2013-08-13

Google Play Music Manager Takes a Silent Bow


Is it a crash? Is it a polite exit, like a date that goes badly but the girl has the kindness never to call again? 

Something like it seems to be going on with Google Music Manager, which is responsible for uploading files to Play's cloud music storage. The application launches, occupies its rightful place in the tray, but a mouseover event causes it to close. Nothing is thrown in the event log.

Google Support is accessible through Play help screens, using an Amazon-like Click-to-Call. On the second day of trying, contact with support was made. That was when the presence of this log was mentioned. Echelon 2 help will now take a look.

Analysis There's an application log, but the user isn't given any hints as to its location or how to interpret its contents. This is intentional, but for knowledgeable users -- equipped with a thoughtful FAQ -- some problems may be solved without help from the vendor. Whether it would help with this problem or not is unknown.

Update (28 Sep 2013) The only way to successfully re-install the application was to remove and recreate the working folder where the logs and other message files are stored. If you need the logs to later analysis, store them elsewhere before recreating the folder. The installer, probably by design, leaves the contents intact, but if there are problems there, they are never resolved. The original cause of the problem remains unknown, but the app becomes usable again after following this recipe.

C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\Google\MusicManager

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