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Microsoft has shut down music streaming from Onedrive to Xbox One... Can a clever Xbox person help a guy out?

Deleted member 29599

Banned
Nov 1, 2017
1,365
I'm gutted. One of my most used features has been disabled, who even knows why. I'm a sucker for turning down game music from multiplayer games and streaming my own soundtrack and my go to method no longer works. Microsoft it sure is hard to take your "Power of the Cloud/Investing in Streaming/Project Xcloud" ambitions seriously when you arbitrarily disable online related features from your console that in itself was originally designed to be much more of an online box. Of course back in the 360 days i could just easily stream music from my home network but in your infinite wisdom you don't have the same feature available to a more technologically advanced console because reasons?

So i am in dire need of help. Is there any kind of app that you don't have to pay for (i.e. not Spotify which Groove Music has been furiously pimping for a while now) that will either let me stream my own music from my home network or from Onedrive? I've tried using the "Cast to" thing by right clicking a music file in Explorer but it doesn't seem to do anything, really i'll settle with whatever vaguely works but i used to just be able to "Shuffle all music" in Groove and let it do its thing.

I seriously hope that the next Microsoft console sorts this out, at the very least let's have features built into the console as standard that we had way back on the original Xbox back in 2001. Is that too much to ask?

EDIT: I should say i almost got there with the Plex app but it doesnt support playing music in the background, it only works when the Plex app is the main app running. So close, and yet so far...
 
yyr

yyr

Member
Nov 14, 2017
3,462
White Plains, NY
Reminds me of when they disabled the "Xbox Select" voice command 1-2 years ago for no good reason. It was only the most useful voice command Xbox One had, allowing you to select literally any on-screen element in almost any app without even having to turn on a controller. Now if we want to select something in a streaming app, we have to reach for a controller or a remote.

Awesome unadvertised bonus features seem to be disappearing one after another. It sucks.
 
lilojigsaw

lilojigsaw

Chicken Chaser
Member
Mar 1, 2018
282
This might not be the fix you are looking for, but you could stream your xbox to your PC if its Win 10 and run music in the background from there. That is what i do.
 
dark494

dark494

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Oct 29, 2017
4,548
Seattle
yyr said:
Reminds me of when they disabled the "Xbox Select" voice command 1-2 years ago for no good reason. It was only the most useful voice command Xbox One had, allowing you to select literally any on-screen element in almost any app without even having to turn on a controller. Now if we want to select something in a streaming app, we have to reach for a controller or a remote.

Awesome unadvertised bonus features seem to be disappearing one after another. It sucks.
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Uh... that never went away. None of those things did. Maybe you should peruse the guide
https://support.xbox.com/en-US/xbox...ice-commands#c7c97af03c2a43ceb847413ad3807de9
 
Shpeshal Nick

Shpeshal Nick

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
7,856
Melbourne, Australia
The number of seemingly innocuous but handy features Microsoft has been removing or cancelling on Xbox One has been really shitty imo.

Like...what would legitimately be the reason for removing this?
 
TeenageFBI

TeenageFBI

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
10,228
I used OneDrive streaming all the time on iOS but they killed that shit too. Years ago.
 
dark494

dark494

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Windu

Windu

Member
Oct 25, 2017
13,618
I also saw people looking at the app "Sonca" the other day, might try that. there are a lot of music apps on xbox, best best is just search the store for "music network streaming" or something.
dark494 said:
https://support.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-one/console/playing-background-music-xbox-one
https://www.thewindowsclub.com/best-background-music-apps-xbox-one


Cmon guys, do your research.
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ahem https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...d=_k1gy0nxjdwkfrnpp2j3ttrvko32xmm12fxwunczm00
 
dark494

dark494

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Oct 29, 2017
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Assenzio

Assenzio

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Mar 18, 2019
775
Shpeshal Ed said:
The number of seemingly innocuous but handy features Microsoft has been removing or cancelling on Xbox One has been really shitty imo.

