What changed in rc.4 ​

Three crash fixes, plus a couple of small cleanups:

• No more crash on the now-playing track when the year field is missing.
• The widget opens the app reliably again (switched to actionStartActivity).
• Broadcast actions that throw no longer take the app down with them.
• Dependency updates and a fix for the App License screen.

No feature changes, no behavior changes. The full list is in the rc.4 changelog.

If you're on rc.3, please update. Crash reports from the Play flavor and issues filed on GitHub were what drove this round, so thanks to everyone who sent them in.

What's next ​

The plan from here is to keep monitoring rc.4 and gathering feedback for a few more days. Once things look quiet across both the GitHub and Play builds, v1.6.0 moves into a staged rollout on the Play Store starting in May. That means a small percentage of production users first, watching crash metrics, and ramping up from there rather than flipping the full release at once.

If a new crash shows up during the staged rollout, the rollout pauses and another rc ships before continuing.

How to help ​

• Crashes and odd behavior go on GitHub issues.
• Discord is open for questions and quicker back-and-forth.
• If you're on the Play Store beta, just keeping the app installed and using it helps — Crashlytics reports from the Play flavor are what's driving these fixes.

Almost there. Thanks again for testing.

What changed in rc.3 ​

Overnight testing on rc.2 surfaced a few crashes and stability issues that are now fixed in rc.3. If you're running rc.2, please update. The rc.3 changelog has the full list of PRs.

No feature changes, no behavior changes, just fixes. The plugin you already have keeps working.

Play Store beta is live ​

Google approved the permissions review, so the open beta is now available on the Play Store's testing channel. You can opt in and get updates through Play the same way you would any other app:

• Join the beta on Google Play.

GitHub Releases will keep getting the same builds as pre-releases, so if you prefer sideloading the APK that path isn't going anywhere.

What's next ​

If the Play beta stays clean for a few days, v1.6.0 gets promoted to production and MusicBee Remote is back on the Play Store stable channel. If something breaks, another rc goes out first.

As always, crashes and weirdness go on GitHub issues, and Discord is open for questions. Thanks to everyone who's been testing — the overnight reports are what made rc.3 possible.

Where to get it ​

Both release candidates are published on GitHub Releases as pre-releases. Grab the APK and sideload it. The plugin you already have works with it, no plugin update needed.

Two APK variants are published:

• GitHub flavor, with no Crashlytics and no Firebase. This is the one most people will want.
• Play flavor, with Crashlytics. This is the build that will eventually go to the Play Store.

What's in rc.1 ​

rc.1 is the first cut of everything covered in the v1.6.0 preview post: the Material 3 and Compose rewrite, the improved library browsing with sorting and album grid view, playlist folder navigation, half-star ratings, Last.fm love and ban from the player, auto-reconnect, the rebuilt widget, the new track details view, and the long-standing issues that finally got closed. The full rc.1 changelog on GitHub lists every PR that went in.

What changed in rc.2 ​

rc.2 is a small follow-up. The Play flavor in rc.1 was broken: the CI job was missing its Firebase configuration and produced an APK that crashes on launch. If you grabbed the Play APK from rc.1, please switch to rc.2. The GitHub flavor from rc.1 was unaffected.

The rc.2 changelog is short: the CI pipeline now fails loudly when google-services.json is missing on a tag build, plus the version bump.

About the Play Store ​

The plan is still to put the open beta on the Play Store's testing channel before promoting to production. That part is waiting on Google. The app needs approval for a few permissions under the current Play policies, and that review is in progress. Until it clears, GitHub Releases is the only place to get builds.

As soon as the Play Store beta is live I'll post an update here. If the feedback on GitHub is clean, the production release follows shortly after and MusicBee Remote is back on the Play Store.

How to help ​

If you try an rc build, I'd love to hear what breaks (or doesn't):

• File an issue on GitHub for crashes, connection weirdness, library glitches, widget oddities, anything.
• Drop by Discord if you want to chat or ask before filing.

Thanks for testing. The closer rc.2 is to working for everyone, the sooner v1.6.0 can go out.

Why this update matters ​

It's been a while. The app was off the Play Store, and the codebase had fallen behind. Over the past year I've been quietly rebuilding things, and v1.6.0 is the result. It's not just a maintenance update. Pretty much every screen was rewritten.

The app looks different now ​

The whole UI was rebuilt with Material 3 and Jetpack Compose, replacing the old XML layouts. If you used the old version, you'll notice immediately. The app feels snappier, the animations are smoother, and it supports both dark and light themes that follow your system setting. Tablets also get a better layout now.

Library browsing is actually useful ​

This was one of the areas that bothered me the most. You can now sort your library by name or artist across genres, artists, albums, and tracks. There's an album grid view if you prefer browsing visually. You can drill down from genre to artist to album, and jump to an album or artist directly from the player or queue. Playlists now support folder navigation too.

