FLAC in WMP

Why the .FLAC files doesn't appear in the list of musics on Windows Media Player?
Is there any way to include them?

The K-Lite Codec Pack creates all the required registry keys. So they should be included in the WMP library.

Which version of Windows are you using?

Hi,

I’m having the same problem.

On November 19th, I installed K-Lite Codec Pack Standard on my 2017 HP 17-X116DX — Microsoft Windows 10 Home, Version 1709, Build 16299.64, 64-bit version — laptop computer in the hope that it would enable Windows Media Player to play FLAC songs and include them in its library.

So far, WMP can only play FLACs, but not include them in its library.  Which was the state of affairs before I installed K-Lite Codec Pack Standard.  And a bummer.

Since only jrhgama and I seem to be having this problem, I assume that it’s a user error somehow.

(I’m a novice regarding this kind of thing.)

Can anyone offer some advice?

You could try resetting the library by deleting the files in this folder:
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\Media Player

These Registry keys should be sufficient:

Code:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.flac]
"PerceivedType"="audio"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Multimedia\WMPlayer\Extensions\.flac]
"PerceivedType"="audio"
"Permissions"=dword:0000000f

Admin wrote:You could try resetting the library by deleting the files in this folder:
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\Media Player

Hi,

Thanks for the timely reply.

As suggested, i opened %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\Media Player (i.e. C:\Users\[the relevant user name]\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Media Player\) and deleted all unhidden folders and files within it.

I then opened Windows Media Player 12 (which had been closed) and, after allowing it to rebuild the contents of C:\…\Media Player\, I played a few FLAC files, but could still not get them to appear in WMP 12’s library. (I have no such problem with VLC, by the way.)

<sigh>

Admin wrote:These Registry keys should be sufficient:

Code:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.flac]
"PerceivedType"="audio"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Multimedia\WMPlayer\Extensions\.flac]
"PerceivedType"="audio"
"Permissions"=dword:0000000f

Thanks for this reply.

But, it's significantly out of my (shallow) depth. Which is to say, I don't know what I'm supposed to do with this suggestion, nor how potentially dangerous it is to my computer's operating system.

Plus, and I'm sorry if the following sounds ungrateful, but I'm surprised that getting basic functionality out of K-Lite Codec Pack Standard is proving so difficult. As far as I know, there's nothing exceptional about my relatively new, and fully up-to-date (regarding Windows Update), computer. And, reviewers had said that K-Lite Codec Pack Standard is reliable, quite automatic, and a breeze to use -- which is why i chose it.

The K-Lite codec pack actually is reliable and easy to use. Normally everything should just work out-of-the-box. Those registry keys are created automatically (if missing). I just added them for reference.

Windows 10 has native support for FLAC, so this should have worked already without the codec pack. The fact that it was already broken before makes me think something else is wrong. But what I don't know. Might be a bug in Windows as Microsoft isn't exactly providing good quality software in the past years. I have tested it on a clean install of latest Windows 10 and it was working correctly here.

Two things you can test:
1) Rename a FLAC file to .mp3 and check if it gets added then.
2) Open WMP in library view and drag&drop a FLAC file into the library. Does it get added then?

Also check if the files aren't listed in the "Other media" or "Unknown" section.

Windows 10 also has issue with certain file tags. Could you upload one of your files? Then I can test it here to verify that isn't the cause of your problem.
http://www.datafilehost.com

As a last resort you can try this third party plugin:
http://bmproductions.fixnum.org/wmptagplus/index.htm

Thanks, Admin, for your (always conscientious) replies.  And sorry for my delayed response — I just haven’t had time to deal with this.

In reply to your November 26th and 27th suggestions:


“Rename a FLAC file to .mp3 and check if it gets added then.”

“Also check if the files aren’t listed in the ‘Other media’ or ‘Unknown’ section.”

When I play an MP3 with WMP, it’s normally automatically added to WMP’s library within twenty seconds, and is listed in the WMP library by its “Album artist”, “Album”, and “Genre” metadata tags.

When I play a FLAC with WMP, it appears nowhere in the WMP library even when I play the entire song.

