If a custom song does not appear in Frets on Fire’s song list, the game almost certainly cannot see its folder — not that it rejected the chart. Work through these checks in order; the first one fixes most cases.
Check 1: The double-folder problem
Extracting a song archive often creates data\songs\[song name]\[song name]\notes.mid — two nested folders with the same name. The game looks one level down, finds another folder instead of notes.mid, and skips the song. Move the inner folder’s contents up one level so notes.mid sits directly inside data\songs\[song name]\.
Check 2: File names and required files
- The chart must be named exactly
notes.mid(lowercase, notnotes.MIDI). - The playable audio must be
guitar.oggin Ogg Vorbis format — aguitar.mp3will not be found. song.inimust be present with a title; a missing or brokensong.inican hide the song.- On Linux, file-name case matters:
.oggand.midmust be lowercase.
Check 3: The right songs folder
Make sure you put the song in the folder of the game you actually launched — vanilla and FoFiX have separate data\songs\ folders. Restart the game after adding songs (FoFiX can rescan from its settings). For the full layout, see how to add custom songs.
Browse the full hub. Related guides: add custom songs frets on fire, charting with eof, fofix install themes.