Windows 10 Contana can't find my music, Again!

[MikeHawthorne]

Hi

I've had this problem several times before, and never figured out how to correct it.
When I installed the Anniversary Update it started working again, the way it's supposed to.

Now when I ask Cortana to play my music, she says, "Sorry I can't seem to find any music locally or in your collection".

My music is right where it's always been in my default Music folder on drive C:\.

If I start the music manually she can take commands like "Next Track" etc.
(I take that back, she's not doing that either now)

Does anyone know how Cortana works, and how to point here to where the music files art at.
Or for that matter force her to search for them again as she did when she first booted up.

At the point she found the files all on her own with no input from me?

I've gone round and round with this ever since I started using Cortana.
It works for a while and then stops, and I have no idea how to correct it.

Any ideas appreciated.

Mike

 

[BIGBEARJEDI]

Hi Mike,
Have you tried removing your Chrome temporarily, and then disable Cortana in services and re-enable it again with Chrome uninstalled? I remember you were having problems with that pre-AU on your test machine. There's been talk about a Cortana rebuild tool, but I cannot remember whether MS was going to provide it or not. Perhaps neem might be familiar with a script to do this.

I haven't used Cortana much at all due to the same problem you have, and that's once she's working it's difficult to keep her working.

What you might consider trying, is to use the W10 PE console from your W10 bootable media, and run the "Reset this PC" option, which is sort of like the "in-windows" version of SFC /SCANNOW, except it's destructive and will remove all your programs and data. However, in the AU versions, I did notice that there is an option to KEEP YOUR DATA FILES, which you might try. This hasn't fixed many problems for me, and I haven't attempted it with Cortana, but I remember it saying that it leaves your PROGRAMS as well as your DATA FILES alone and refreshes or replaces/overwrites any corrupted windows systems files many of which are library files which Cortana uses for it's audio interface as well as it's music location default directory.

I'm sorry there isn't a better fix out there for this, and hopefully MS may make a Cortana option of their Fix-It tool. I know you do Image backups using EASEus ToDo, so it might make sense to give the "Reset this PC" option a try, and see if it fixes Cortana or not. If it does, it would be only slightly better than a complete W10 reinstallation via Clean Install and the traditional In-Place upgrade we're use to with earlier versions of windows (W7/W8x). If it fixes it, you could run for a week or so without Chrome making sure Cortana is working by testing daily when you get up for that first cup of Coffee and asking her to play your favorite song or tell you a joke. Then if all is well after a week, reinstall your Chrome and see if the fix sticks. If it does, you're good to go for now at least!

The next thing I'd be concerned about, is how stable this fix is as you say, once you get it working she soon stops. What we might recommend is that if she's working for a month or 2, go into WU as well as WUDO and turn both those options off *if you haven't already done so* to keep driver updates or windows system files security updates to mess with Cortana services and or library GPO settings.

Take a look at these 2 links:
1.) WU UPDATE DRIVER DISABLE: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3073930#bookmark-1607
2.) WUDO DISABLE INSTRUCTIONS: Windows Update Delivery Optimization: FAQ

Over the last few months, Ross, neem, pnamajck, and myself have been recommending using these 2 settings for forum users who post various problems that appear to be due to MS updates scrambling either their drivers *often Wi-Fi, or GPU card drivers* and losing functionality there as well as weird audio problems. I know you read the W10 threads quite a bit, and we've tried this and it works better, but doesn't completely block W10 updates on all machines from messing things up, but it does seem to help. I've now got 8-W10 machines and I've got all of them but 1 new machine running in this fashion. I think it might be worth it to try it out on your primary daily driver computer (your self-built gaming PC?) and see if it mitigates Cortana from going comatose on you. Report back and let us know if you have any luck, or it makes any difference at all.

One thing I noticed from my last trip out of town at the beginning of this month, December, when I returned home I flipped on my main W10 test machine (which has 4 drives in it), and all 3 of the W10 drives I have (2 of them with v1607 AU, and 1 of them with v1511 pre-Au) mysteriously wouldn't work, and I had to repair all 3 of them that run in this state. I didn't fully research the Update History to nail down whether a WUDO or WU update got loose on my LAN and scrambled all of these, I just wanted them working again as I have a couple of projects I was doing and just wanted to finish those. So I restored Image backups I made in Macrium from August when I built all the drives and put them back to where all 3 were working in individual boot mode. Then I re-cabled all 3 drives back up to the Mobo and tested their ability to boot using <F12> boot preference order to select each drive; which is all working again. I just thought that rather odd, so I'd mention it. It might be completely unrelated to the Cortana problem; I don't know. But, more information for everyone else to look at who are following W10 AU issues.

Well, good luck, and BTW how is your weather back there? We are finally getting some good snow here in SoCal!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
<<<BBJ>>>

 

[MikeHawthorne]

Hi

I've had Chrome removed for a few months now, it just doesn't work with my computer after the Anniversary update.

I've tried a few time over a period of several months, the second that I open Chrome my computer almost freezes, slows to the point that I can barely get it shut down and reboot.

Like I said, this is instant, bang, Chrome loads and my computer grinds to a halt.

I tried running an older version of Chrome and no problem, but then it updated itself and my computer shut down again.

I've switched to Mozilla Firefox which works fine, I still can't get used to Edge even though I have it all set up with my favorites etc.

As for Cortana it's not worth going through doing anything major just to get her to play my music, but I may try disabling and reinstalling her.

She works fine for everything else, it's just that she can't find my music no matter where I put it and typical of Microsoft they don't have any way to tell her where your music files are, as they don't have a way to tell her where you live so she can search accurately in your area for things.

There's a post that's been going at Microsoft for over a year about that and is up to page 47 or 48.

Anyway I was hoping that maybe someone had found a solution about how to restore the "Play my Music" function but I can live without it.

As for snow, we have enough to last the winter, the Possums are coming to our back door begging for food, yesterday I through them some old tortillas we had in the fridge, they seemed to appreciate it.

The UPS guy hates us because we have a long up hill driveway and he can't get up it in his truck even though it's been plowed, so he has to walk up the driveway with all our Christmas packages.

Merry Christmas,

Mike