Music library not recognizing files

[EZEd 53]

ebr/Luke, I need help with this one. Recently I've had some similar problems with music library as other users where Emby was creating duplicate entries. I nailed that one down by turning off scrapers from Musicbrainz and AudioDB.  It seemed to have exorcised the duplicates. Then I had the problem where some song files and album folders were being populated with the wrong artist or album artist.  A combination of uninstalling scrapers and having to go back and rescrub all the metadata for all my music files I believe fixed that one.  But this next one is a semi-recurrent one that I can't seem to fix.

 

I had a problem once before with this same artist and I fixed it by renaming all the song files for his albums with a different/modified name; loaded them to the database; ran full scan until they were recognized and then added the original files back under his real/accepted name and Emby picked it right back up correctly.  I then deleted the modified/changed files and all was good for a while.

 

This time the problem presents itself differently (but the same artist).  I have tried both completely removing database files (library.db) and completely uninstalling Emby (with the all traces option) and now that artist cannot be recognized with either scrapers on or off. Where is it that I can go in the server and forcibly make the database recognize this artist and his associated song files?

 

This is the file structure for his album folder...

 

 

 

For the first album (Ashes to Ashes) this is file list of that folder...

 

 

 

This is the MP3Tag data for that folder...

 

 

 

If I go to the Music library in Emby and view Artist this is the result.  The Artist Joe Sample does not show up.  He should show up just between Joe McBride and Johann Pachelbel alphabetically.  No filters are turned on so he should be there.

 

 

When I change to Folder view Joe Sample shows up as he should in the view...

 

 

Even entering his folder all appears to be normal.  All of his album images are present...

 

 

But entering any one of the 10 albums listed reveals NO files !  So none of the songs can be played...

 

 

Each subsequent folder is this same case.  There is imagery but no music files so therefore nothing to play.

 

To prove this is a unique situation for this artist only; every other artist that I have chosen does show up in Artist view and their song files are available in Folder view (the example here is Joshua Redman viewed in Folder view, but the same is true in Artist view)...

 

 

Picking any one of the albums reveals the songs therein...

 

 

Not so for Joe Sample.  What is going on in his case?  Admittedly, I have over 960 artist and over 2300 albums loaded to Emby so I have not checked each and every one.  But Windows Media Player, Microsoft Groove Music, Media Monkey, iTunes for PC, JRiver MC and even that P word that shall not be spoken have no problem with this or any other artist and the files for this artist play just fine in every one of them.  What gives with Emby?

 

Where can I go in the server to force it to recognize?  Again, I have all music scrapers turned off.  I have tried with and without scrapers on.  I have turned off nfo file saving.  I have completely removed/uninstalled Emby server (twice) with the remove all traces option and still this problem persists.  I have tried the previous trick of removing files renaming them and reloading (multiple times) to no avail.  I am at a loss of what to do next.

 

I did notice that even after manually writing the song lists for each album to the album.nfo file for that folder, Emby would immediately over-write the file with a blank nfo file and remove the songs listed. I fixed that by making the album.nfo files read only.  The files stopped being overwritten but even with the correct information Emby still would not load the actual song files, allow them to be played and the artist still does not show in the Artist view of the library. The current album.nfo files remain intact, but useless.

 

I doubt sending logs will help much at this point as I have just recently reloaded Emby and not much activity is recorded since I have been focused on nothing but fixing this problem.  I haven't actually used it recently to enjoy any content, because if there exists this one case then out of greater than 960 artist, could there be other cases?  That coupled with other problems that have been recently experienced really has me wondering...

 

Any suggestions you might have would be appreciated... Help me Obi Wan Kenobi... you're my only hope...

 

EZEd

[dansblackcat 37]

I've stumbled across similar issues after removing and re-adding music.

 

I know the artist is missing but do the Albums for Joe Sample appear?  In some cases I've had to go to an album (for a missing artist) and select Identify, and re-add it that way to get the artist to appear.

If the albums do appear you might notice that the artist name is listed under the album name but it isn't a clickable link, like it should be.

Edited May 20, 2020 by dansblackcat

[EZEd 53]

I've stumbled across similar issues after removing and re-adding music.

 

I know the artist is missing but do the Albums for Joe Sample appear?  In some cases I've had to go to an album (for a missing artist) and select Identify, and re-add it that way to get the artist to appear.

If the albums do appear you might notice that the artist name is listed under the album name but it isn't a clickable link, like it should be.

