Empty track in Windows Media Player 12 that can't be deleted

Question

Right after I installed a fresh copy of Windows 7, I synced with my DropBox account that contains all of my music and added the directory to Windows Media Player 12. I now have a strange track that really isn't a track at all. It's grouped under "Unknown Artist" and has absolutely no text. The only reason I know it's there is because it highlights on mouse-over. Double-clicking on it does nothing. When the song before it ends, Windows Media Player stops playing altogether until I choose a different song (it should continue to play the next song on its own). When I try to delete this mysterious track, nothing happens. I've cleared my library and re-imported everything, but this empty track keeps appearing. I have also checked my Music directory and there is no empty MP3.

What is going on here?

Answer 1

Check whether this is a real music track and that it is a file type readable by WMP with the help of another player (such as Foobar2000 and/or VLC). If so try and edit the file with MP3 Diags.

I had similar issues moving my collection from Vista and WMP 11 (where everything was fine) to Windows 7 and WMP 12 (where a good third of the same collection was somehow not properly recognized). It takes quite some time to fix that track by track but it seems to work.

Answer 2

Click on Options -> Restore library and the file will not appear again.

Your music will be deleted from the library too, but not from your computer

Answer 3

Have you tried right-clicking on the track and selecting Properties (if it's there)? You might be able to ascertain the file path and work from there.