Like...what would legitimately be the reason for removing this?
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With more and more functionalities added to the system it's also more and more difficult to have a cohesive and working system. Eventually the less popular apps and programms will be buggy and messy.

So it's a choice of having an unstable system and let the players deal with it or removing the functionality all together.

This one was a very unpopular app for a niche
 
dark494

dark494

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Oct 29, 2017
4,548
Seattle
And other UWP apps can still use groove to stream. It's just the onedrive connectivity that's gone (finally).
 
Quasicat

Quasicat

Self-requested ban
Banned
Nov 2, 2017
169
Knowing this was coming, I picked up one of the cruder mini usb drives. I loaded it up with my music, downloaded Simple Background Music Player, and it's perfect. It does exactly what I wanted while playing an open world or racing game.
 
Stefarno

Stefarno

I ... survived Sedona
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Oct 27, 2017
893
Ah, that's a huge shame. It was fantastic in Forza Horizon because the music in those games is absolutely terrible.
 
FutureLarking

FutureLarking

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Oct 28, 2017
787
Considering I've made my own full Tidal app that runs in background mode for Xbox One (even plays the MQA streams, despite the Xbox not actually being able to do anything with the extra MQA data), I could probably try my hand at a OneDrive streaming app if there's not one already. I actually want one for Windows 10 anyway, and lord knows that unlike if I released that fully featured Tidal player , it probably wouldn't get c&d'd.
 
OP
OP

Deleted member 29599

Banned
Nov 1, 2017
1,365
dark494 said:
https://support.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-one/console/playing-background-music-xbox-one
https://www.thewindowsclub.com/best-background-music-apps-xbox-one


Cmon guys, do your research.
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Thanks, i'll give those a try. For what it's worth i did try searching but nothing as helpful as that came up.

What gets me is you can still stream music from the website. So it's not a bandwith issue. The app worked really well, wasn't buggy, never had a problem with it. Fair enough if you wanna stop working on it but leave the damn thing alive for those of us that do use it!
 
Komarkaze

Komarkaze

Member
Oct 27, 2017
576
Amazon Music Player also plays in the background. But I think it only works with Amazon Unlimited subs. I use this or Spotify since the free tier works.

Kodi is also a nice multimedia streaming app but I don't think it supports background music.
 
Golvellius

Golvellius

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Dec 3, 2017
1,304
Windu said:
I also saw people looking at the app "Sonca" the other day, might try that. there are a lot of music apps on xbox, best best is just search the store for "music network streaming" or something.

ahem https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...d=_k1gy0nxjdwkfrnpp2j3ttrvko32xmm12fxwunczm00
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From the link:

You can keep listening to your music using the OneDrive web player or by downloading your files and playing them in the Groove Music app.

Does that mean that I can use Groove Music to play music files from a USB drive? I always thought that was impossible.
 
headspawn

headspawn

Member
Oct 27, 2017
14,605
FutureLarking said:
Considering I've made my own full Tidal app that runs in background mode for Xbox One (even plays the MQA streams, despite the Xbox not actually being able to do anything with the extra MQA data), I could probably try my hand at a OneDrive streaming app if there's not one already. I actually want one for Windows 10 anyway, and lord knows that unlike if I released that fully featured Tidal player , it probably wouldn't get c&d'd.
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I don't think there is one currently; i could be wrong.
 

s3ltz3r

Banned
Nov 12, 2017
1,149
What? That's crazy. We need to speak out on this.....gamers unite! /s

Seriously, that's a bummer for some users. Never used this, but now I'm actually curious about it.
 
Old Gimlet Eyes

Old Gimlet Eyes

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Oct 25, 2017
1,226
I remember the good old days of ripping cds to the 360 hardrive to play music that way. Can't believe we can't even do that anymore! Love that and the 360 visualizer.
 
