Issues/suggestions for 4.8 Music Library

[nospotify 184]

After complete wipe/reinstall of Emby, I'm using a fresh, clean 4.8 server & database, which is overall running much better - thanks very much to Emby crew.

There are still some issues, bugs, and suggestions for making the Music Library work even better.

Data issues

- Refresh Metadata for Artists, as well as Scan Library Files and Refresh Metadata for individual Albums, each do absolutely nothing to change the data in Emby's database. Why are they listed as options on the three-dot popups? And WHY doesn't rescan/refresh of individual directories work? A Refresh Metadata of my 300GB Music Library takes several hours and shouldn't be necessary if we just update metatags on a handful of albums or artists.

- Ignore diacritical marks similar non-alphabetic items for sorting: "¡Dundunbanza!" (w/ upside down Spanish exclamation) should import and have Sort Order set to "Dundunbanza!" Similarly, "...Plays Cole Porter" should import and have Sort Order set to "Plays Cole Porter." (All files from both these examples have no internal "Album Sort" metadata - this is Emby's doing.)

Display issues

- Seeming Alpha Picker bug: In Music Library when Album tab is sorted by "Title" it works properly (including in nested subsections of the Library - thanks!), but when Album is sorted by "Album Artist" the Alpha Picker is jumping weirdly to the middle or sometimes even to the end of the group of albums whose Artist starts with the clicked letter. Are Alpha Picker alphabetizations created once, on library import, or on the fly? If the latter, that might be what's causing the problem?

- Add entry/option/checkbox to display "Album Title" under all main tabs' "Settings... Show Fields..."

- Can Emby change use of universal "Title" in various pop-up screens & other situations to more accurate "Artist" or "Album Artist," when that is actually what is being referred to?

- In individual Artist/Album Artist screens below name/image/bio, display Albums before Songs (move Albums list up); list of all Albums is almost always what users want to see and browse through, not individual songs.

- At top of "Edit Metadata" popup screen for Albums, display source directory in the same way it's shown in "Edit Metadata" popup for individual Songs.

- Display of multiple genres doesn't seem to be working in Android app - I have it set to 'display 4' (which works fine in browser) but still only one is shown.

Artist and Album Image Handling

- Discogs problems continue. Album Artist/Artist "Search for images" does not search and retrieve from Discogs, even though I have Discogs enabled in Music Library settings as final Artist metadata/image downloader.  Examples: "Jay Hoggard" is properly identified at MusicBrainz (https://musicbrainz.org/artist/1c140b6e-d166-4576-b6b6-5c28a7c8f4f5) but there is no image there to retrieve. He also is properly identified in Discogs (https://www.discogs.com/artist/299482) but the image that does appear there is NOT downloaded and added. Ditto for "Jerry Lawson" (https://www.discogs.com/artist/775225) - image is there but not retrieved by Emby. Multiple Scan Library Files and Refresh Metadata never retrieve images for these artists (and others). 

- Can AllMusic be added as a metadata/image source?

- In "Edit images... Add/Update Image..." screens:

-- 1. Have "Browse" button open the folder where the music files reside (which is the most likely location for an image), not whatever folder was opened previously on a different image retrieval for an entirely different album or artist.

-- 2. Have screen after "Search" button is pressed show *which* sites are being searched.

Overall Emby 4.8 offers a much improved music listening experience - I hope these suggestions make sense and can be implemented easily and quickly. Let me know if it would be better for me to split these into separate posts.

Edited February 11, 2024 by wordlover

[Luke 42078]

Why do you think refresh metadata does nothing? What did you expect it to do that didn't happen?

[Luke 42078]

For anything that is not a problem, can you create separate feature request topics in the feature requests section for each one?

[nospotify 184]

Over the past few hours I have edited several hundred MP3 and flac files in MP3Tag - added or changed Artist, Album Artist, Embedded Cover, or folder.jpg in individual album directories. I have gone back to Emby in both Web interface and Android app and repeatedly triggered Scan and Refresh Metadata in the relevant Album and Artist screens, and none of these changes appear. 

[nospotify 184]

@LukeWhy is this marked as solution?

[Luke 42078]

1 hour ago, wordlover said:

Over the past few hours I have edited several hundred MP3 and flac files in MP3Tag - added or changed Artist, Album Artist, Embedded Cover, or folder.jpg in individual album directories. I have gone back to Emby in both Web interface and Android app and repeatedly triggered Scan and Refresh Metadata in the relevant Album and Artist screens, and none of these changes appear. 

HI, if you edit a song, try refreshing the metadata on the song.

[nospotify 184]

Refreshing metadata for a single song does not update any of the changed data for other songs in that album nor the album as a whole. And even if that did work, why have an option for refresh or rescan on a full album if it seemingly does nothing?

Edited February 11, 2024 by wordlover

[Luke 42078]

7 hours ago, wordlover said:

Refreshing metadata for a single song does not update any of the changed data for other songs in that album nor the album as a whole. And even if that did work, why have an option for refresh or rescan on a full album if it seemingly does nothing?

There is artist metadata, album and song. We used to have the artist refresh refresh all the albums and tracks but that led to complaints of unwanted scanning.

[nospotify 184]

@Luke But what's happening now is incoherent:

1. Are you saying if users change metatag info, whether on 1 or 100 tracks, there is no way to update all of those tracks, the Album(s), and the Artist without going in and manually rescanning each song file, one by one by one OR do an entire library refresh? That makes no sense from a user perspective.

