Scanning of modified music files is broken

[nospotify 184]

Emby isn't updating modified music files on a rescan, not from top-level Music Library rescan nor a rescan on an Album nor an Album Folder nor an Artist Folder. This is so frustrating. No one wants to do the dance of removing entire directories out of Music Library folder, rescanning, moving them back in, rescanning yet again. And a Metadata refresh for a whole Music Library would take days. I added a couple of new albums, and I updated some older ones, to tag each with genre "World, Balkan, Gypsy." But only the new albums appear with all three of those Genres, not any of the modified track files that were already in Emby. Log files attached. Is there really no way to have Emby look quickly for modified files on a rescan? Why can't this be fixed?

embyserver.txt embyserver-63900265141.txt

[Luke 42077]

Hi, if you just run a normal library scan then the tracks should get the updated genre list.

[nospotify 184]

37 minutes ago, Luke said:

Hi, if you just run a normal library scan then the tracks should get the updated genre list.

I did that, as you can see in the log files I attached. That's why I am reporting the problem.

[Luke 42077]

How did you determine that the files did not get the new genres?

[nospotify 184]

33 minutes ago, Luke said:

How did you determine that the files did not get the new genres?

I wouldn't post here and use your time or mine unless I had carefully checked and confirmed the problem. Here's what I did:

1. Open Music Library, go to Genre, go to (for example) "Balkan" and only the brand new albums appear there, NOT the ones whose metadata I had updated to include "Balkan."

2. Open any of the older, modified albums directly and individually in Emby, and see that none have (for example) "Balkan" as one of the genres, just the previous "World" genre listed.

When I finally manually refreshed metadata on an album individually, both 1. and 2. above were immediately resolved.

Check out the log files I included, and try it yourself.

Edited December 2, 2025 by nospotify

[Luke 42077]

Have you checked the metadata editor for the tracks in question?

[nospotify 184]

14 minutes ago, Luke said:

Have you checked the metadata editor for the tracks in question?

I don't know what you mean. I know the metadata was properly updated in MP3Tag, because when I finally did the individual manual metadata refresh, all the tracks and albums were then correctly displayed throughout Emby. For whatever reason, scanning the music library in Emby does not update metadata. What are you asking me to do here? There's a bug. Give it a try yourself. If you don't get the same results then let me know. But I don't understand this constant back and forth. I uploaded logs as you always request, and I have in careful detail laid out exactly what I did and what Emby did not do correctly. Try it yourself!

Edited December 2, 2025 by nospotify

[Luke 42077]

Quote

I don't know what you mean

3 dot menu on a track -> edit metadata

[nospotify 184]

10 minutes ago, Luke said:

3 dot menu on a track -> edit metadata

Fine. Using MP3Tag I now modified one album "Romi Romi" to add the new genre "Luke" to "World, Balkan, Gypsy." Then I did a Scan Library Files for the Music Library from the Emby home page. As usual the round progress indicator goes to 90% almost immediately, and then moves sloooowly around to done. Now I go into Music... Genre... and the new "Luke" genre does. not. exist. When I go directly to the album, the only 3 genres are "World, Balkan, Gypsy" both on the album's 'homepage' and when I use the 3-dot menu to "Edit metadata" and examine the album's metadata and any individual track's metadata. What more do you need to see this yourself?

[Luke 42077]

Can you please show a screenshot of the metadata editor for both the album and one of the tracks? Thanks.

[nospotify 184]

See attached @Luke - no change before or after scan. Only way to get Genre updated is to do a manual Metadata Refresh from the album screen.  

embyserver (1).txt

[Luke 42077]

But these screens are all from afterwards when the problem has been resolved, right?

[Luke 42077]

Quote

When I finally manually refreshed metadata on an album individually, both 1. and 2. above were immediately resolved.

It sounds like when you edited the tracks, the date modified timestamp of the files did not change. That would explain why the normal library scan did not pick up the change.

[nospotify 184]

Just now, Luke said:

It sounds like when you edited the tracks, the date modified timestamp of the files did not change. That would explain why the normal library scan did not pick up the change.

No, the first two images were from before file mod and rescan. Latter three are from AFTER mod and rescan. In Windows Explorer the file modified date/time is updated and accurate. Is your on-screen round 'scan progress' indicator inaccurate? Is Emby taking an extra ~10 minutes beyond when the homescreen LOOKS like a library rescan is done?

[Luke 42077]

For the three metadata editor screenshots, how did you get to each of those?