OP
OP

Deleted member 29599

Banned
Nov 1, 2017
1,365
dark494 said:
https://support.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-one/console/playing-background-music-xbox-one
https://www.thewindowsclub.com/best-background-music-apps-xbox-one

What apps support background music XBOX one?
Best Xbox One background music apps
  • Pandora.
  • iHeartRadio.
  • Simple Background Music Player.
  • Use OneDrive with Groove Music App.
  • Spotify.
  • Stream Music from your PC over DLNA
  • MyTube.
  • SoundCloud.

Cmon guys, do your research.
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Ok well even if i did do my research none of those either show up in the store (regional restrictions/US only or something? I'm in the UK) or support local/Onedrive streaming. Only one that looks like might do the job is the Simple Background Music Player. Which means i have to go out and buy a USB stick, copy all my music on there (and remember to update it when i add music to my collection) and fuck around when i had something that literally just worked effortlessly a day ago. I thought technology was supposed to get better and more advanced, not regress.

Windu said:
you should be able to play local files in groove music on xbox. either way there are a lot of apps on xbox that can play music locally.
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I've rarely managed to get this to work properly, maybe some weird setting needs fixing in Windows. But either way, AFAIK you can only select one or a few files at a time to cast to the Xbox, right? Not like i can tell my PC to shuffle all my music and send it on its way to the Xbox. It really shouldn't have to be this much of a ballache.

Old Gimlet Eyes said:
I remember the good old days of ripping cds to the 360 hardrive to play music that way. Can't believe we can't even do that anymore! Love that and the 360 visualizer.
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Yep, and you could do the same on the OG Xbox. Although i think only certain games supported it i.e. Grand Theft Auto. Gotta love that futuristic 2001 console feature.
 
Windu

Windu

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Oct 25, 2017
13,618
RyanG said:
I've rarely managed to get this to work properly, maybe some weird setting needs fixing in Windows. But either way, AFAIK you can only select one or a few files at a time to cast to the Xbox, right? Not like i can tell my PC to shuffle all my music and send it on its way to the Xbox. It really shouldn't have to be this much of a ballache.
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? local files = files on the xbox or on a external.
 
Liam Allen-Miller

Liam Allen-Miller

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Nov 2, 2017
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Shpeshal Ed said:
The number of seemingly innocuous but handy features Microsoft has been removing or cancelling on Xbox One has been really shitty imo.

Like...what would legitimately be the reason for removing this?
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It gets really hard to maintain things at a certain point, especially when it crosses not only disciplines but in this case is two entirely separate products interacting. Same reason PS4 retracted from the feature set of the PS3.
 
The Pet of the Month

The Pet of the Month

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Sadly nothing can replace Groove Music's functionality for me. If you're on Android you can use CloudPlayer (highly recommend it!) but nothing like it exists on Xbox and Windows 10 at the moment.

Maybe someday MS will bring it back and work on Groove again. Until then there's not much you can do for cloud players -_-
 
OP
OP

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Windu said:
? local files = files on the xbox or on a external.
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I have no way of copying my music to my Xbox. Onedrive doesn't let me download music to my console because REASONS and i don't have a USB drive. But as far as i'm aware you don't even have the kind of access to the Xbox internal storage to copy files even if i did have a USB stick, unless something has changed recently.

So 45 mins later i've tried a bunch of apps and nothing works. What's super fun is that all the apps that boast about having DLNA support in the app description don't actually support it in the Xbox version of the app because that app description is the same on the store regardless if you're viewing it on Xbox or Windows. Helpful.

The Pet of the Month said:
Sadly nothing can replace Groove Music's functionality for me. If you're on Android you can use CloudPlayer (highly recommend it!) but nothing like it exists on Xbox and Windows 10 at the moment.

Maybe someday MS will bring it back and work on Groove again. Until then there's not much you can do for cloud players -_-
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I have an android phone? Will that work? I'll give it a try regardless.

