Genres on some Albums do not show

[thekingpin 29]

Hi 

I have an issue that the genres for some albums do not show up, which causes me problems for customised playlists that I make.

I have properly tagged all the albums individually using Musicbrainz and my entire collection is perfectly organised, artist -> album -> track. 

Can someone shine some light on what I might be doing wrong? Strangely, the genres for most albums show fine, but not for others, while the tagging method remains the same. I am trying to get my entire library tagged but keep running into this issue. 

 

[Luke 42077]

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

[Happy2Play 9780]

Can you provide a specific example?

Usually comes back to possibly multiple tags but in the end need to see what ffprobe shows for the media.

[thekingpin 29]

Hi,

Sure I can provide an example. What format is best for you? Do you want the actual file or logs from metadata scan?

[Happy2Play 9780]

2 minutes ago, thekingpin said:

Hi,

Sure I can provide an example. What format is best for you? Do you want the actual file or logs from metadata scan?

You can see the ffprobe command in the log but no output so you have to manually run the command against the tracks.  Normally what you see via musicbrainz or mp3tag (extended tags) will be what is used but not always the case.

obviously platform paths will be different but here is a example

ffprobe -i "pathtotrack"

 

[thekingpin 29]

8 hours ago, Happy2Play said:

You can see the ffprobe command in the log but no output so you have to manually run the command against the tracks.  Normally what you see via musicbrainz or mp3tag (extended tags) will be what is used but not always the case.

obviously platform paths will be different but here is a example

ffprobe -i "pathtotrack"

 

Hi, 

thanks for taking the time to write the detailed reply.

Here is the output from ffprobe:

Quote

Input #0, flac, from '02 - Sinai (Abgt615) [2025 Rework (Mixed)].flac':
  Metadata:
    disc            : 1
    GENRE           : trance;progressive trance
    album_artist    : Above & Beyond
    COMPOSERSORT    : Artist
    RELEASETIME     : 2025-02-15
    COPYRIGHT       : ℗ 2025 Group Therapy
    DATE            : 2025-02-15
    LABEL           : Group Therapy
    PUBLISHER       : Group Therapy
    ARTIST          : Ilan Bluestone
    TITLE           : Sinai (Abgt615) [2025 Rework (Mixed)]
    track           : 02
    ALBUMSORT       : Group Therapy 615 (DJ Mix)
    TITLESORT       : Sinai (Abgt615) [2025 Rework (Mixed)]
    ISRC            : GBEWA2500861
    COMPOSER        : Artist
    PERFORMER       : Ilan Bluestone
    ALBUMARTISTSORT : Above & Beyond
    ARTISTSORT      : Ilan Bluestone
    TOTALTRACKS     : 19
    TOTALDISCS      : 1
    UPC             : 5039061085096
    ALBUM           : Group Therapy 615 (DJ Mix)
    TRACKTOTAL      : 19
    DISCTOTAL       : 1
  Duration: 00:05:39.69, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 1861 kb/s
  Stream #0:0: Audio: flac, 44100 Hz, stereo, s32 (24 bit)
  Stream #0:1: Video: mjpeg (Progressive), yuvj420p(pc, bt470bg/unknown/unknown), 750x750 [SAR 1:1 DAR 1:1], 90k tbr, 90k tbn (attached pic)
    Metadata:
      comment         : Cover (front)

The genres trance and progressive trance are present. But are not shown in Emby after countless scans/refreshes. (Screenshot attached).

I should mention, there is no match for this release on Musicbrainz, but, it should still pick up the manually entered metadata right?

I have added the genres for each individual track in Musicbrainz. 

 

Edit: OK weirdly after switching to Musicbrainz as sole Metadata fetcher, it has picked up the metadata for this release at least. 

Is there something wrong in my approach to tagging? I have also switched from idv3v2 v2.4 to v2.3 in Musicbrainz, maybe this is related?

[Happy2Play 9780]

Nothing stands out that I can see.

Only other thought is sometimes you have to remove the album from Emby and do a scan to clear the db then read the album to see changes.

9 hours ago, thekingpin said:

I should mention, there is no match for this release on Musicbrainz, but, it should still pick up the manually entered metadata right?

Yes it should read the existing embedded metadata.

 

[Happy2Play 9780]

My test was with a mp3 but didn't have any issue manually adding info.