And 2. The current app interface is lying if this is the case, because there are menu options to "scan" and "refresh metadata" on each of these higher level screens (Album and Album Artist), yet selecting them, you are now seeming to say, does nothing. I genuinely don't understand the logic nor the interface in what Emby is currently doing. 

[Luke 42078]

No, I didn't say that. You can also just run a library scan. You can also do manual refreshes from any parent folder level in the folders tab.

[nospotify 184]

Luke, that IS what you just said and what I just said in 1: song by song or whole Library refresh. The notion that changing to Folder View and then refreshing a folder is a working option is new information, and not indicated on any of the other screens. And you aren't disagreeing with 2. 

Factual question: if I click "scan" or "refresh" on either of these screens below, what do you think happens? What is supposed to happen? I am telling you that in both cases nothing happens - no data is updated, so why are these options in the UI if they do nothing?

 

 

[Luke 42078]

You can refresh metadata on artist and albums and it can still attempt to pull in new internet metadata for those things.

Scan library files is showing up there erroneously so that will need to be resolved.

[nospotify 184]

If "refresh metadata" isn't revisiting any changed embedded metadata, that makes the label utterly misleading.

I've been using Emby and these support boards for several years, and have asked you for help repeatedly at getting Emby and my large music library to work properly together. That you never acknowledged that "scan" doesn't actually do anything for Album or Album Artist, and that "change to folder view and do a scan there" does work, is infuriating. This has been a conversation in these support boards for years, with many users. I was emphatically clear about what exactly wasn't working in my original post above, and yet in your first reply above you didn't acknowledge the reality of how Emby works and doesn't work.

[Luke 42078]

Quote

f "refresh metadata" isn't revisiting any changed embedded metadata, that makes the label utterly misleading.

It is. Refresh metadata on the artist is looking for new artist metadata. Refresh metadata on the album is looking for new album metadata, and so on.

Quote

That you never acknowledged that "scan" doesn't actually do anything for Album or Album Artist, and that "change to folder view and do a scan there" does work, is infuriating.

I believe I've said just run a normal library scan many times. I apologize that scan library files is showing up when it shouldn't. I didn't realize that's what you were using until now.

[Happy2Play 9780]

4 minutes ago, Luke said:

I believe I've said just run a normal library scan many times. I apologize that scan library files is showing up when it shouldn't. I didn't realize that's what you were using until now.

Why should it not be on Folder view folders?  But it appears on every folder for folder view no matter the library.

[Luke 42078]

2 minutes ago, Happy2Play said:

Why should it not be on Folder view folders?  But it appears on every folder for folder view no matter the library.

Scan library files should be there for folders, yes. It's artists and albums that are more of virtual entries. But we can probably leave it there for albums, and have any album metadata refresh kick one off for all of the tracks too.

[nospotify 184]

1. How is a user supposed to even get to a folder near the end of the alphabet (e.g. "World Sax Quartet") in a perfectly organized Music library with over a thousand folders, especially when there is no alpha picker in Folder View?

2. How does one trigger a rescan or refresh the metadata on a Folder? I see no popup menu where this is possible.

[nospotify 184]

7 hours ago, Luke said:

It is. Refresh metadata on the artist is looking for new artist metadata. Refresh metadata on the album is looking for new album metadata, and so on.

I believe I've said just run a normal library scan many times. I apologize that scan library files is showing up when it shouldn't. I didn't realize that's what you were using until now.

"Refresh" on an Artist or Album isn't importing any edited, embedded metadata. That's the problem which makes cleaning up any part of our music library so infuriatingly difficult in Emby. Why is this so hard to understand?

[Happy2Play 9780]

Just now, wordlover said:

1. How is a user supposed to even get to a folder near the end of the alphabet (e.g. "World Sax Quartet") in a perfectly organized Music library with over a thousand folders, especially when there is no alpha picker in Folder View?

But there is just like all other views it requires specific sorting, by Title.

2 minutes ago, wordlover said:

2. How does one trigger a rescan or refresh the metadata on a Folder? I see no popup menu where this is possible.

Personally I just scan the library as it catches changes and only take seconds, but I guess if you have millions of item you may want to be more targets from folder level.

[Neminem 1519]

Tbh in 4.7 edit to metadata was picked up automatically.

In 4.8 its not.

[nospotify 184]

I and other users have been very clear, these issues are acute because we have very large music libraries. Rescanning my whole library takes a very long time. So I repeat both questions:

1. How is a user supposed to even get to a folder near the end of the alphabet (e.g. "World Sax Quartet") in a perfectly organized Music library with over a thousand folders, especially when there is no alpha picker in Folder View? In any operating system', one can sort folders by their name!

2. How does one trigger a rescan or refresh the metadata on a Folder? I see no popup menu where this is possible.

 

[Neminem 1519]

There is alphabet if sorting by Title.

[nospotify 184]

@jaycedkThank you! Never occurred to me to sort File Folders by "Title" instead of actual File Name.

[nospotify 184]

But there is still no evident way to trigger a Folder-wide metadata refresh or rescan, which leaves @Luke's statement above still mystifying.

[Happy2Play 9780]

1 hour ago, wordlover said:

But there is still no evident way to trigger a Folder-wide metadata refresh or rescan, which leaves @Luke's statement above still mystifying.

Log says it all, Scan that folder recursively.

example so everything in this organized AlbumArtist folder gets scanned for changes.  Where the flags will change if it were a Refresh vs a scan.

http://‌‍‍localhost‌:8096/emby/Items/1715/Refresh?Recursive=true&ImageRefreshMode=Default&MetadataRefreshMode=Default&ReplaceAllImages=false&ReplaceAllMetadata=false