Ratings got some love ​

Half-star ratings are in, and you can love or ban tracks on Last.fm directly from the player screen. There's also a new track details view if you want to see the full metadata.

Connection handling actually works ​

This was probably the biggest pain point. The app now auto-reconnects when the connection drops, shows a progress indicator while connecting, and stops cleanly when you disconnect on purpose. The offline state is much clearer visually.

Widget and notifications ​

The home screen widget was rebuilt and should be more reliable. Notifications are better. Library sync now happens in the background with progress updates so you know it's working.

Technical bits ​

For anyone who cares: the app targets Android 16 (SDK 36), migrated from XML layouts to Compose, and replaced a bunch of legacy libraries with modern alternatives. Startup is faster thanks to baseline profiles, and test coverage is significantly better than before.

Long-standing requests finally addressed ​

Some of these have been open for years. Thanks to everyone who reported them and waited patiently:

• Go to Album / Go to Artist from the player and queue (#155, open since 2018)
• Playlist folder navigation (#181, open since 2019)
• Non-album tracks grouped properly (#184, open since 2019)
• Browse albums by genre (#226, open since 2021)
• Bomb ratings for Last.fm (#229, open since 2021)
• Album cover reset fix (#139, open since 2017)

When can I try it? ​

The plan is to have a beta available on the Play Store's open testing channel first. You'll also be able to download the APK directly from GitHub Releases if you prefer. No plugin update needed; the new app works with your existing MusicBee plugin.

Once the beta period confirms things are solid, the app moves to the production channel and MusicBee Remote is officially back on the Play Store.

What's next after v1.6.0 ​

Looking further ahead, v1.7.0 will focus on a protocol update between the app and the MusicBee plugin (v5). This opens the door to a number of features that aren't possible with the current protocol:

• Sort by year, date added, and rating (#279)
• Synchronized lyrics (#163)
• Playlist editing from the app (#225)
• Queue duration display (#151)
• Stop after current track (#150)
• Clear queue button (#131)
• Artist images in the library (#166)
• Shutdown timer support (#50)

If you find issues, open a report on GitHub or come chat on Discord. Thanks for sticking around.

Website Modernization ​

As part of the broader modernization efforts, I'm transitioning the documentation and website from Jekyll to VitePress. This upgrade brings several benefits:

• Faster page loading and better performance
• Enhanced documentation features
• Better Vue.js integration
• Modern tooling and Markdown support

The new website will maintain all existing content while providing a more streamlined and responsive experience for the users.

Development resumes ​

I’m excited to announce that during Christmas I decided to resume development of the MusicBee Remote application.

What's coming ​

The initial roadmap for the application is to proceed with the following improvements:

• Add support for Android 15
• Drop outdated and legacy dependencies
• Make the codebase easier to maintain
• Enhance overall stability and performance

Play Store Return ​

For the last few years I removed the application from Google Play Store because of the lack of energy and time to maintain it. The primary goal after this update is done is to restore the application to Google Play Store to make it easily accessible once again.

Next Steps ​

I’m going to make sure that the application is stable and ready in the coming months. Stay tuned for progress updates and beta testing opportunities.

For those interested in following the development progress or contributing to the project, keep an eye on our official channels for more information.

Development hiatus ​

While the application hasn’t received an official update since February 2017 the development and optimization process was continuing alas slowly.

As of July 2018, due to changing jobs and moving to another country, the application development is indefinitely in hiatus.

Current Status ​

I was in the process of doing a complete rewrite of both the plugin and mobile application. I believe that the plugin’s rewrite was done and it should be close to release status without many bugs. It even has few new additions on the protocol level to support a couple of new features, like podcast listing.

The Android rewrite unfortunately was not complete in time, and at the current state the application is crashing and not working as expected.

During the rewrite there was a number of big changes done to the application:

• DBFlow was replaced with Room and Paging library.
• MVP architecture was replaced with MVVM using the new architecture components.
• Navigation was moved to the Navigation component.
• TargetSDK was updated for Android P and androix refactoring was in progress.
• Toothpick was replaced with Koin
• RxBus was removed

Also, the mechanism for the metadata syncing was completely revamped. For starters sync will not clear the database every time a new sync started but instead it will insert new entries, update existing and remove old entries, so that the library will never be empty after the first sync.

There were also great optimizations in the syncing mechanism reducing the time required to sync the metadata of 15000 tracks to 15–17 seconds from a few minutes with the release version.

Unfortunately the application still requires work, and I won’t be able to do it soon. If anyone is interested though, to pick from where I left please feel free to contact me so we can come to an arrangement.

Related Medium Post

Hello everyone,

I will have to apologize for the lack of updates, work and commuting usually don't leave me enough time or energy to focus on the Remote application.

This doesn't mean that the application development is abandoned. When I manage to get some energy I’m still working on optimizing the application. I’m also taking in mind issues reported by every one of you for the next release.

If you encounter any issue feel free to contact me, but keep in mind that I may take a while to answer. Also if you’ve encountered any issues with the application functionality please feel free to open tickets on Github. I’m always considering suggestions for the improvement of the application.

Since last year I’ve been working on a major rewrite of both the plugin and the application. The plugin part is almost done, but I’m still struggling a little bit with improvements and optimizations on the application functionality.

My greatest focus was the library metadata syncing mechanism. I’m currently in the process of rewriting a big part of this and first results so great improvements. Syncing speed for a library of 16000 tracks in the time has been reduced from around 5-6 minutes to 16-17 seconds.

I’m also working on optimizing the caching of data to avoid situations where errors during sync would leave the library half synced.

The new features planned for the next version release include Radio station sync and output switching from the remote application. Also, I’m working on sorting functionality for the library view.

Regards Konstantinos

Hi everyone,

This morning v1.1.0 was pushed to the beta channel on Play store. If you are a beta tester you probably already received the update on your phone. There are a couple of changes that also require the latest version of the plugin (v1.1.0).

You can find a complete changelog on Github.

The plans are to have the v1.1.0 in the beta channel until the end of the week. If there are no major issues, the plan is to release the new version to the production channel by the end of the week.

Soon I will start working on the next update v1.2.0 of the application that will contain mostly new features.

Hi there,

First of all it seems like the false positive with Windows Defender was resolved after the dispute to the Malware Protection Center.

There is a bug fix/minor enhancement update (v1.1.0) coming. I don't have a clear ETA but I hope to have it ready in the next couple of weeks.

This update resolves some known issues like the "No results" when when accessing compilation Artists. I am not sure if I will start a staged rollout on production channel or if I will deploy it for a while on the beta channel in order to gather feedback.

There are also a couple of issues on the plugin side, regard the favorite button not updating and the rating not working properly on a non English locale.

You can see the progress of the v1.1.0 on GitHub.

After this I will work on v1.2.0 GitHub the features are almost closed for that update. After getting teh v1.2.0 update released, there will be only bug fixes for v1.x and the development for v2.0.0 will start.

There have been reports that the plugin installer is marked as malware by Windows Defender. This has been verified and I have submitted a dispute to the Windows Malware Protection site so I am awaiting a response.

The plugin installer analysis is available at VirusTotal. It seems that two engines mark the plugin as malicious but non of the major AntiVirus engines think so.

The installer is packaged using the NSIS (Nullsoft Scriptable Install System).

The machines that create and upload the builds of the plugin both run Avast Free Antivirus and there have been no reports for any infection so I am pretty sure that these are false positives.

If you are using Windows Defender and you are still concerned or afraid to install the plugin through the v1.0.0 exe, you can also try the manual installation using the always present 7z (7zip) archive.

Finally after all this time v1.0.0 is out containing library browsing and basic playlist support. These days I spend some time to update the application website since it hasn't been updated since it's original creation back in 2012-2013.

The new site uses the jekyll platform in order to ease the update of the news section.

Also the help section hasn't been updated since v0.9.x and thus is really outdate since the application has changed since then both feature wise and design wise. So a help update is also included in the site update.

Even though v1.0.1 is currently live in Play Store the version of course is not without issues. I have received helpful feedback from users and the plans are to work on these issues and release an update (v1.0.2) as soon as the fixes are ready.

You can have a look at the currently open issues for the Plugin and the Application.

My plan is to create milestones and put any issues reported to milestones. You can view the milestones to determine the progress of the version. I will try to keep it updated as much as I am able.

After the release of v1.0.2 I plan to resume working on version 2.0.0.

v2.0.0 ​

The next major version of MusicBee Remote will containing a great number of changes. However these changes mean that the v1.x.x and v2.x.x will be incompatible.

Some of the planned features for v2.0.0 are:

• Covers for the albums/tracks in the library view.
• Better album profile view.
• Ability to view/delete the playlist tracks.
• Ability to create new playlists and add tracks to existing once through the library browser.

The new plugin/application will drop the TCP Socket approach currently used and will use instead web technologies. All the APIs will be exposed as HTTP calls and the messaging/notifications will be done through WebSockets.

Some of the reasons for this move is that it is easier to test, it is build on libraries that have been tested and used on a really larger scale. Also as a plus all actions will now be simple HTTP requests, for example you could pause the playback by calling the url on your browser.

Another reason for this is that I would like after releasing v2.0.0 and reaching a good state of features and stability to start working on a web application that will offer similar functionality to the remote but will be embedded in the plugin.

