Albums in folder view

[thelanranger 11]

I knew they were supported but it seems like if there is an m3u of the album within the folder it 'cross links' the album. Almost like the database indexes the songs themselves, gives it the musicbrainz ID, makes the album and the album artist entries, then does the same thing for the m3u and if they are VERY SLIGHTLY different you end up with two copies of the same thing.

[Carlo 4330]

For just those you're having an issue with try MusicBrainZ Picard and let it create folders, remove tags and rewrite them.  When you do that Emby normally has no issue with it since MusicBrainZ is one of the metadata providers.

[thelanranger 11]

Hrm...it seems that if the MusicBrainz and the tag do not agree it makes an additional Album artist with the same name as the Album Artist in the tag location of the mp3 file then that item has a separate MusicBrainz ID that takes you to the unique artist ID for that artist.

Example: This album has a track that is identified by MusicBrainz as being by DJ  Jay Faire but the tag in the file says 2Pac (because it's part of a 2Pac Album). It makes a second 2Pac album artist folder (with no cover art) and a single album in it then the musicbrainz link is this:

https://musicbrainz.org/artist/11d8d4be-c9c0-47f1-b348-9e10a536d93d

Multiple things seem to do this.

[PenkethBoy 2063]

Yep - if you tags are not consistent. mbz Id's are different for the same artist (as MBz can have more than one) etc

you get duplicates / weird results etc

So - getting your tags correct is something you have to work through - and you have zero issues once resolved

Its a common belief with a new user to emby that their tags etc are correct - as they work in other apps - but emby is very strict (forces you to get you tags correct and highlights those things that other apps ignore etc).

I went through this pain 2-3 yrs ago - but its worth it as now i know what to check for before adding an album to emby - so it appears in the expected spot and things line up - the more you correct stuff the better it will be etc etc

One thing to note - if you have or will have Music Videos and add Artists to them - make sure they have the same name as existing or future artists added to emby

I earlier today had Echo & The Bunnymen twice by searching for them - reason was i had named the MV folder with "and" instead of & - just correcting the folder name did not fix the issue - i had to remove the MV ETB folder - lib scan - then add back and bingo no dupe - so JIC you see dups - remove all the media for one dup and usually that fixes it - or remove all media etc scan - then add back etc - a little dance you learn with experince

 

@cayars - i think we need a KB article on Music the pitfalls / issues etc - as the above is going to change when fully tag driven - its going to cause more dead aches then we get currently - and people believing their tags are perfect are going to get caught out big time

[Carlo 4330]

1 hour ago, PenkethBoy said:

@cayars - i think we need a KB article on Music the pitfalls / issues etc - as the above is going to change when fully tag driven - its going to cause more dead aches then we get currently - and people believing their tags are perfect are going to get caught out big time

I've had similar thoughts myself but usually try to avoid such articles that could get wiped/mooted by a software change.  Instead I "try" to focus on the positive way to setup folders and tags so that it won't matter and Emby will pick them up correctly.'  This may be an exception...

The reality is that if users use the folder naming convention and wipe tags, then rewrite proper tags as well as make sure they don't have music tracks (or graphics)  at the album level Emby usually works great.

So I kind of struggle with this since if you follow "directions" you won't have an issue, normally.

But yea I get what you're saying and don't disagree.

Any chance you would want to take a first shot at this?  You definitely handle these issue better than I in the forums.

It can be rough and formatting doesn't matter as I'll clean it up/modify it as needed.

Feel free to PM me and we can take this offline to discuss.

[PenkethBoy 2063]

ok - thought you might ask that

i will give it a shot tomorrow and pass by a couple of other users who i know have a lot more music than i do etc

i will PM you when i have something

[Dragon777 1]

What I don´t get here is why Emby is not behaving similar to Twonky. Because I have had 0 issues with Twonky for years. I was always getting exactly what I would expect in the library.

So why not work on compatibility instead of forcing all users to completely re-tag all their stuff they have collected for decades. Not everybody will be willing to do that.

[PenkethBoy 2063]

twonky - different product - different requirements

twonky is a dlna server - which is available in Emby - have you tried that? may be same issues but worth a go

Music is going to be tag only driven in the future (no exact time scale yet) - but depending how its done could be more strict on what it needs

Most music players use Tags these days so you might have to bite the bullet....

Picard from MusicBrainz makes it quite easy to do - depending on size of music collection from a few hours to a couple of days on and off.

 

Making things compatible with other programs is a huge can of worms and can take a long time to do and will be liable to errors/edge cases - so devs tend to define whats required as does apple et al with their products.

[Dragon777 1]

I know Twonky is a dlna server. I also use the dlna function of Emby because I prefer BubbleUPnP over the Emby app for music playback. It´s much more tailored for music.

But the problems are the same, no matter whether you access the library through Emby apps or through another dlna client.

So I am really not getting why Twonky is so uncomplicated while Emby is like a Diva.

[PenkethBoy 2063]

not sure what you dont get

its a different app from a different developer so they do things differently - no mystery

no different than iTunes does things differently to Google Music

[Dragon777 1]

Well, for my understanding, they are both doing the same thing:  Scanning the music library and providing it in a structured way based on tags and additional metadata. What´s so different? Sure, Emby does more than that, but this basic functionality is basically the same. And I am using it e.g. with BubbleUPnP in exactly the same way.

[PenkethBoy 2063]

i think we are going in circles

the answer is the same - apps do things differently etc as i have already explained - even if the user sees similar things - underneath things can be quite different

 

For some reason you are restant to improving your metadata - fine - things will stay the same - invest some time in your music library and things will improve.....

[thelanranger 11]

On 9/20/2020 at 8:46 PM, PenkethBoy said:

Yep - if you tags are not consistent. mbz Id's are different for the same artist (as MBz can have more than one) etc

you get duplicates / weird results etc

So - getting your tags correct is something you have to work through - and you have zero issues once resolved

Its a common belief with a new user to emby that their tags etc are correct - as they work in other apps - but emby is very strict (forces you to get you tags correct and highlights those things that other apps ignore etc).

I went through this pain 2-3 yrs ago - but its worth it as now i know what to check for before adding an album to emby - so it appears in the expected spot and things line up - the more you correct stuff the better it will be etc etc

One thing to note - if you have or will have Music Videos and add Artists to them - make sure they have the same name as existing or future artists added to emby

I earlier today had Echo & The Bunnymen twice by searching for them - reason was i had named the MV folder with "and" instead of & - just correcting the folder name did not fix the issue - i had to remove the MV ETB folder - lib scan - then add back and bingo no dupe - so JIC you see dups - remove all the media for one dup and usually that fixes it - or remove all media etc scan - then add back etc - a little dance you learn with experince

 

@cayars - i think we need a KB article on Music the pitfalls / issues etc - as the above is going to change when fully tag driven - its going to cause more dead aches then we get currently - and people believing their tags are perfect are going to get caught out big time

My tags are fine. This is not the issue. The problem is that whoever put the tags on MusicBrainz did it incorrectly or the ID for the song name does not match what the song actually is.

If the mp3 itself has tags it needs to use THAT information over whatever it THINKS the song is. All my id3 tags are 100% perfect. I purchased Jaikoz and go through everything before I add it to the folder the emby scans. If you read what I was saying, it will list the album, then it picks a song out of the album and ids it as belonging to a completely different album on its own, and makes a SECOND album with a musicbrainz link. This is incorrect. This is not incorrect tagging on the part of the files. I have verified it and even deleted extraneous files to be certain.

 

In fact, I even have all the Musicbrainz and AudioDB disabled and it STILL is looking things up on MusicBrainz and making up these links. It should only be using the ImageExtractor to take the images from the mp3s themselves and using the id3 tags and NOTHING ELSE.

 

Edited September 27, 2020 by thelanranger

[PenkethBoy 2063]

Just something to think about

do you know which tags emby reads and which it acts on

Your tags can be accurate but if you dont have tags emby is looking for then its going to try and guess - this is I suspect with no detailed info might be your problem

 

Maybe upload a problem album, provide a link here and we can see if we get the same issue and suggestion on how you might fix it

 

Oh and getting aggressive is not helping just because you dont like a suggestion provided to help you.

 

[Carlo 4330]

I was going to say nearly the same thing.  A sample problem album would be the best way to move forward.

[PenkethBoy 2063]

I'll leave this one to you - i'm sure you have your tools primed and ready 

runs for the non internet world

My bet is on the tags being not what emby wants/incorrect /missing - good luck  

[thelanranger 11]

5 hours ago, cayars said:

I was going to say nearly the same thing.  A sample problem album would be the best way to move forward.

I could probably send you 100. 

As I'm going through this more deeply it has become clear to me that when emby scans it detects the name of the album and tries to match it to some album on MusicBrainz. If it 'assumes' that it found a match then it simply ignores the id3 tags entirely and uses the ones from MusicBrainz (even though I have removed the MusicBrainz plugin entirely). This immediately causes conflicts with ANY album that is something like a Vinyl rip or something customized that I have tagged, filled with art, and meticulously labeled myself. All this gets ignored and then it just loads the "match" in and screws everything up.

What information would you like me to send you? An album of mp3s that it scans incorrectly?

[Happy2Play 8273]

You have just described what Emby does, returned online metadata will override embedded tag.  But with tagging using Picard it provides everything Emby needs and does not need to do any by name lookups and make a lot of assumptions returned from provider queries.

But I will have to do some more testing as I don't remember having a issue with providers disabled or uninstalled.

[Luke 37046]

On 9/21/2020 at 2:21 AM, Dragon777 said:

What I don´t get here is why Emby is not behaving similar to Twonky. Because I have had 0 issues with Twonky for years. I was always getting exactly what I would expect in the library.

So why not work on compatibility instead of forcing all users to completely re-tag all their stuff they have collected for decades. Not everybody will be willing to do that.

