in addition to that the clear cache only clears the small cache (a few KBs) but does not reduce the memory load and as i said after turning off the caching "when playing music and everytime i select a track not played before clearing data now adds 7MB (average mp3 size) to the apps memory"

any other ideas or is this an inherent problem with google play music app
 

B. Diddy

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You have BOTH cache options unchecked, right? That is, "Cache during playback" and "Automatically cache."

Posted via Android Central App
 

B. Diddy

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Try going to Settings/Apps/All, selecting Google Play Music, and tapping Clear Cache. Who knows, maybe this will clear much more of the cache than the option in the app's menu. While you're at it, Force Stop Google Music, then restart it. Perhaps it needs to be force stopped in order for it to stop caching tracks.
 

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