Liam Allen-Miller said:
It gets really hard to maintain things at a certain point, especially when it crosses not only disciplines but in this case is two entirely separate products interacting. Same reason PS4 retracted from the feature set of the PS3.
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They already stopped maintaining and updating the app ages ago. But it still worked flawlessly. They could have done literally nothing and it would have kept on doing its thing. In fact i wish they had left the fucking thing alone but no they decided to turn it off without offering a replacement. Reminds me of when they killed Zune Music software on Windows. That was a great music player. It let me automatically wirelessly sync my music collection to my phone without me lifting a finger! It was amazingly useful. God damn it Microsoft.
 
OP
OP

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The Pet of the Month said:
It'll def. work for you ^.^ The problem is it's not on Xbox, so you'll need to use headphones or something plus the app is 7.99, but it's better than Groove Music ever got to be :(
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Yeah i quickly realised it doesn't have an Xbox app. Not gonna work for me sadly, i need something i can play through my headphones together with the game audio, especially when my flatmates are asleep.

I've given up for now. Looks like I have to use Spotify and sit there manually searching for an album i want to listen to rather than just shuffling my own music collection. Never mind the fact that stuff unique to my collection (mashups/edits/remixes i've done for my own private enjoyment and rare/unreleased material not on Spotify) isn't gonna get played. Or i have managed to get one file to play at a time through the Cast to thing, albeit sometimes it just crashes or doesn't work because Windows i guess. Gonna be real fun to sit there manually adding songs i want to listen to, not like before when i could load up the app and hit shuffle music all in the space of 10 seconds. I honestly can't remember the last time i have been so legitimately pissed off at a company.
 
unapersson

unapersson

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Oct 27, 2017
661
RyanG said:
Yeah i quickly realised it doesn't have an Xbox app. Not gonna work for me sadly, i need something i can play through my headphones together with the game audio, especially when my flatmates are asleep.

I've given up for now. Looks like I have to use Spotify and sit there manually searching for an album i want to listen to rather than just shuffling my own music collection. Never mind the fact that stuff unique to my collection (mashups/edits/remixes i've done for my own private enjoyment and rare/unreleased material not on Spotify) isn't gonna get played. Or i have managed to get one file to play at a time through the Cast to thing, albeit sometimes it just crashes or doesn't work because Windows i guess. Gonna be real fun to sit there manually adding songs i want to listen to, not like before when i could load up the app and hit shuffle music all in the space of 10 seconds. I honestly can't remember the last time i have been so legitimately pissed off at a company.
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Can't you just "Save" as many of the albums you own as you can be bothered to in Spotify then shuffle those through the Spotify app. Pretty sure I've done it that way in the past on the PS4 (Should appear under something like My Music on the spotify app).

Sorry for being so vague, it's after 3am here and don't feel like spinning up the PS4 just now.
 

SR7212

Avenger
Aug 17, 2018
134
Shpeshal Ed said:
The number of seemingly innocuous but handy features Microsoft has been removing or cancelling on Xbox One has been really shitty imo.

Like...what would legitimately be the reason for removing this?
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I still miss the Snap feature.

What's the end game here. Is Microsoft phasing out Groove Music?
 
The Pet of the Month

The Pet of the Month

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Oct 26, 2017
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srow360 said:
I still miss the Snap feature.

What's the end game here. Is Microsoft phasing out Groove Music?
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Groove has been in the process of being phased out since last year. It's a bit frustrating, seeing Zune go out like this -_-
Microsoft doesn't have that many consumer-facing products like Xbox and Office to begin with. Sunsetting more products def. ain't helping, especially when nothing can beat how fashionable Zune was.
 
Smash Kirby

Smash Kirby

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Nov 7, 2017
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The Pet of the Month said:
Groove has been in the process of being phased out since last year. It's a bit frustrating, seeing Zune go out like this -_-
Microsoft doesn't have that many consumer-facing products like Xbox and Office to begin with. Sunsetting more products def. ain't helping, especially when nothing can beat how fashionable Zune was.
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Part of the issue is that the consumer market isn't where the current president wants MS to go. Whatever else people might say Windows Mobile 10 is a great OS and I am sure that if Phil wasn't pushing for Xbox as hard as he is it would've been gone by the wayside like other consumer level products.
 
OP
OP

Deleted member 29599

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Well Spotify is a bust. Works fairly well other than the tedious fact that i had to go through and manually "like" stuff i already own. After an hour or so i got bored and decided to play an actual videogame and... Boom. Adverts. So whoever it was that said the Xbox Spotify app doesn't have adverts is talking bollocks.

I honestly don't understand why i should be expected to pay 10 odd quid a month to badly replace something that wasn't broken to begin with. So fuck Spotify, which is fine cause i'm aware how little that company actually pays the artists so frankly they can eat shit. Guess it's down to buying a USB stick or manually queuing up tracks in Windows, neither of which are exactly ideal solutions. Until they randomly decide to take that feature away as well for no good god damned reason whatsoever. Microsoft you're supposed to be a software company. Get your shit together.
 
yyr

yyr

Member
Nov 14, 2017
3,462
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dark494 said:
Uh... that never went away. None of those things did. Maybe you should peruse the guide
https://support.xbox.com/en-US/xbox...ice-commands#c7c97af03c2a43ceb847413ad3807de9
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"Xbox Select" was not a Cortana voice command. And it definitely went away. You can say "Xbox Select" until you turn blue. It used to work. Now, it will either not do anything at all, or do something entirely different.

I have not enabled Cortana because Cortana commands take much longer to execute than the much snappier "Xbox" commands.
 
TheUnsungHero26

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Oct 25, 2017
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Sorry for the small bump, but I only just found out about this news and wanted to express my disappointment.

Streaming music via OneDrive to Forza Horizon 3 was one of my favourite features of the game. The music was actually integrated into the world, playing over speakers at your festivals or in your car. Sure you can use Spotify or something to play your music over the game now, but it's not the same.

I was bummed to see this feature not make it into Horizon 4, and now I'm even more bummed to see it removed from 3. I really wish Playground would add proper integration of another music streaming service or even allow us to use MP3s on our Xbox hard drive.

It sucks seeing features removed from games.
 
OP
OP

Deleted member 29599

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Nov 1, 2017
1,365
TheUnsungHero26 said:
Sorry for the small bump, but I only just found out about this news and wanted to express my disappointment.

Streaming music via OneDrive to Forza Horizon 3 was one of my favourite features of the game. The music was actually integrated into the world, playing over speakers at your festivals or in your car. Sure you can use Spotify or something to play your music over the game now, but it's not the same.

I was bummed to see this feature not make it into Horizon 4, and now I'm even more bummed to see it removed from 3. I really wish Playground would add proper integration of another music streaming service or even allow us to use MP3s on our Xbox hard drive.

It sucks seeing features removed from games.
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What really rustles my jimmies is that there is no alternative option for the same kind of functionality. I tried streaming my own files directly on the same network, other than the fact that is doesn't work with .flac files (in fairness Groove Music would ignore any flac files on Onedrive as well) the app routinely crashes when doing this. Guess what happens when the app crashes? The next time Windows tries to stream a song the app reloads on the Xbox taking focus away from the game you are playing. I've literally been in a middle of a tense fight online, had the Groove app pop up and load in front of me and by the time i managed to switch back to the game i was dead. And if you don't let the Groove app fully load it will keep minimising the game you're playing as Windows repeatedly tried to stream stuff and it fucks up.

Spotify doesn't pull this shit but yeah, hope you like paying to listen to music you have already paid for and you don't have some favourite music tracks that aren't on Spotify. If Microsoft wanted to remove Onedrive streaming the very least they could have done is update the Groove music app one more time for it to work in exactly the same way as it used to only with local files instead of Onedrive files. Hell, fucking let us copy music to the hard drive like we could back in the original Xbox days if you're gonna be that dumb about discontinuing support for what should be at this point a basic console feature.

In case you hadn't caught on i'm still pretty mad about the whole thing.
 
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