 

Well sort of, as indicated in images 5,6 & 7 above.  The artist does appear in the Folder view.  But it is artwork only.  None of the actual song files show.  Originally when I checked the album.nfo files for these folders the songs were not listed there either. I manually edited the album.nfo files to list the songs within each.  On subsequent refreshes, Emby would simply overwrite my edits back to no song files.  I eventually write protected the album.nfo files to stop that from happening.  So now the album.nfo files still have my edits intact but Emby still does not acknowledge that the actual MP3 files for the folders actually exist.  I just need some way to force Emby to recognize the actual MP3 files.  The artwork is recognized but the MP3 song files is not.

 

Post edit: re-identify is likely not going to work in this case because I have the scrapers turned off.  But even when I had the scrapers turned on.  It still would not recognize the song files for this artist.  Again creation of duplicate entries is the reason I turned the scrapers off.  Everything else works just fine as near as I can tell except for this one case.  I haven't thoroughly scrubbed the library to see who else might be missing but this one is for sure and I can't find a cure.  I'd like to have a cure before I go looking for more desease.

Edited May 20, 2020 by EZEd

[Luke 37254]

Hi, is this the only content that is not showing up?

[EZEd 53]

It appears so. I haven't done a complete confirmation through all folders but so far this appears to be the only one.

[dansblackcat 37]

Try cutting and pasting one of the offending album folders to the desktop.

Then run a full emby library scan and let it complete.

Then can you then edit each of the mp3 (or whatever format) file names.  Just put a dot, dash or a space.  Anything so that the file name is different.

Then paste it back and run another scan?

[EZEd 53]

Try cutting and pasting one of the offending album folders to the desktop.

Then run a full emby library scan and let it complete.

Then can you then edit each of the mp3 (or whatever format) file names.  Just put a dot, dash or a space.  Anything so that the file name is different.

Then paste it back and run another scan?

 

Have already done that for each album and all song files in each folder.  Problem still remains.  Even did that after having removed library.db and a full Emby uninstall/reinstall.  No change

[dansblackcat 37]

Do you want to upload one of the songs and I'll try it in my emby server?

[EZEd 53]

I can do that but the files play just fine in any other player that I have.  How do you make Emby's music player play a file without it being recognized in the library first?  I'll have to attach the file under separate since the thread is not presenting the file attachment option.  I'll PM the file to you.

 

Ed

[dansblackcat 37]

Yep so there is definitely an issue with the artist.

I popped your .mp3 into folder(s) Joe Sample/ Ashes to Ashes and got nothing.  It did generate an nfo but nothing appears in emby.

 

I even took a known working song, from another artist and renamed it to Joe Sample - Phoneix, and changed all metadata to that song/artist.  But still nothing appears.

 

Very odd.

 

Edit:  I just tried the same thing with artist Tim Sample and got nothing with him either.  I wonder if the issue is with the word "sample"?

Edited May 25, 2020 by dansblackcat

[EZEd 53]

That's what I'm starting to wonder has well.  I even went to Musicbrainz and used his full given name Joseph Leslie Sample.  Renamed all of the song files to use that name and those files are not recognized either.  Same problem as before, the artwork is there but Emby does not recognize and load the actual song files.  There has got to be a way to go into the database code and force Emby to recognize/accept these song files

 

Luke/ebr can either of you weigh in?

 

I just have to wonder why I didn't have this problem before and it has cropped up now?

Edited May 21, 2020 by EZEd

[Spaceboy 2505]

I’d imagine it had something to do with ignoring files with sample in the name. As they often come with full versions of downloaded materials

[EZEd 53]

I’d imagine it had something to do with ignoring files with sample in the name. As they often come with full versions of downloaded materials

Is there anywhere in the server code that we the user can go to override that? Like make some type of exception?

 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

[EZEd 53]

I'm going to try renaming all of his files to something like Joe Leslie and see if they show up. That possibly might confirm the theory of the word "sample" in the file name. I'll report back results.

 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

[EZEd 53]

And sure as sugar that was the problem... I renamed the files using the an artist named Joe Leslie and they all show up and play just fine.  Confirmed (at least partially) that Emby has a problem with the word "sample" in the file name.  So how do you go back and tell an artist that he can't use his real name because when his files are saved to Emby he will be ignored?  And especially in this case because the gentleman is already dead ?!?!?!?!

 

@@Luke , @@ebr you may have a problem.

