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Music app playlists are empty when viewed on Windows Phone 8

Article ID: 2784105 - View products that this article applies to.

Symptoms

After you create or import a playlist in the Music app on Windows 8, the playlist is uploaded to the Xbox Music cloud collection. When this playlist is viewed on Windows Phone 8, it is empty or contains fewer songs than expected.

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Cause

With Windows Phone 8, your Xbox music cloud collection contains the songs you have purchased from the Xbox Music store or that you have access to via an Xbox Music Pass. If you do not have an Xbox Music Pass, the playlist from your Windows 8 computer may contain songs that are not available to your phone.

You may have:

Added songs from your computer's personal music collection which are not available in the Xbox Music cloud collection for your phone.
Added Xbox Music songs to the playlist to which are not available in the Xbox Music cloud collection on your phone. With Windows 8 and Windows RT tablets and computers, you can stream millions of songs free. However, on Windows Phone 8, you must get an Xbox Music Pass to have full access to Xbox Music songs.

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Resolution

If your playlists contain songs from your computer's personal music collection, create the playlist in the Zune software or create the playlist in Windows Media Player and use the Windows Phone app for desktop to sync the playlist to your phone.

If your playlists contain Xbox Music songs, get an Xbox Music Pass to play these on your phone.

To turn off the Xbox Music cloud collection altogether: