Albums in folder view

[Dragon777 1]

I can only wholeheartedly agrre to thelanranger here. That´s the reason why I am not even bothering with anything else than the folder view. And even this is often messing with my own tagging in Emby.

[thelanranger 11]

I honestly don't even know WHY it picks up half of this stuff as incorrect to be perfectly honest. I would be more than happy to send you about 10 albums that are absolutely perfectly tagged and get auto detected by their matching AcoustID in other programs just fine but for whatever reason Emby just makes some weird arbitrary artist folder for a random track or something in the album and gives it a link to musicbrainz and messes up my entire collection of music as a result. 

Fix whatever bug that is or make some checkbox that we can simply hit "ignore x" and you'd have 98% of your work done for you. Considering that I'm already going through thousands of albums of music and tagging them as it is if I have to make 100 of them say something weird to make them comply with Emby that wouldn't offend me. My fundamental issue is that ABSOLUTELY NOTHING THAT I DO MAKES EMBY HAPPY.

[PenkethBoy 2063]

Please upload some example albums so we (myself and @cayars) can see what you are experiencing as this is just going round and round with limited detail to understand the issue

[Carlo 4330]

If you can try a test on the 10 albums or whatever you're going to upload for us to test.  Create a spot on disc to hold these as a new music library with proper structure and MOVE these file to it. Set them up as if they are your whole collection. Scan your old/existing music library to remove these albums.

Now create a Music Test library pointing to these 10 albums and the folder structure you setup.

What happened?  If they loaded correctly then that's indication you have "junk files" in your main music library messing things up.  If these albums didn't load correct from your test library ZIP it up and send it exactly how you have it setup so we get the tracks as well as folder structure you are using AS IS.

 

Edited October 5, 2020 by cayars

[thelanranger 11]

Ok, I have a small test library that is creating the exact issues discussed here. If you make a test library with this data (minus the screen shots though they shouldn't do anything I wouldn't think) then you should see the issues in the screen shots.

It seems like (since I have stripped it down SO bare) that there is 1) an issue with it differentiating between "Artist" and "Album Artist" tags. These seem to get lumped together. This is a very clear bug. 2) Something that is happening during this process makes up weird, innocuous tags if a single "Various Artists" Album has only a single artist?

Music.Test.rar

[PenkethBoy 2063]

ok - loaded your albums into a fresh library - TLDR - its a metadata issue

and got the similar results

 

 

 

So i removed the VA and Soundtracks Folders from emby

Deleted the album.nfo files - so later when i add them back emby has to read the metadata from the files

Next i ran both albums through MusicBrainz Picard - and saved the new metadata to the songs

Added back the two folders

and get this

 

 

 

Which is correct

You had errors/inconsistencies in your metadata for both the albums i amended with Picard

You can check what they were by doing a comparison

I did not run the 2pac albums through Picard because MBz does not have the albums listed - or not with the names they have

 

 

 

[thelanranger 11]

1) What did you change? Because, all those file had METICULOUS metadata that I hand entered myself which is why I chose them as examples.

2) The screen shot that you show as "fixed" is still not correct. "The Rat Pack" is not the Album Artist! "Various Artists" is the Album Artist!

This demonstrates EXACTLY the issue! You're not using the tags, you're ONLY using some kind of weird ID that no one knows what it is! This is why we can't make our files work with emby! What about the songs that I have in my collection that are (as an extreme example) the 4-6 albums from my friends bands that are not listed ANYWHERE? What about this EXACT example where I don't WANT it to say "The Rat Pack", I want it to say "Various Artists" so it shows up in the Various Artists folder that you just deleted to fix the problem.

"I deleted the folder" is not resolving the issue. This is ignoring the issue. "Artist" is the artist tag. "Album Artist" is the Album Artist tag. STOP USING SOME MADE UP ID. You're messing everything up.

[Happy2Play 8279]

16 minutes ago, thelanranger said:

This is ignoring the issue. "Artist" is the artist tag. "Album Artist" is the Album Artist tag. STOP USING SOME MADE UP ID. You're messing everything up.

No made up id is ever used.  Musicbraiinz will superseded Artist/Album Artist tags.  

[thelanranger 11]

This is the crux of the whole issue. We're all trying to tell you that we have musicbrainz disabled. I even completely removed the plug in and it still uses the ids.

You can't hit musicbrainz for some kind of ID for a song and use that to override the users decisions. I have deliberately gone through thousands and thousands of mp3s and tagged them to my liking so that they comply with a naming formula that I want to see and you're simply choosing to ignore the tags and go on the internet and get some random person's tags instead of using the ones that I have painstakingly put into all my own personal data. 

If the users wanted you to just ignore their data and get it from the internet we'd all just use Spotify or something. 

[Happy2Play 8279]

Various Artist duplication is resolved by either removing MUSICBRAINZ_ALBUMARTISTID or ensuring the id is the same .

In your Test zip above I just removed the MUSICBRAINZ_ALBUMARTISTID as it technically points to something else causing each Various Artist to show in its own view.

Same issue with 2Pac at it has multiple different MUSICBRAINZ_ALBUMARTISTIDs.

 

Conclusion MUSICBRAINZ_ALBUMARTISTID will cause mismatch with AlbumArtist tag so multiple Artist/AlbumArtist will be created.  Easiest route is clear that tag or ensure they match.

Tested with all providers disabled.

Edited October 25, 2020 by Happy2Play

[PenkethBoy 2063]

7 hours ago, thelanranger said:

1) What did you change? Because, all those file had METICULOUS metadata that I hand entered myself which is why I chose them as examples.

2) The screen shot that you show as "fixed" is still not correct. "The Rat Pack" is not the Album Artist! "Various Artists" is the Album Artist!

This demonstrates EXACTLY the issue! You're not using the tags, you're ONLY using some kind of weird ID that no one knows what it is! This is why we can't make our files work with emby! What about the songs that I have in my collection that are (as an extreme example) the 4-6 albums from my friends bands that are not listed ANYWHERE? What about this EXACT example where I don't WANT it to say "The Rat Pack", I want it to say "Various Artists" so it shows up in the Various Artists folder that you just deleted to fix the problem.

"I deleted the folder" is not resolving the issue. This is ignoring the issue. "Artist" is the artist tag. "Album Artist" is the Album Artist tag. STOP USING SOME MADE UP ID. You're messing everything up.

Dude - chill out

i told you i used MBz Picard app to change the metadata for the two albums - i puts "The Rat Pack" as the Album Artist - but you can change that back to Various Artists if you prefer that.

Emby is very much using tags to create the Album Entries and associated Artists and AlbumArtists

Deleting the folder - is a simple and effective way of getting Emby to clear out existing entries for that album, Artists and AA - so when you add it back there is nothing hanging around to get in the way. You may have noticed there is no way to remove a AA in emby - this is the best an simplest way to do that and is in your control.

 

As for the incorrect metadata you had - it was incorrect - in that emby was reading it fine - but as it was incorrect you got the initial problems - e.g. Michael Kamen and Michael K-Men - instead of just Michael Kamen or if you want Michael K-Men - as you dont want both.

You need to experiment with how you fill in the Artist,Artists and AlbumArtist metadata fields (tags) - to understand how they are used whenemby reads in a new Album.

 

[PenkethBoy 2063]

58 minutes ago, Happy2Play said:

Various Artist duplication is resolved by either removing MUSICBRAINZ_ALBUMARTISTID or ensuring the id is the same .

In your Test zip above I just removed the MUSICBRAINZ_ALBUMARTISTID as it technically points to something else causing each Various Artist to show in its own view.

Same issue with 2Pac at it has multiple different MUSICBRAINZ_ALBUMARTISTIDs.

 

Conclusion MUSICBRAINZ_ALBUMARTISTID will cause mismatch with AlbumArtist tag so multiple Artist/AlbumArtist will be created.  Easiest route is clear that tag or ensure they match.

Tested with all providers disabled.

yep - thats why you had two various artists as the mbz id for various artists had two different values - and why i ran it through picard to get things consistent

Just because you change a AA name - its not enough - you have to change the MBz id as well - or remove it - as you are giving emby two different pieces of information that conflict - so it does its best to give you - effectively what you asked for - even if you are not aware of it.

 

[PenkethBoy 2063]

some examples of before and after metadata

and after correcting

the above could be Michael K-Men if you prefer that.

and for the Rat Pack album

and after going through Picard

notice the Artists column - it now has each Artist separated by a / (could also be a ; as an alternative) - this give you 2-3 Artists per song rather than just one.

Also you could revert to a single artist if you prefer as you had it and change the AA back to Various Artists

But...

If you dont keep the mbz ids consistent you will get a mess again - or remove all mbz ids from all files and this will simplify you issues down to basic typos etc.

 

Remember - even though you have removed the mbz plugin you are still going to get Emby use them if it finds them (is an outstanding feature request to turn this off but you will have to live with it for now) - Also remember that other sites like AudioDb and Fanart use Mbz ids to reference their info/art so they are the prefered way of doing lookups in the background.

Hope this helps you understand you issues - which are in your control to fix/adjust so music is closer if not 100% what you want.

Edited October 25, 2020 by PenkethBoy

[thelanranger 11]

There still needs to be some way to disable musicbrainz metadata. Why is it even pulling that information if I don't have the plugin installed?