 

In case you want to research this.  The gentleman's musicbrainz ID is 526a6127-7f4e-4797-8ae9-927a6e29e2d0

Edited May 21, 2020 by EZEd

[Luke 37254]

Yes it's something we'll need to look at. Thanks for reporting.

[Happy2Play 8356]

Still testing but I am not having a issue with Joe Sample, so I am not sure if this is do to new/newer database vs older databases.

[EZEd 53]

There was a time when this artist was recognized by my database. But as it currently stands, I have two complete copies of all the files by this artist loaded to my hard drive where the library is pulling source material. One set with file names Joe Sample - <song title>.mp3. The others named Joe Leslie - <song title>.mp3. All files named Joe Leslie are recognized by Emby. All files named Joe Sample are not. Both sets of files are recognized and playable by Media Monkey, JRiver MC, Windows Media Player, Windows Media Center, Microsoft Groove Music and Plex. Emby is the only one that has a problem with file names Joe Sample - <song title>.mp3. Any suggestions would be helpful/appreciated.

[Happy2Play 8356]

Emby does things a lot different then all other players as it is easy to get tag mismatches in Emby database.  Just like testing "Creole Love Call" by "Nils Landgren & Joe Sample".  Emby linked "Nils Landgren & Joe Sample" to "Nils Landgren" musicbrainzid and audiodbid but displayed as "Nils Landgren & Joe Sample".

The way providerids can kill Artist/AlbumArtist tag can be troublesome. So extended tags have to be looked at also.

Will be doing some more testing soon on other Joe Sample albums.  But @Lukewould have to comment on if there maybe a old vs new database issues here.

[Luke 37254]

What do you see in Emby Server?

[Happy2Play 8356]

9 minutes ago, Luke said:

What do you see in Emby Server?

Currently testing Joe Sample and I am not having any issues, so I am wondering if there could be a old vs new database issue at play here?

[Luke 37254]

Just now, Happy2Play said:

Currently testing Joe Sample and I am not having any issues, so I am wondering if there could be a old vs new database issue at play here?

I honestly don't know at this point. I'm going to assume the information posted above is possibly stale now given that it's from May, so I'll need to take a look at his issue again from the beginning.

[Happy2Play 8356]

Tested on another portable stable release build and has no issue with my test media.  Appears in Artist/AlbumArtist

[Luke 37254]

Some ideas of the top of my head would be quirks caused by locking items, or maybe you have a pre-existing album nfo file and the artist isn't listed in there.

[Happy2Play 8356]

What is in the album.nfo in this example.

Here is mine.

Spoiler

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="yes"?>
<album>
  <review />
  <outline />
  <lockdata>false</lockdata>
  <dateadded>2020-11-29 17:02:43</dateadded>
  <title>Ashes To Ashes</title>
  <year>1990</year>
  <runtime>50</runtime>
  <genre>Jazz</genre>
  <musicbrainzalbumid>f33b6168-e90e-4e3a-a926-25dc7623c4a1</musicbrainzalbumid>
  <musicbrainzalbumartistid>526a6127-7f4e-4797-8ae9-927a6e29e2d0</musicbrainzalbumartistid>
  <musicbrainzreleasegroupid>cf6de3c8-5990-351c-bceb-fbc0b7019a57</musicbrainzreleasegroupid>
  <artist>Joe Sample</artist>
  <albumartist>Joe Sample</albumartist>
  <track>
    <position>1</position>
    <title>Ashes To Ashes</title>
    <duration>04:53</duration>
  </track>
  <track>
    <position>2</position>
    <title>The Road Less Traveled</title>
    <duration>05:28</duration>
  </track>
  <track>
    <position>3</position>
    <title>Mother's Eyes</title>
    <duration>04:48</duration>
  </track>
  <track>
    <position>4</position>
    <title>The Last Child</title>
    <duration>06:00</duration>
  </track>
  <track>
    <position>5</position>
    <title>Born In Trouble</title>
    <duration>05:35</duration>
  </track>
  <track>
    <position>6</position>
    <title>Strike Two</title>
    <duration>05:50</duration>
  </track>
  <track>
    <position>7</position>
    <title>I'll Love You</title>
    <duration>05:35</duration>
  </track>
  <track>
    <position>8</position>
    <title>Born To Be Bad</title>
    <duration>05:35</duration>
  </track>
  <track>
    <position>9</position>
    <title>Phoenix</title>
    <duration>06:25</duration>
  </track>
</album>