Emby not updating music tags...

[thelanranger 11]

I have finally figured out one of the reasons why the music tagging has been driving me so nuts...the database does not consistently update when you change the tags!

I'm having the following issue: I have a library "Music" that has tons of files in it. Mostly the tagging is fine, occasionally there is something that is incorrect. I'm going through and moving things around and updating the tags then doing a library scan to get the albums and album artists consistent with the data itself. After changing data in the tags and doing scans the incorrect information still shows up in the library. If I make a new library "Music.Test" and simply move those files from the one location to the other then the scan will have them show up in emby perfectly. 

So, basically, if I have a folder of an "album artist\many albums" and the main library shows the album artist multiple times, I can make a folder under the test library folder with the name of the album artist, move all the albums over to that folder and rescan both. It will show up as having none of that album artist in the primary library, then only 1 in the test library. Then if I drag it all back and let it scan again, everything will be correct in the main library.

Is there some way to force a library to scan the file and update the information properly without doing this dance? I have tried vacuuming the library as well as looking at logs and there's nothing in the logs that indicates that it is not actually scanning the files. The log will show that a scan is "updating the files" but they don't change and the metadata is consistent with the tags in the files.

[user24 315]

Hi, one thing you could perhaps try if you haven't already...

When you change the metadata, with a tagging program, on say(?) one Album, then try rescanning the parent Album folder only, via the Folder menu.tab. (Don't try individual rescanning for an Album, via the Album tab, or other non-folder methods, as this may not work.)

This is much faster than scanning your whole library and can be quickly checked to see if the updates have worked.

The parent folder will of course depend on your specific folder structure.

I have a large music library and am scanning at a parent folder level (for Albums and Artists and more) almost daily, when I make changes or add a new Album. It works 99.9% of the time. There are outlier cases that will never work - but that's another topic! Cheers!

[Carlo 4561]

@thelanrangerHi,

Please let us know if user24's suggestion above works for you.

Thanks,
Carlo

[user24 315]

Additionally, here is some more info specific to Album Artist tagging that could be useful (if you are not aware of it already):

[Luke 42079]

@thelanranger?

[thelanranger 11]

It's not the speed of scanning that is an issue, I'm having it rescan the entire library (or it's updating itself automatically via the 'detect changes'). The problem is that when it does this I can go into the metadata manager and see that everything looks correct but the library itself will not be consistent with the metadata manager. If I then move the folder of files completely out of the location that the library is scanning, rescan the library, then move it back into the folder and scan it again, it will be correct. Something about 'rescan' is not updating the library information. It's inconsistent with the metadata manager once it is incorrect.

It's likely that you could duplicate this by making a folder of an artist\album1 artist\album2 etc, then in say, album2 mistag the Album Artist tag with something like "Artist" for some "artist" for some others "The Artist" for some others. Let it scan, then you'll see the multiple listings. Once this occurs, update the tags so they all match "Artist" and rescan. At this point the metadata manager and all of the information within emby will indicate that you have done everything correctly but it will still show 3 separate copies of that 'Artist' under album artists. No matter what you do or how many times you rescan, it will never fix that unless you move the folder out of the library, scan it and see that the album artist is gone, then add it back.

[user24 315]

Hi, I'm trying to follow what you are explaining, and trying some testing to replicate it, but am not quite following and getting there... but here are some further thoughts/suggestions that could perhaps help? This is my (unofficial) understanding...

• Emby relies on embedded metadata within your music files and will import this on a library or folder rescan.
• Emby does not change your music files, it only changes its own database of information.
• If you change your music library information using the Emby Metadata Manager (via the LHS panel) this will only update the Emby database, not your music files themselves.
• Therefore on a rescan, Emby will import the unchanged embedded file information., undoing your changes.
• You cannot change the embedded file info from within Emby, you need to use a third-party tagging program.
• Mp3tag and Picard are two popular examples - do you use these?
• If I change Album Artist (backwards and forwards) using Mp3tag, Emby imports the changes correctly and retains them.
• If changes are made via Emby Metadata Manager, then perhaps inconsistencies could occur because your Emby database info will not match your embedded file info. (This is where I got lost with your example.)
• Your hypothetical of "Artist" versus "artist" is a bit misleading because Emby doesn't recognise case changes when importing.

If you don't already use Mp3tag and/or Picard, I would highly recommend to use at least one of those to change your embedded metadata before importing back into Emby. Another advantage of this is that all other music management/playback programs should use this same embedded data.

If none of the above helps with fixing, you may need to provide more detail on an exact specific example. Let us know if any of this helps at all?

[Luke 42079]

2 hours ago, thelanranger said:

It's not the speed of scanning that is an issue, I'm having it rescan the entire library (or it's updating itself automatically via the 'detect changes'). The problem is that when it does this I can go into the metadata manager and see that everything looks correct but the library itself will not be consistent with the metadata manager. If I then move the folder of files completely out of the location that the library is scanning, rescan the library, then move it back into the folder and scan it again, it will be correct. Something about 'rescan' is not updating the library information. It's inconsistent with the metadata manager once it is incorrect.

It's likely that you could duplicate this by making a folder of an artist\album1 artist\album2 etc, then in say, album2 mistag the Album Artist tag with something like "Artist" for some "artist" for some others "The Artist" for some others. Let it scan, then you'll see the multiple listings. Once this occurs, update the tags so they all match "Artist" and rescan. At this point the metadata manager and all of the information within emby will indicate that you have done everything correctly but it will still show 3 separate copies of that 'Artist' under album artists. No matter what you do or how many times you rescan, it will never fix that unless you move the folder out of the library, scan it and see that the album artist is gone, then add it back.

Hi, can you please provide a specific example of this? Thanks.