When I rename a .flac file as .mp3, and then play the resulting MP3 with WMP, the MP3 is added to the WMP library, but is listed as “Unknown” for the “Album artist”, “Album”, and “Genre” metadata tags — because all metadata tags were automatically lost when i renamed the .flac as .mp3.  When I try to manually edit the resulting MP3’s metadata tags using File Explorer, I’m unable to save the changes and instead receive an error code: “Error 0x8007000D: The data is invalid.”  I can, however, edit the tags using WMP (and they persist when i close and re-open WMP), but the changes do not appear in File Explorer (even when i click through WMP > Tools menu > Apply media information changes and let the process fully run its course).


"Open WMP in library view and drag&drop a FLAC file into the library.  Does it get added then?"

Yes, strangely enough, it does.  And, it remains in the WMP library — listed appropriately by its “Album artist”, “Album”, and “Genre” metadata tags — even when i close and re-open WMP.  Hence, it appears that we (actually, you) found a workaround for me.


"Windows 10 also has issue with certain file tags.  Could you upload one of your files?  Then I can test it here to verify that isn't the cause of your problem.  http://www.datafilehost.com"

I just uploaded “Charles Bradley - Changes - 05 - Changes.flac”.

The download link is https://www.datafilehost.com/d/f4058f19

(I’ve never done this before.  Is the download link all that you need?)


"As a last resort you can try this third party plugin: http://bmproductions.fixnum.org/wmptagplus/index.htm"

Thanks for the suggestion.

I’ll wait to hear from you again before i try it.


Cheers.

I have tested your file and it was added to the library automatically here. Artist, title, etc were also handled correctly. Even the embedded album art was show. One funny thing is that another unrelated FLAC file now displays the same album art. Perhaps because they are in the same folder.

One thing you should check if your Library folders are correctly configured.
Right-click on Music in Library > Manage Music Library

If all is set correctly, then drag&drop would be the safest workaround. You can drop folders, so its not much effort.

Thank you for your efforts.


“One funny thing is that another unrelated FLAC file now displays the same album art.  Perhaps because they are in the same folder.”

Now that you’ve mentioned that, i’ve occasionally noticed a similar phenomenon with this computer.  I can’t remember a specific instance, or whether it was WMP or VLC, but the player displayed wrong album art for the MP3 i was playing.


"One thing you should check if your Library folders are correctly configured.  Right-click on Music in Library > Manage Music Library."

The Music Library Locations pop-up window shows C:\Users\(the relevant user name)\Music as the “Default save location” — as one would expect.

Most of my music, however, is located in a folder on an external hard drive.  VLC has had, i believe, no problem with this, and neither had WMP till i started dabbling in buying FLACs.

Given your suggestion, and the Music Library Locations pop-up window’s explanatory text (“Change how this library gathers its contents / When you include a folder in a library, the files appear in the library, but continue to be stored in their original locations.”), i added the external drive’s music folder to the aforementioned pop-up window’s Library locations list (upon my doing so, WMP automatically designated this external folder as a “Public save location”).  All the external drive’s FLACs and MP3s were then automatically added to the WMP library, and all of my few FLACs now seem to be handled with full functionality by WMP.

So, it would seem that WMP had been somewhat addled — regarding FLACs at least — by my not having had officially added the external drive’s music folder to the WMP library.

(Which makes me wonder if i had even needed to install K-Lite Codec Pack Standard on my computer in order to enable WMP 12 to fully handle FLACs. Actually, you said as much on November 26th: "Windows 10 has native support for FLAC, so this should have worked already without the codec pack.")

Incidentally, the following was among my troubleshooting efforts before joining this Codec Guide forum thread:  Since the FLAC files in question are on an external hard drive, i clicked through Windows Media Player 12 > Tools menu > Options > Player tab, and selected Add remote media files to library when played.  But, that option turned out to apply to files on other computers (rather than external drives connected to this computer); thus, it didn’t help.  (And, i hadn’t needed that option in order to add MP3s — residing on external hard drives — to the WMP library by simply playing them with WMP.)  So, i deselected Add remote media files to library when played, but, of course, left the default Add local media files to library when played selected.

WMP 12 is annoyingly finicky.

THANKS AGAIN for your help.

Correct, all folders that you want to be automatically indexed by the library should be added to Music Library Locations.

K-Lite is not needed for playing FLAC in WMP on Windows 10. Only for older versions of Windows. However, the pack does add playback capabilities of lots of other audio can video formats, so it can still be useful.