N8 Music Sync Tips and Tricks

I've recently purchased a Nokia N8, and I'm loving the feature set of this phone.

What I discovered the hard way is syncing music is done differently compared to my previous phone: the Nokia N97.

With the N97, you connect the device using "Mass Storage" mode rather than the "PC Suite" mode, or the painfully slow "Music Transfer" mode.  Windows Media Player 11 (WMP) cleanly transfers the files to the mass storage drive.  You sometimes had to rebuild the music database, but that was only a minor task.

With the N8, you should always connect your device using the "Ovi Suite" mode (previously called PC Suite mode).  Because the music playback navigation experience is richer on the N8, some extra files get created for you when you transfer, and the way album metadata is stored on the N8 will greatly affect your navigation experience.

I've discovered there are a number of advantages using the "Ovi Suite" connection method for music transfer:

• Music Database is rebuilt automatically.
• .alb files are created and copied to device correctly.
• Album metadata is presented better when browsing albums from handset.

I made the mistake of syncing music using Mass Storage mode and WMP, and the result was messy:  

• Badly arranged album info.  
• Missing/corrupt Album/Artist tags.
• Had to manually rebuild music database.  

If you have loaded a stack of songs to your N8, and want to start from scratch, this is my method for cleaning the device of music and associated files before you resync music.

NOTE: Make *sure* you have the original music stored on the Mass Storage drive backed up somewhere.  This procedure will delete all music content from your Mass Storage drive on your N8.

1. Connect N8 to PC in Mass Storage mode (more efficient for file management tasks in Windows).
2. Navigate to "Nokia Ovi Suite" folder (the name given to your N8 Mass Storage).
3. Delete 'music', and "Albums" folders.
4. Create new, empty, "music" and "Albums" folders.
5. Disconnect N8 from PC.
6. Reconnect N8 to PC, and ensure it connects using Ovi Suite mode.
7. Open WMP (or whatever music program that you normally sync music with).
8. Create playlist, and sync to N8.
9. Once complete, disconnect N8 from PC.
10. Verify your music has synced to your phone by opening Music Player and browsing the albums.  

The N8 will default to Ovi Suite mode when you connect, so unless you're like me and manually force the phone to connect in Mass Storage mode you will probably never see the problem. But if you do, and you search on google, hopefully this quick blog post will help you work out the root cause.

Enjoy your choons!

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