Downloads ​

Since I already use the GitHub Releases for both the Plugin and Application from now on all the downloads for plugin and apk will be available there.

Regards Konstantinos

A new version has been pushed to the testing channel in Google Play Store, if you are interested in getting the test version you can join the testing group . Keep in mind that a plugin update is required.

v0.12 of the plugin is available under the test versions category. If there are no major issues the update will be pushed to the stable channel after about one week.

The development plan is to release another minor update including a lockscreen - homescreen widget before resuming the playlist, library support development.

Some status update.

I was hoping to get the new version out by mid march, unfortunately this is not possible anymore. There is more work to be completed in order to push the update and starting the 11th of March I will be doing my mandatory army service for a period of 9 months, this means I can't know for sure when the next update will be out.

The most probable scenario is that I will not have computer access for the greatest part of the next 9 months. I will try to work to complete the features when I get back home, but I can't guarantee anything.

Also it will probably take a while to reply to e-mails/posts since I won't have any Internet access.

An update has been released that fixes a minor issue with the plugin, the issue would cause the plugin to stop accepting connections in some cases..v0.9.6 of the plugin is available, it fixes a minor issue that would cause MusicBee to crash.

Also the feature development of the Remote has resumed, I am currently working on the playlist support functionality.

Finally There is also an updated version of the Android application fixing an issue with the application crashing in the settings dialog for devices running Android 2.2.

An update has been released that fixes a minor issue with the plugin, the issue would cause the plugin to stop accepting connections in some cases..

There has been a minor update during last week to version 0.9.7, this version fixes a minor issue regarding an application crash in the settings dialog.

Version 0.9.6 has been released to the production channel on Google Play and it is now available for all users. Make sure to update the plugin to the latest version. Feature development will resume on October with the addition of widgets and playlist support.

v0.9.6 has been released to the test channel on Google Play. If there are no major issues in the next few days The version will be moved to the production channel, and it will get accessible for everyone.

I am currently working on some layout fixes, I hope to get another test version out in the next days. This will be v0.9.6 of the remote application. After this there will be a test period of a few days. If no deal breaking issues - bugs are reported the version will be promoted to stable and will be deployed to Google Play to replace the existing v0.2.3.1 of the remote.

After the release of the new version the development will slow down due to a busy schedule (work, exams and I also have to finish preparing and present my thesis) till the end of September.

The features that are planned for the next release after this one, are the implementation of Playlist Management. And the addition of widgets.

I hope to get an updated stable version of the remote on Google Play till the end of the week.

There latest test version is 0.9.4, though it has a known issue with Android 2.x, that will be resolved later today. You can find more about the test version through the download page.

A new release of the remote is getting close.

The new version will be a major update feature wise and it will pack a number of visual tweaks too. The plan is to release a test version at some point until the end of the week through the alpha or beta channel of Google Play, and after fixing any issues that will appear a version will get uploaded to the stable channel.

The new plugin and application are incompatible with the previously released version, which means that the new version of the plugin will not work with the old version of the application, and the new application will not function with the old version of the plugin. This is due to the fact that I changed the underlying protocol from xml to JSON. This means that both the plugin and the application should be updated.

The changes of the new version include a better tablet layout for 7inch tablets like Google Nexus 7, though unfortunately the previous idea for the always displayed now playing list on the landscape mode was temporarily abandoned, though it may return in a future version.

Other features of the new version, include 5 star rating for the playing track along with the ability to change the last.fm love/ban status of a track.

The navigation for the new version has been moved to the new Drawer Layout (much like the Gmail and Google Play Music sidebar menu).

The now playing list functionality have been reworked fixing various issues with the previous implementation. Furthermore search functionality has been implemented and the ability to, sort the list and remove tracks has been added.

Another newly implemented feature is the library search functionality. The is support for search by Genre, Artist, Album and Title. The user can either queue next or last the results, or either play them now. There is also functionality to get the artists of a genre or the albums of an artists, or the tracks of an album.

Finally another new feature is the ability to store multiple remote host settings. The current implementation will only try to connect to the one set as the default. Also a service discovery functionality has been implemented for wifi networks using multicast functionality.

Hello and sorry for the luck of updates, due to work taking a great portion of my time everyday the progress on the Remote Development is a little bit slower however I am already working on some new things for the next update.

First of all the new version will have a reworked the now playing list you can see a demonstration to the following video:

Also on the new version the playlist functionality will be more forgiving to missing tags, and it will send more than 500 tracks.

I am also working on notification on the status similar to the one in Apollo player of CyanogenMod.

After finishing with this version I will start working on the library integration part so I would like you to send suggestions on how would you like this feature to work. This along with a proper tablet version will be probably the next features I will focus.

Feel free to e-mail me with suggestions or reply to the related Topic on MusicBee forums.