I'm not using musicbrainz picard, I'm using this program called Jaikoz. It shows way more detail than that. Which Musicbrainz tags are you pulling? And what about the AcoustID tag? Am I still going to have the issue if I delete all the musicbrainz tags because you pull something off the AcoustID? How does custom naming affect gracenote? Is this why when you search for stuff you don't get what you're looking for? Does it search the musicbrainz info and not MY tags?

This is your same update with "Match All Songs to Single MusicBrainz Album" in Jaikoz. The blue is the changes. So, all I would have done is changed all those artist names to "Various Artists" so I didn't have a random folder in emby called "The Rat Pack" with one disk in it that I could never find. What tags from that screenshot are you reading that are conflicting with the change of that name?

I also don't see why that would generate multiple 'Various Artists' folders. I have custom tagged several hundred soundtracks and VA albums with a consistent "Various Artists" name and it made one folder call with all but about 5 of them in there. Similarly with something like that 2Pac album. There's 62 albums and only that single album went outside the norm of being in its own folder. 

 

[PenkethBoy 2063]

Acoustic Ids - not used in Emby.

we are now comparing Apples and Bananas - MusicBrainz vs graceNote - kind of pointless at this point

If you can spend some time experimenting what affects how emby reads the data and then processes it to see why you get what you do and i dont

I have explained it several times in this and several other threads - have a look around and you will see its your metadata that's the cause. Not what you want to hear but true none the less.

Yes the mbz lookup needs to respect your settings but as i have already said you will have to live with that till its fixed.

Apart from the above exception there is nothing wrong, its down to how you have your metadata presented to Emby. 

[Happy2Play 8279]

7 hours ago, thelanranger said:

There still needs to be some way to disable musicbrainz metadata

Technically disabling providers are irrelevant.  The database will import the ids because you provided them.  Customization is causing a mismatch as there are multiple tags being imported.  So if one tag conflict with the other issues will arise. 

7 hours ago, thelanranger said:

I also don't see why that would generate multiple 'Various Artists' folders

Simple metadata mismatching MUSICBRAINZ_ALBUMARTISTID + Various Artists , different MUSICBRAINZ_ALBUMARTISTID + Various Artists equals multiple Various Artists.

 

[thelanranger 11]

So then is there some tool I can run that will simply strip those tags out of like....50,000 mp3s and flac files and leave all the rest of the stuff alone? 

[Happy2Play 8279]

5 minutes ago, thelanranger said:

So then is there some tool I can run that will simply strip those tags out of like....50,000 mp3s and flac files and leave all the rest of the stuff alone? 

Load all in mp3tag, highlight all and right click show extend tags then remove that tag.  But would assume most tagging software would have similar functionality.

Then you need to remove the music library to purge existing imported information, then re-add the library.

 

Still from a disabled provider stand point as metadata look will use provider info.

 

Edited October 26, 2020 by Happy2Play

[thelanranger 11]

21 hours ago, Happy2Play said:

Technically disabling providers are irrelevant.  The database will import the ids because you provided them.  Customization is causing a mismatch as there are multiple tags being imported.  So if one tag conflict with the other issues will arise. 

Simple metadata mismatching MUSICBRAINZ_ALBUMARTISTID + Various Artists , different MUSICBRAINZ_ALBUMARTISTID + Various Artists equals multiple Various Artists.

 

So then, again, what tags are being read from the files exactly? Is this documented anywhere? Like, what tags are being read and how they interact?

If I take the "MUSICBRAINZ_ALBUMARTISTID" from one album that says "Various Artists" is that going to remain consistent forever?

How do these other Musicbrainz tags interact with the normal tags in the file? (What is the mapping so I can avoid conflicts?)

[Happy2Play 8279]

28 minutes ago, thelanranger said:

So then, again, what tags are being read from the files exactly? Is this documented anywhere? Like, what tags are being read and how they interact?

If I take the "MUSICBRAINZ_ALBUMARTISTID" from one album that says "Various Artists" is that going to remain consistent forever?

How do these other Musicbrainz tags interact with the normal tags in the file? (What is the mapping so I can avoid conflicts?)

Not documented that I know of but will read all available tags/what ffmpeg/ffprobe sees.  @Luke

As long as the tag is correct, yes.  Issue could be where online looks create something different then embedded data if providers are used.

My understanding Musicbrainz tags have the highest priority, then AA.  But if there is a tag mismatch you see these issues.

[Luke 37051]

We support these:

MUSICBRAINZ_ALBUMARTISTID

MUSICBRAINZ_ARTISTID

MUSICBRAINZ_ALBUMID

MUSICBRAINZ_RELEASEGROUPID

MUSICBRAINZ_RELEASETRACKID

[Luke 37051]

Coming in Emby Server 4.6: