# Amazonmp3 and Play music won't play .m4a music



## Maxpower (Jun 11, 2011)

I had this with my Droid X and assumed it had something to do with running customized software. However, I just received my new Galaxy S III and it has the same issue. If the file is a .m4a, it will give me an error in AmazonMp3, Play Music and Winamp. .mp3 files play fine.

m4a will not work from Amazon or Play Music, even if I stream from the cloud.

I also copied them directly to the SD card and tried to play them from Astro. There I can choose which player to play with but m4a files just do not work.

Is this a known issue?

Is there a work around?

I am surprised that after all this time Android (at least on my phones) do not play m4a. Makes me think I am doing something wrong. But what?

Thanks


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## ERIFNOMI (Jun 30, 2011)

Are these songs you bought from iTunes? They're probably locked down with DRM. This is why I buy CDs and rip to FLAC.

Android does support AAC audio, which is more than likely what's in that m4a container (m4a is an audio only mp4 container). http://developer.android.com/guide/appendix/media-formats.html


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## Maxpower (Jun 11, 2011)

Yes, they are iTunes but the protected ones are m4p. After playing around with it some more, I found that rock player lite will play the songs. Google, winamp and AmazonMP3 will not.


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## Maxpower (Jun 11, 2011)

Everything I read says Android will play AAC/m4a files but neither of my Android phones will, except for Rock Player Lite.

I have been experimenting with converting the files to mp3 and ogg, however, none of the tags show up in any player on my phone.

How is everyone syncing files and playing them on Android? What if you are using iTunes?

I would be happy to go away from iTunes but both my kids have iPods and constantly get iTunes gift cards. Is there something out there that will sync iTunes with Android and put the files in a format that can actually be played?

Thanks


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## ERIFNOMI (Jun 30, 2011)

What bitrate are these files?

Like I said, I rip my music to FLAC. I've considered converting to ogg vorbis for my phone to save space, but I don't keep much music on my phone so it's not a big deal. I have some must have music then I use Google Music for the rest if I need anything else for whatever reason.


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