[nospotify 184]

I don't understand why you are asking me these questions. Why does it matter what path I took to the album page and then the song page?! None of the various popups show the modified metadata. 

And it isn't a time delay problem - I added "Luke" as a genre to another album and did everything EXCEPT manual Metadata Rescan of the album, and after five-ten minutes nothing has changed for that second album. You can see that its file date and time ARE updated in filesystem. Emby simply isn't scanning modified files.

[Luke 42077]

Quote

Why does it matter what path I took to the album page and then the song page?!

It is a way of verifying that what i'm looking at is what was requested.

[user24 313]

5 hours ago, nospotify said:

Emby isn't updating modified music files on a rescan, not from top-level Music Library rescan nor a rescan on an Album nor an Album Folder nor an Artist Folder.

H, I just did some very quick testing and found  the same situation:

Updated Genre in Mp3tag for a whole album, then:

• Genre will not update when doing a Scan Library Files via the folder structure (e.g. Folder Tab>Parent Album folder)
• Genre will update when doing a Scan Library Files from the virtual album (e.g. Album Artist Tab>Album Artist>Album)

I haven't tried every possible path to do a Scan Library Files or a Refresh Metadata of an album, but perhaps try doing the rescan from the album itself rather than the folder (if you haven't already) and see if that helps? Cheers!

[nospotify 184]

1 minute ago, user24 said:

H, I just did some very quick testing and found  the same situation:

Updated Genre in Mp3tag for a whole album, then:

• Genre will not update when doing a Scan Library Files via the folder structure (e.g. Folder Tab>Parent Album folder)
• Genre will update when doing a Scan Library Files from the virtual album (e.g. Album Artist Tab>Album Artist>Album)

I haven't tried every possible path to do a Scan Library Files or a Refresh Metadata of an album, but perhaps try doing the rescan from the album itself rather than the folder (if you haven't already) and see if that helps? Cheers!

Thanks. There do seem to be a few paths that do work for individual, manual updating of an album, but as you found, the core problem remains: a full music library scan does not update modified music library files. That's a problem Emby devs need to fix. 

[nospotify 184]

14 minutes ago, Luke said:

For the three metadata editor screenshots, how did you get to each of those?

Here's the click trail: Music Library... Album Artist... Albums... Albums... right-click three dot menu for the album, and right-click three dot menu for an individual track.

[user24 313]

Yes, there is a problem somewhere because I am finding a similar situation with updating AlbumArtist with the latest 4.9. Sometimes the changes take and sometimes they don't with a normal folder scan. Doing the scan from the Album seems to work in most cases so far.

Edited December 2, 2025 by user24
spelling correction

[nospotify 184]

1 hour ago, Luke said:

It sounds like when you edited the tracks, the date modified timestamp of the files did not change. That would explain why the normal library scan did not pick up the change.

Are we sure Emby Server is looking at the Windows system's file modified date rather than creation date...? That could account for the correct importation of new files but not updating if existing files?

[user24 313]

I've been doing some more updating (not testing) and because of this topic, have been taking more notice of what is happening...(what works and what doesn't work)...

Have just updated/renamed an AlbumArtist in Mp3tag:

• Scanned the existing/unchanged AlbumArtist parent folder in Emby, as per normal process, that always used to work.

1. The new updated AlbumArtist is in the AlbumArtist tab and the old entity has disappeared, as it should.
2. When viewing the new AlbumArtist detail page all of the Songs are listed, BUT not the Albums.
3. However, the individual Songs all show the correct new AlbumArtist, as they should.
4. The Albums can still be seen in the Albums menu tab with the old/original AlbumArtist, even though that AlbumArist should no longer exist

• Then scanned the relevant Albums from the Albums tab.

1. The Albums have now updated correctly and show under the AlbumArtist detail page, as they should.

Just wondering if the recent changes to allow refreshing metadata of Songs from an Album have anything to do with this and the issues that @nospotifyis having. I thought it was something I was doing wrong, but perhaps not???

So far I have managed to update everything that I want to, but this seems to need a new process now, with possibly more steps. (I haven't tried all possible methods). Is there a new simple method that should be used now? Or is something broken with the recent update?

[Luke 42077]

OK yes I see the issue. It will be resolved in the next release. Thanks.

[nospotify 184]

2 hours ago, Luke said:

OK yes I see the issue. It will be resolved in the next release. Thanks.

So apparently I wasn't an idiot. What was the glitch you found?