What works
Generally, MusicBee's "core" functionality of library management and music playback works perfectly fine.
- Importing and listening to music
- Relinking after using the library on Windows also works.
- Music Explorer view
- Filtering with sidebars like the Tag Hierarchy Explorer and Thumbnail Browser.
- Scrobbling to and syncing play count from Last.fm
- ReplayGain volume analysis
- Creating + editing playlists and auto-playlists
- Dragging and dropping from MusicBee itself into playlists works
- Now Playing/Theater Mode views
- Adding custom images for playlist icons and headers
- Mini and compact player window modes, and switching back to regular mode.
- Layout/view editing and changing skin
- Plugin installation works bug-for-bug.
- Plugins used to test were ScrobblerBrainz, LRCLIBee and 3DBee.
- Of course, plugin compatibility can vary but plugin installation is the same here as on Windows
- Default visualisations.
- Equaliser and DSPs, specifically the mono and tempo control DSPs.
- Editing tags, as well as using custom and virtual tags.
- Downloading cover art from iTunes/Apple Music
- Switching between DirectSound and WASAPI
What does not
- Dragging the tabs still throws a NotImplementedException. Relevant bug: 52078
- Font redirection is still broken, if your font does not contain the relevant script it will be shown as boxes. This will be a problem for those who have a lot of East Asian or fullwidth characters in their tags. This still occurs even if you set up CJK fonts in the registry. Relevant bug: 53019
- Disabling skinning window borders or using the Windows skin will result in no borders being rendered at all.
- Certain cover/album art have rendering problems, also appear as not having album art even though they actually do when exported.
- MusicBee
will freak out if the filenames in your library don't stick to the
constraints of NTFS (e.g. uses prohibited characters). This is
visible by MusicBee asking to remove these files as it can't find them.
- When hovering over anything that activates a tooltip, said tooltip will sometimes steal focus from the main window.
- Sometimes, deleting a file via MusicBee directly might result in filesystem issues if the drive uses NTFS.
- 3DBee will not run after being installed.
Workarounds
- Font redirection: Using a font that has all the scripts you want built in, such as Unifont or Microsoft Yahei (a CJK font).
- Cover art: Use the built-in downloader to download cover art from Apple Music or another service.
- Tooltip focus stealing: (KDE Plasma only) create a new window rule targeting MusicBee specifically that gives it high focus protection. For other desktop
environments, maybe using the virtual desktop would sort this out.
- Window borders (or lack thereof): if you find yourself with no borders, press Alt to bring up the context menu, then go to View > Skins > Skin Window Borders.
No workaround is available for the NotImplementedException in the tabs.
What was not tested
- Downloading and listening to podcasts
- File converter preferences, though it should work if the wmp11 verb is installed via winetricks
- Syncing Loved Tracks from Last.fm
- AAC playback (according to the developer, you need bass_aac.dll for AAC playback on systems that don't support it OOTB.)
- CD ripping
- Library filters, which is different from the filtering sidebars such as the Tag Hierarchy Explorer in which it is configured as a library setting, not a view
- Automatic import to library was not tested extensively (sometimes works, sometimes doesn't)
- Import from WMP/iTunes
- Creating a new library after deleting the one it creates on first run after install
- Most of the options in the Tools sub-menu (having never needed to use them)
- Visualisation plugins such as the Milkdrop2 plugin. Last time I tested, it did not work, though it was more of an issue with Milkdrop itself as reports of similar issues with it occurred on tests for WinAmp.
- Downloading cover art from other sources (Fanart.tv, Bing, Deezer)
- Device syncing
- Testing relating to bug 56921.
Hardware tested
Graphics:
- GPU: AMD
- Driver: open source
Additional Comments
- Winetricks verbs: dotnet48 gdiplus xmllite tahoma cjkfonts fakechinese fakejapanese fakekorean
- Prefix architecture: 32-bit
- Tested operating system targets: Windows 7, Windows 10
