Music Player Showing Duplicate Songs

[supatugg]

I just got a Note a few weeks ago (and this is my first Android) and this weekend it started showing four copies of each song. The first three copies won't play, but when I click on the fourth one, it will play. I found (after MUCH searching) a fix, to go into apps and clear data for media storage and music player, and then restart the phone. Well, this worked, but after I charged it again (in a wall socket, not hooked up to a computer) it was showing two copies of each song again. I originally copied the music files over by just drag and dropping from PC folder into the SD folder, never used a sync program, though I do have KIES installed but never used it. As far as I know, I don't have any syncing programs going, and even if I did, I wouldn't think it being charged from a wall socket would trigger that, would it? This is driving me crazy!! Can anyone help on this....PLEASE?!? Thanks!

 

[thoots]

I have no help, but I can chime in and say that I have the same problem. I haven't done any searching about the problem yet, but it's essentially the same thing -- Music Player shows two copies of everything, and one works, the other doesn't. And I just copied my files to the SD card -- same like I've done for years with my BlackBerry, with no problems at all.

I just tried the "clear data and restart the phone" routine -- I'll see how it goes, and report back.

thoots

 

[thoots]

Just reporting back....

I cleared my data, and that definitely got rid of the duplicate, unplayable songs. But, since then I have recharged multiple times, rebooted the phone, and so on -- and duplicate songs have NOT re-appeared.

I sure can't tell you why my experience has been different from yours, but its "so far, so good" on my end.

Good luck!

 

[emyrs]

My Note is also doing the same thing. It did not occur right after I bought it but a month or so later. It also removed all but one song from one of my play lists.

Sent from my SGH-I717D using Android Central Forums

 

[unglued94ta]

Are you running the stock ROM? I've had this issue before too. But on a different phone.

Sent from my GT-N7000 using Android Central Forums

 

[maxburn]

I had the same problem on 4.0.4 with that phone. Posted about it on XDA and I think here elsewhere but eventually it stopped coming back. Concluding that the media scanner had some issues on this rom.

Edit: this thread How to troubleshoot media scanner? - xda-developers

 

[tyrant5150]

I finally figure this out!!!I thank everyone for posting there opinions on what they think is the problem and how to fix it!!!I registered just so i can tell you how i fix this duplicating problem with my Samsung galaxy note!!! i took the sd card out of my phone then loading up my phones music program....it showed nothing but the duplicate songs on my phone as if i still had my sd card inside but i didn't then i deleted all the turn my phone off and inserted the sd card back in after and then the duplicates were gone!!my phone automatically produces duplicates every time i turn my phone off so when i put new music on it all the old music will duplicate i simply just turn off my phone take the sd card out of my phone turn my phone back on then go to my music player it shows all my songs as if my sd card was in (but its not) then i delete all (however you want) then i turn my phone back off insert my sd card and its back to normal with no duplicates hope this helps!!!! p3ace out ty bout to defy!!!

 

[tallflower24]

This sounds like a logical, albeit impractical solution. It sounds like it keeps reloading songs from the external memory into the internal memory, which causes the duplication, and removing the card and erasing the internal copies would remove the duplicates. But where is the long term solution?? Are we supposed to keep pulling the SD card and wiping the phone? That is not a fix. How do we stop the phone from automatically making the copies in the first place?

 

[Hedystafford]

I also need a solution to this. I deleted the media storage as suggested above, and all my songs - originals, duplicates, quadlicates (?) unsurprisingly disappeared. I have tried three different varieties of music software, and have tried USB, wireless, manual and auto sync - the same thing happens every time. It has to be the phone - and/or the Music Player app - which is integral to the phone so should be compatible? Sort this out samsung!

 

[Hedystafford]

I spoke too soon - my songs have now all reappeared and only one of each. But I still think this bug needs fixing.......

 

[androidmikey]

I spoke too soon - my songs have now all reappeared and only one of each. But I still think this bug needs fixing.......

I had the same problem. Check out my YouTube video, and hopefully it'll help you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TXFoAME4NU&feature=youtube_gdata_player

 

[jbpichette]

Hello.. I did the same on my Samsung Discover phone. Work fine for 2~3 week and the problem occured again. This is the 3rd time I do this since January...

Any permanent fix ???

 

[thoots]

If the clear data routine doesn't kill the duplicates, here's an easy thing to try:

Just "unmount" the SD card in the Storage settings, and then "mount" it again. You don't need to take the card out, you don't have to wait or restart the phone or anything -- just unmount and remount, and then go to the Music Player app. Hopefully it will show "no songs," but the round "busy" wheel will be spinning at the top of the screen, which means it's re-scanning your device for song files. Once it's done re-populating your list of songs, you should just have one of each, back to normal.

 

[malaboo]

Thanks thoots. It has solved my problem...at least for now. Never had this problem on Honeycomb so must be some bug specifically in ICS or something "Samsung specific."

 

[Amy Gurley]

It's definitely not Samsung specific. I have a Droid X and am having the same problem. I use iscyr, but I've had this duplication problem before and after installing it. The unmounting of the SD card doesn't work. I'm thinking the other post was right about having duplicate songs on the internal storage. I can't test this at the moment because I am at work, however I've already done the routine of deleting all my music and re-installing it manually. Unfortunately, when you plug your phone into a computer all you are able to access is the SD card. But I'm hoping that I won't have to go through on the phone and delete each song individually off the internal storage. This is an extremely frustrating problem.

 

[Amy Gurley]

Well, in a reply to my own earlier post and everyone elses, I'm about ready to throw my phone out the door. I have tried unmounting and remounting the SD card. I have tried accessing the music files w/o the SD card in the phone - there are none to my knowledge (I go to the Music app and says I don't have an SD card). I have deleted all my music off my SD card, yet when I reboot, all the music is there, with all the duplicates. I have cleared the data and rebooted the phone, to have it scan the SD card (after I deleted all my music. I DO NOT HAVE ANY MUSIC FILES ON MY SD CARD) and it finds all the music, with all the duplicates. It's driving me insane. But when I go to play a song, it says "sorry, your player does not support that type of file". Which means the SD card is pulling the song titles from like a registry memory file, and not from the file itself. I need to find a way to wipe that. I think this thread has now become a computer tech issue. lol

 

[fordsbyjay]

Here's what I found. I unmounted the SD card. Then I plugged my phone into my computer and searched through every folder. I found on the phone, in the pictures folder, there was a duplicate copy of all of my music. I deleted all the songs in that folder. Remounted the SD card and checked the music player. All my duplicates are gone (for now). All my music is on my phone so I really don't know if it mattered about the unmounting of the sd card. That is just the order that I did it in.

 

[jcllings]

I have a virtually identical problem on my Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet. My supposition was that the device searches a list of folders and that some folders are duplicated on some devices. I selected folders and saw three folders and noted that two were actually the same place with different names. I imagine that this is because some devices mount the SD card one way and other devices do it another so they tried to do both only to find that many devices do it both ways, leading to duplication.

Objective: Remove the duplicate folder scan job. This should be safe regardless since we are removing a folder scan and not files, but don't take chances with your data!
Proposed procedure:

1. Open the Music Player app and go to Folders. Note which folders are duplicated via the number of files in them and weather or not they both seem to point at your SD card.
2. Backup your data to your PC if you are not already sync'ed with it.
2. Unmount SD card. Be absolutely sure it's unmounted.
3. Open the Music Player app and select the duplicate folders and then select delete. This is in the upper right on the tablet. Remove these folders.
4. Mount your SDCard and patiently wait for the device to find your music again. If you have a lot, expect it to take some time.

This should eliminate the problem so long as it doesn't start scanning those extra directories again.

 

[jcllings]

In retrospect, I think I already found and fixed this on my Galaxy Note 2 phone using the same method. Duplicates have not returned.

 

[bbass02]

Just chiming in here because I have the same problem mentioned several times here. I have 30 gigs of music on an SD card in my S3, mostly ripped from cd's, only a few albums were actually downloaded via a music service. I have about a dozen albums that have duplicates. I can delete the album from the card and it disappears. As soon as I rip it from a cd again, it adds two duplicate tracks to the card. I have tried every solution offered here and none of them apply. Once the card is unmounted I show no music folders in the music player menu. I have tried every music player available on the android market and they all do the same thing. My phone is stock and is not rooted. I can place this sd card into someone elses S3 and it does not duplicate, so I know that the issue is with my phone, but cannot find any solution.

Anyone else notice that the length of the track is different for each duplicate? Each copy is a few seconds longer than its duplicate.