Windows 10 Cortana persistent problem?

[MikeHawthorne]

Hi

I don't have a lot of expectation that anyone is going to be able to help with this but I've exhausted my research and thought I'd give it a try here.

While Cortana has had a lot of issues, the one thing that it did do for me during beta was play my music.

Since I installed the final version of Windows 10 that's the one thing that doesn't work?

When I say "Hey Cortana, Play my Music." she says one of a variant of responses such as "Sure thing, playing your music."

There is a pause and then she says, "Something went wrong, try again in a little bit".

I have music in my music folder, (100+ Mp3 files) there is even a Playlist folder, with a Cortana.wpl file in it.

Recently I helped my friend Paul upgrade his computer to Windows 10 from Windows 7.
When we finished one of the first things I did was activate Cortana, put in his name etc, and then I asked "Play my music".

It immediately started playing his music.
I didn't have to create a playlist or tell it what music player to use or anything.

I've tried everything I can think of, on and off, over a period of months, and I've searched for a solution.
I've found nothing.

I've turned Cortana on and off, I've moved music in and out of my music folder.

I've selected Groove Music as my default music player, (it used to work with WinAmp, or Media Player) but nothing seems to be able to reset her, so that she will make the connection to my music files?

I'd be interested in whether this is working for other people.
If you have music in you music folder just ask her to "Play my music and see what happens".

She is supposed to actually play what you ask for, i.e. "Play the Beatles, Black Bird", or play something by Adam Lambert.

Here's the really weird part, if I start the music manually she will take commands like "Pause", if I then say "Play my Music" she will say "Resuming".

If I say Next Track, she will say "Moving to next track" and move to the next track etc.

The reason that I liked this was that I could sit on my couch and if the computer was on I could tell Cortana to play my music from across the room and the music would play, this really impressed guests. LOL

In reality when I'm sitting at my computer I have icon on my task bar that starts my music player with one click so it's more about my frustration with not being able to get it to work then any real need.

If anyone has any ideas I'm willing to give it a try.

Mike

 

[Mike]

Hi Mike,

I do not recommend using Groove at all. I have a music collection that I created from my own CD collection spanning several years that Groove will not even play, indicating the following: "The song has been removed from Groove at the request of the copyright holder." I do not have a subscription to the "Groove" streaming service, but I do not find this entertaining in any way whatsoever. When I went to test your Cortana problem, I found that Cortana would shuffle all songs that it found in my entire Documents folder. However, before it even got a chance to play any of them, it would was prevented from doing so by Groove itself.

Therefore, I must say I cannot test your problem, because Groove is quite possibly the worst music software / player I have ever used hands down.

 

[MikeHawthorne]

Hi Mike

I've only tried using Groove for the last day or so, because it's a Microsoft app I thought that it might work better with Cortana.
I have to say that I haven't found any Windows 10 app that's as good as what ever I was already using!

Prior to the retail version of Windows 10, (during beta) Cortana worked with WinAmp, or Windows Media Player fine.

I use WinAmp as my real music player (I have for years).

In Media Player I still get the same error message, (Somethings not right, try again in a little bit) but if I start the music manually she will pause and change tracks verbally.

As I said, when I set up my friends computer with Windows 10, and asked Cortana to play his music it did it with no setup at all.

I'd like to know how to reset Cortana so that she starts over from scratch, but turning her off and back on makes no difference.

There is very little that I've been able to find that has any information about how you are supposed to set up your music to have it work with Cortana.

As far as I can tell the only thing you need to do is have some music files in your Music folder, I'm not sure that even that is totally necessary, I believe that it searches for music files when you start it up but I'm not sure.

In previous builds she would play the music from my iTunes folder which was within my Music folder.

I've never had her working to the extent that I could ask for a specific song or artist and have her play it.

Cortana is kind of a mystery, the more I look for real info on how she works of how to set her up or solve problems the less I seem to find.

Mike

 

[helpifIcan]

My worked without issue, not much help but it appears not to be a global issue.
FYI no mike so I just typed "play my music"

 

[MikeHawthorne]

Hi

That's what I'm finding, so I have no idea why I'm getting the error message all the time.
And there doesn't seem to be any way to diagnose what's happening, or just reset everything Cortana wise, and start over.

If I type, "Play my Music." all I get is one option to search the web for "Play my Music.".

Mike

 

[Neemobeer]

Mike, you probably can reset Cortana. I have no guarantee this will work but it may be worth a try.

• Delete your local user Cortana data (delete the folder) "%LOCALAPPDATA%\Packages\Microsoft.Windows.Cortana_cw5n1h2txyew"
• Re-register the Cortana application with the following from an elevated powershell prompt
• Get-AppxPackage -name "*Cortana*" | ForEach { "$($_.InstallLocation)\AppxManifest.xml" | Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register }

 

[MikeHawthorne]

Hi Neemo

I'll give that a try tomorrow and see what happens.
As I said when I tried it on my friends computer it worked fine.

I found, Microsoft.Windows.Cortana_cw5n1h2txyewy

I tried copying it to my desktop but it says that some of the files are in use, so I'm going to have to turn Cortana off before I copy or delete it.

I think I'll make a new System Image before I go ahead and change it.

Mike

 

[MikeHawthorne]

Hi

It's been a while but I was never able to get the system to let me rename of delete the Microsoft.Windows.Cortana_cw5n1h2txyewy folder.

I did turn Cortana off, but since when I turned her back on, she must have been put out about it, because while she will respond she won't be friendly anymore. LOL

When I ask her to "Tell me a joke" or "Sing something" she just opens a Web Page in response?

Speech does work she will read my name, and responded during the setup process, and if I ask her to "Play my music" she still replies verbally, i.e. "Playing your Music", "Something went wrong" etc. and she will tell me the weather forecast but no joviality.

I'd try the reset thing but I'm not sure about doing it without removing the old preferences folder.

Anyone know how I can get it to let me backup or rename the folder?
And what happens if I try and restore it without removing the "%LOCALAPPDATA%\Packages\Microsoft.Windows.Cortana_cw5n1h2txyew" folder?

Mike

 

[Neemobeer]

Well Mike at the time of my posting I had not tested reinstalling Cortana in that fashion. After looking into it more here is what I have. Windows considers Cortana a protected app "system app" and you can't do a flat out uninstall Remove-AppxPackage and the reason you can't remove the data folder is because both SearchUI.exe (cortana) and the SYSTEM process have file handles to it. So what I did was create a new local admin user and login, then I was able to rename the data folder for the other user. Logged back in with the original user and sure enough Cortana was now gone "broken" no problem. Then I reinstalled it for that user

• Get-AppxPackage *Cortana*
• Copy the Install location append Appxmanifest.xml
• Add-AppxPackage -Path "C:\Windows\SystemApps\Microsoft.Windows.Cortana_cw5n1h2txyewy\Appxmanifest.xml" -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register
• Tested Cortana and it appears to be functioning.

 

[MikeHawthorne]

Hi

I'll check that out.

Mike

 

[MikeHawthorne]

Hi

Well she got over her huff and started talking again, I'll try the reinstall thing as soon a I get time.

Mike