If you have two songs tagged with the same artist names but two different musicbrainz id's, what would you like the server to do? Merge them because the name matches? Unfortunately it's not really that simple.

[thelanranger 11]

16 hours ago, Luke said:

If you have two songs tagged with the same artist names but two different musicbrainz id's, what would you like the server to do? Merge them because the name matches? Unfortunately it's not really that simple.

That you would comment this demonstrates the issue. 

This conflict should never even be a possibility. If the mp3 has id3 tags for the Artist, Song Name, and Album Artist, the acoustid should never even be checked. If I want to deliberately tag a song by one artist "Various" for organizational purposes that should be my prerogative. 

The only thing musicbrainz should be checking is the name of the artist or the name of the album and artist to get artwork (BUT ONLY IF IT DOES NOT EXIST IN THE FILE). 

If there is missing data, THEN you can use the acoustid to fill it in or correct it. Also, there's something about doing this as an album(folder) vs a song(file) that will give different results. I think this is a lot of the acoustid inconsistencies that people see. 

At any rate, there needs to either be a way to completely disable musicbrainz ENTIRELY, or prioritize id3 tags over acoustid. 

[jbaggs 2]

On 9/27/2020 at 2:12 PM, thelanranger said:

At any rate, there needs to either be a way to completely disable musicbrainz ENTIRELY, or prioritize id3 tags over acoustid. 

100% agree and the one thing stopping me from totally switching to Emby. I'm also having problems with files that are accurately tagged. Even with Musicbrainz and AudioDB plugins uninstalled I get artists with pictures and other metadata added without reason. When I tired with Musicbrainz and AudioDB  my collection becomes a mess because Musicbrainz is not accurate.  

Support also claims folder.jpg doesn't get picked up by Emby, but the last albums I added the folder.jpg file art is displayed (metadata providers are off)

Today, after launching the webUI for the first time in weeks (I've gone back to Plex for now) artists that were duplicated are now duplicated. Some artists that had pictures no longer have them

Also an album that I realized was tagged incorrectly after adding it has not had the changes reflected in Emby after fixing. 

Why can't Emby just read the tags from the files and display the information, including artwork, that is there? I don't want internet metadata. I want to use my tags (especially for my various artists albums and other radio rips) and my provided artwork with lots of extra modification.  

[Happy2Play 8273]

4 minutes ago, jbaggs said:

Support also claims folder.jpg doesn't get picked up by Emby, but the last albums I added the folder.jpg file art is displayed

Albums, yes 

Artist level folder structure no, expect for Folder view.

[thelanranger 11]

On 9/28/2020 at 8:26 PM, Happy2Play said:

Albums, yes 

Artist level folder structure no, expect for Folder view.

Does it even do anything with folders? It doesn't seem like it does. 

I have tons of files and ended up settling on a directory structure that is something like "Soundtracks->Soundtrack - Footloose" but then "Albums->M->Mix Master Mike->Anti-Theft Device". I would really expect it to pick up a folder.jpg under "Soundtracks" but it should under "Soundtrack - Footloose" as that has files in it. I also wouldn't expect it to pickup a folder.jpg under Albums, M, or Mix Master Mike (though this might be cool in the end), but "Anti-Theft Device" maybe because this has the mp3s. 

Ultimately, all my art is saved inside the mp3s themselves as an id3 tag. This is what should show for 'Anti-Theft Device'. The art for 'Mix Master Mike' is probably the only thing that should be pulled from the internet or need to be managed by the emby interface in any way shape or form.

[Luke 37046]

On 9/28/2020 at 3:22 PM, thelanranger said:

That you would comment this demonstrates the issue. This conflict should never even be a possibility.

Why? If your songs are tagged inconsistently, isn't that the issue? How would Emby be able to differentiate between two artists of the same name then?

[thelanranger 11]

8 hours ago, Luke said:

Why? If your songs are tagged inconsistently, isn't that the issue? How would Emby be able to differentiate between two artists of the same name then?

If you look at Musicbrainz AcoustIDs enough you'll see that it is not ME that is tagging the music incorrectly but MusicBrainz that has incorrect data. That combined with utterly SLOPPY data (upper/lower case, slight variations in the artist names/song names, stray tracks on albums that don't match the album, incorrect album lengths, missing data, etc) it's not unreasonable to want nothing to do with the data from that website.

Not only that, as I described, if I simply DECIDE to tag a series of tracks as being by the artist "Steve Johnson" instead of "The Furious 5 including Steve Johnson" because it puts them in the "Steven Johnson" folder so I can find them then Emby shouldn't arbitrarily decide to ignore my tagging data and put it wherever it feels like. It should obey my tagging data and put it in the proper artist folder.

P.S. In the same vein, if I want to tag a song from some vinyl single or my own rip as track x on an album and delete the proper track x on that album that should also be my prerogative. The tagging should be paramount. Not the AcoustID IF it works (which it rarely does).

Edited October 3, 2020 by thelanranger