Edited March 5, 2025 by Happy2Play

[thekingpin 29]

2 hours ago, Happy2Play said:

Nothing stands out that I can see.

Only other thought is sometimes you have to remove the album from Emby and do a scan to clear the db then read the album to see changes.

Yes it should read the existing embedded metadata.

 

Clearing the db sounds like the root cause.. Because this issue is present with albums that have already been imported and scanned by Emby once, because I am currently fixing genres. 

My only concern about removing certain albums is that will it break existing playlists that contain those songs?

Is there anyway to flush the db manually?

[Luke 42077]

Refreshing metadata should be sufficient for this. You shouldn't have to remove and re-add.

[thekingpin 29]

Unfortunately, it does not work.

The title mentioned above I have tagged with genres trance; progressive trance in musicbrainz but it wont show up in Emby. I have removed the title and re-added and also refreshed metadata. 

[Luke 42077]

First I would check to see if it's making it into the track before looking at the album.

[thekingpin 29]

Hi Luke 

it would seem to me that the genres I added are indeed being added to individual tracks/artists but not album as a whole. 

[Luke 42077]

OK so try refreshing the metadata on the album. First I would check the metadata editor to make sure you didn't lock the Genres field.

[thekingpin 29]

Hmmm its still pretty hit and miss. Sometimes the genres will show without problems, sometimes not. Sometimes redoing the tagging in Musicbrainz and re-scanning library will fix. 

A bit of background how I am doing this. I am accessing the root music directory via local smb, loading the tracks into Musicbrainz on my laptop and saving the files back to the smb share. Could this be contributing to the hit/miss of genres showing/not showing? Is there maybe other settings within Musicbrainz that are essential? 

 

[Luke 42077]

As long as you see the genres on the songs then you're fine in terms of tagging. So that is the case? 

[thekingpin 29]

1 hour ago, Luke said:

As long as you see the genres on the songs then you're fine in terms of tagging. So that is the case? 

It seems like that is the case yes.

Question is, as I use Symfonium as client player with Emby, should these albums show up with correct genres there?

There does also seem to be an issue when music items are added to emby, scanned, and, later modified (genre, etc), that emby will not always pick up all changes. I have another example from yesterday, were an artist goes by 2 names on Musicbrainz, but I wanted to condense to one on my server. I edited all tags and musicbrainz ids for both artist names to be the same, but emby would still show them as 2 artists with same name. The only fix I found was removing album, scanning and re-adding. This resolved the issue, but, makes me think there are some caching or other relevant issues with how emby handles edited media.

Edited March 6, 2025 by thekingpin

[thekingpin 29]

A few questions I have regarding metadata, if and when you have time to answer:

- What is the best approach to edit metadata of items which have already been imported to emby and done at least 1 scan?

- Is there anyway to permanently edit the metadata within emby? If I understand correctly, editing via GUI just changes the database entry, but, not the actual file, meaning a reimport to another instance will loose all added metadata?

 

[thekingpin 29]

Im still stuck with this and feel pretty lost, retagging with Musicbrainz, reimporting, rescanning, refreshing metadata, and, the Slikpnot albums still show up as pop instead of the tagged Metal genre 

 

[Luke 42077]

I would try refreshing the metadata on the album and see if that helps.

[Luke 42077]

Also try scrolling down to the bottom of the detail screen where all the genres are listed.

[Neminem 1518]

@thekingpin how are you display settings set

[thekingpin 29]

6 minutes ago, Luke said:

I would try refreshing the metadata on the album and see if that helps.

I have tried that. Im just confused where Emby is getting that Genre from? It is not from the metadata tags I have set.

[Luke 42077]

2 minutes ago, thekingpin said:

I have tried that. Im just confused where Emby is getting that Genre from? It is not from the metadata tags I have set.

Either it's still in one or more of the files, or at some point you used the metadata editor, therefore the genres are locked on whatever you edited and so it's still there. If this were the case then you'd need to go to those songs and remove the lock. Also check the metadata editor at the album level as well.

Quote

I have also switched from idv3v2 v2.4 to v2.3 in Musicbrainz, maybe this is related?

It could be. You should use tagging software that writes to all of them, not one or the other.

[thekingpin 29]

14 hours ago, Luke said:

It could be. You should use tagging software that writes to all of them, not one or the other.

Thanks again, I have decided to use beets instead for tagging, although it was a slight headache to set it up, everything seems to be working now.