Two weeks ago, Microsoft released a major update for its Groove Music app, turning it into a "truly Universal" app with feature parity across Windows 10 devices. The update was also the first to make its way exclusively to those on the Windows Insider Program ahead of its general release.
Today, Microsoft"s Ellen Kilbourne announced a new Groove update, which will be rolling out imminently to Insiders on the Fast ring, on Windows 10 PCs and phones, as well as on its HoloLens headset.
The update - which bumps the version number up to 3.6.2078.0 - includes the following additions and improvements:
- We now cache your subscription state across app sessions so you"ll be able to sign in to the app much more quickly when you launch it. We also improved the retry logic when connectivity is poor/erratic so that it"s restored more reliably.
- We"ve made improvements to background audio so that it should be more reliable and you see it appear to be loading or "buffering" less often.
- The process which matches your music to our catalog and allows us to populate artwork and missing metadata can now run in the background - so if you don"t leave the app in the foreground, you"ll still get all the great artwork and metadata.
- We are also using a new metadata service, which results in better matching (more artwork, metadata).
- With the latest OS builds, you can set theming for all your apps directly in OS Settings > Personalization > Colors. In our app, by default we"ll use the OS setting. But you can also choose to set the them independently, if you want to.
- We made a fix so that page titles no longer animate "up" when entering a page. We heard feedback that the experience didn"t feel polished.
- We updated the diagnostics tied to Groove feedback submitted in the Feedback Hub so that it"s easier for us to diagnose issues. We also made another round of improvements to our playback telemetry to make it easier for us to investigate.
- We made loads of accessibility improvements related to high contrast mode, narrator, and keyboard navigation. We also added a new keyboard shortcut for search - use Ctrl + Q to open the Search box from anywhere in the app.
Along with those improvements, Groove 3.6.2078.0 also comes with a few known issues that you should be aware of:
- After signing up for a Groove Music Pass trial, you might have to restart Groove to get the app to recognize your new subscription status.
- When using narrator, the "Now Playing" list is positioned in an unexpected place when navigating in item mode.
- Hovering over tracks in Now Playing on PC won"t show the usual controls - you"ll have to right-click on the track to complete those actions.
- On some devices, you may find the text on an artist"s details page being cut off.
Finally, it"s worth noting that the latest Windows 10 Insider Preview, build 14332, also has some issues on PCs and on phones that affect Groove:
- UPDATED: If you have previously played DRM-protected content from services like Groove Music, Movies & TV, Netflix, Amazon Instant Video or Hulu, after updating to this build, you might no longer be able to playback content from those services - you will instead receive error DRM_E_INVALID_SECURESTORE_PASSWORD (0x8004C029) or DRM_E_DOMAIN_STORE_GET_DATA (0x8004C503). We are working to have this fixed in the near future.
- Playing music in Groove Music within 2 minutes after logging into your PC will result in error 0xc10100ae playback errors. If you wait more than 2 minutes after logging in to play music in Groove Music you will avoid this issue.
Be sure to let us know what you think of the new Groove update in the comments below.