Albums of similarity getting mashed up during album matching

[James_U]

Server Version#: 1.18.7.2457
Player Version#: 4.22.2

So… in my Music library I sometimes have multiple copies of the “same” album. This is usually because of “Special Editions” or “Japanese Editions” etc. with alternate bonus tracks.

I used to name these like:
Adele / 21 [Japanese Edition] / xx - Artist - Title.mp3
Adele / 21 [Special Edition] / xx - Artist - Title.mp3

I then learned that items in brackets can be ignored. So I switched to parenetheses:
Adele / 21 (Japanese Edition) / xx - Artist - Title.mp3
Adele / 21 (Special Edition) / xx - Artist - Title.mp3

I should add that my metadata for the Album Title matches the folder name above.

Yet, somehow, when I add similar albums like this to my Library, they get all mashed up with songs showing up in the wrong albums, sometimes showing as one album instead of two, etc. The album matching process is screwing everything up. I don’t mind getting the anecdotal data describing the album that comes along with the matching - but please stop overriding my structure.

Then - I choose to Unmatch the album, and it sometimes fixes it. Sometimes I have to delete the albums, add them one at a time, unmatching them as I go.

The problem I keep having is that, while I can manually fix this when it occurs, later on when I add a new album to that artist, or I refresh the artist metadata (to fix a different issue), these albums get screwed up all over again. I can’t keep repairing all these albums. Why won’t Plex obey my metadata (and my file structure) when I have that as a priority?

[anon18523487]

Keep in mind that Plex will try to match your albums so the metadata must be precise. If you have 2 albums with the same title and artist, there is no naming that will help identify them differently. To make sure PMS matches them correctly, you’ll need a tag editor and add in the music brainz id. This will ensure they get added correctly and separately.