Google Play Music Bug Deletes Downloaded Songs Stored on MicroSD Cards

A Google Play Music glitch is reportedly affecting multiple users who say it deletes the cached or stored-for-offline-playback music from Google Play Music All Access stored on microSD cards, and this is said to happen whenever a user turns off the Android handset, reboots it, or unmounts the SD card. Google is said to be aware of the issue.

Reported by a user (via Android Police), the glitch is said to be present in those smartphones have external microSD card support and microSD storage enabled for offline caching of their Google Play Music All Access subscription. The bug does not delete other locally stored music in the user's library. On enquiring about the issue, a Google representative initially told the user that deleting of the cached/ downloaded music from the microSD card whenever it is unplugged from the handset was a copyright protection feature.

However, the representative later refuted the statements made initially and confirmed the glitch as a known Google Play Music bug. The representative added that Google is actively working to solve the issue, and that deletion of the songs was not a copyright protection feature. The representative said, "music that has been downloaded for offline listening, either to the internal storage or SD card, should never be deleted without the user initiating the deletion." It is not yet clear when exactly Google will roll out the fix for the issue.

Android Police notes that the representative's explanation of how music downloaded on the device via Google Play Music All Access is actually stored in a compressed format to take less space than mp3 files is incorrect. In fact, downloaded songs are stored as mp3 files in a protected folder that is meant to only be accessed by the Google Play Music app, though users of some Samsung devices are able to access these files via their stock music app.

The newly launched Apple Music service has had its fair share of problems as well, and in some cases also resulting in the deletion of songs and playlists from the user's iTunes library. The problems seem to occur only when users turn on iCloud Music Library (a feature introduced in iTunes 12.2 and iOS 8.4) with Apple Music, an option that is meant to provide features like offline caching. Other users reported problems like the substitution of bad artwork and metadata, apart from the replacement of files with DRM-protected ones. Apple is yet to officially acknowledge the problems or provide a fix.