Server Version#: 1.18.3.2156
Player Version#: 4.12.3
I have discovered a simple but annoying bug in the music importing code and I cannot find any way to report this. The website seems to make this impossible, although if I’ve missed something, please let me know as I’d like to know how to go about this.
However, since I can find of no alternative, I will report it here.
When testing importing into a Music library using the Plex Music agent and scanner combo, the Artist field ends up empty for MP3 files although all other tags are correctly extracted. There is no such problem with MP4 files though.
I have tried this multiple times with different artists and always the same result. MP4 files work fine, but on import an MP3 file loses its artist.
As I said, I’m sure it’s a simple code error, easily fixed, but it does need fixing as currently no MP3 files can be imported with their Artist intact.
I have only MP3 files in my music library, and I haven’t seen this bug.
What I do see, is what I believe was a deliberate decision to NOT display the track artist, if it is identical to the album artist. This is consistent across all of the apps I have - Android phone, Android TV, Plex Web,. etc. A search will bring up all of the tracks where the “artist” is included in the tag, whether it is the solo artist or as a collaboration with another artist, so I think the tag is being read properly.
This new “feature” was introduced with the new Plex music scanner/agent. The old music system always showed the (track) artist. I personally preferred the old method.
If it was a deliberate decision, as I believe, they apparently didn’t implement it across all file formats consistently. Here’s a screen shot of the Beatles’ “Let It Be” album, where I have tagged several tracks as “The Beatles with Billy Preston” You can see that any tracks by simply “The Beatles” have no artist listed.
Hmm, that’s interesting as I was going to request that the Artist NOT be displayed if it was the same as the AlbumArtist. Currently it is always displayed on every (MP4) track, even when they are all the same as the AlbumArtist. Would I be correct in thinking that when for you they are the same and hence not displayed for each track, when you look at the track details, is the Artist correctly shown there and so just not displayed on the track list page?
Since also for me the MP3 import problem is very obvious, makes me think you are running on a different platform (I’m all Mac) and there is some code discrepancy across platforms. On what are you running Plex?
I have a test music library, where I have albums in other formats - flac, ogg, m4a, mp3, etc.
In that library, the mp4’s always show the track artist, and it is populated in the “edit” track details page. None of the other formats do unless the track artist is different than the album artist. I’m running Plex on a windows machine, so the same bug or feature is identical across platforms
Since it does display and populate the (track) artist field in the details page when the album artist is different, then Plex must be reading the tags properly, but hides or discards that info.
Also, in that library, the embedded genres for files in the “flac” format do not trickle up to the Artist, as they do for other formats. That was a bug I reported a few months ago, and it hasn’t been fixed yet, either.
That’s interesting. I had discovered that some MP3s do seem to have the track Artist so it’s not as clear cut as I first thought. But, in conjunction with what you have found, it does look as if different file formats are being handled differently, which is ludicrous and I would suggest again that it’s a bug.
So whether you get to see the track Artist depends on which file format and whether or not it is the same as the AlbumArtist. So many possibilities, ha. In any case, simply not importing a tag due to some weird logic applied by the developers is dumb. Existing data should ALWAYS be imported (when ‘Prefer local metadata’ is checked).
Seems clear to me that when importing music (with ‘Prefer local metadata’), Plex should ALWAYS read both Artist tags and populate its database accordingly, no matter what the file format. Then, since users do have different ideas about whether it should be displayed if they’re the same, add a simple preference so every user has the option to display when they’re the same, or not. Up to them.
I wonder sometimes if the developers actually ever try using the product.
I think that Plex will agree, and fix the bug. But the bug fix will likely be that MP4 files will will no longer populate the track artist field the way they do now.
Plex uses very little of the info that you may have embedded in your files for anything.
For example, your compilation album of the greatest hits of 2010 might have tracks that are mix of genres - rock, country, hip-hop, etc - but you can not create a custom “smart” filter based on the track’s genre that will include only one of the genres from that album. You can only choose the album’s genre. So country music will show up in your “Rock” playlist. In fact, you can’t even edit the genres for individual tracks anywhere.
You can also not create a custom “smart” playlist that will play all of the tracks by an artist and have that list include any tracks that may be from that greatest hits album (above) Track artist is not a field you can use in generating that playlist. You would have to choose the album artist (Various Artists in my case) so your auto-playlist will include all of the artists from that album, and any other compilation album you may have.
You can create a custom playlist by track mood, but you can’t edit that field for a track. You can only edit the moods for an album. The only way you can actually see the “moods” that Plex has assigned to a track is to view the XML for that track.
I guess my point is, that even if Plex did read and apply the the track artist info for all file types, it’s really of no value to anyone, since the information can’t be used in any useful way by most users. The Plex team has implemented the whole system in an unusual way, giving Album and Artist info priority over track info. Which is weird, because every tag editing software is “track” based, and that’s how most of us work with our music.
To make it even stranger, I added some new music to my library and now I see that the Album Artist tag is being applied to every single track, even if it is the same as the Artist tag. There is no Album Artist tag in any of the files.
This is new behavior to me and seems very unnecessary if it’s the same. It did this for every single track in every single album I added. Here’s an example:
If they are mp4 or m4a files, they are displaying exactly the way the original post explained. The track artist is displayed, imported, applied - whatever word you want to use.
If they are a different format, and you have the option to use embedded metadata, but don’t have an album artist embedded in the tags, I don’t know how Plex will deal with the album. The tags need to be accurate and complete, and that includes the “Album Artist” tag.
It could also be that either the artist or the album are not matched properly. Sometimes the new music system won’t match an artist or album if there are one or more “similar” possible matches, even though it seems obvious.
As leelynds states, Plex really needs the correct AlbumArtist tag and if that’s empty, weird things could happen.
I don’t have a problem with that. If we choose to use embedded tags on import, then it’s up to us (the users) to ensure tags are correct. What is more of a problem is when Plex doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do. Currently an MP3 file will only have its Artist tag imported if that is different from the AlbumArtist, whereas for an M4A file, the Artist is always imported, even when the same as the AlbumArtist. That is clearly wrong.
As I always state, developers should avoid having to make decisions like whether to show a particular piece of data or not. Just make that an option for the users to decide. Then there’s no argument. But in this case, it’s worse as different filetypes are handled differently and that has to be a bug.
–some months later–
I have now ascertained that the problem is with iTunes and not Plex import.
I use iTunes for tagging and I now realise it has recently developed an irritating habit of not updating the actual files. But since it does not mention this and simply fails silently, it was not obvious. I now see that iTunes has been leaving some tags empty when updating, mostly MP3 files. Which then manifests itself as missing info in Plex, mistakenly then thought to be a Plex problem.
I’ve given up tagging with iTunes and am now using Yate which is nothing short of BRILLIANT.
They are mp3 files. My understanding is that the Album Artist tag is only used when there is actually an album artist, like for a compilation, dj mix, or something of that nature.
