How to fix "Unknown Artists" in Music?

[akillablitz]

Hello

I’m new to Plex. Got a large music, tv and movie library managed in iTunes (yeah, stuck in that hole).

My plan is to regularly sync all media to the Plex Server. I repeated the “Import Scanning” multiple times doing the “Plex Dance™” between times - trying to get some artists and album properly assigned to no avail. Latest attempt used Last.fm agent with Local Media Assets at the top for both Album and Artists. Enable embedded tags was checked. Last.fm Genre is unchecked.

The files themselves seem “simple” in a /artist/album/## track format. Embedded tags include Album Artist, and Contributing Artist. Definitely an album name.

The result is “[Unknown Artist]” with “73 albums” of random tracks - i.e. everything is jumbled. (I assume the only thing correct is that the track name belongs to the file).

I was hoping that Plex was going to be my family’s media server savior (would be willing to go all in with the lifetime purchase) - but the time I’ve wasted so far has made me look around at other options.

Am I missing something? Why is music media scanning so difficult? Where should I start looking for troubleshooting steps? If I correct the tags (if that’s what’s needed) do I have to do the Plex Dance each time? Or can I be more targeted?

Thanks in advance…

Version 1.10.1.4602

[elan]

If you have really good tags, consider enabling the “Use embedded tags” option when creating the music library.

Not that I’m biased, but the premium music library has some fingerprinting stuff along with improved matching as well, as another option.

If you’re still having trouble, consider uploading an album for us to take a look at, as we really should be reading tags.

[akillablitz]

Thanks for the help Elan. “Use embedded tags.” Was already checked. Totally prepared to go Lifetime premium if Plex shines. I might do a month trial first to see if premium fingerprinting resolves the issue.
I will upload a zip when I’m at my pc… thanks again.

[OttoKerner]

Additional to setting the checkbox, I recommend you to
move the line ‘Local Media Assets’ to the top position both under
Settings - Server - Agents - Albums - Premium Music
and
Settings - Server - Agents - Albums - last.fm

That way your embedded metadata get priority over other metadata sources.

Then perform the Plex Dance “light” (omit step 4)
with the affected albums

[akillablitz]

Hey there

Unfortunately, that was already checked… here are the settings prior to the latest import…

An example “Unknown album” is comprised of a lot of tracks (but not all) from the Super Furry Animals album…

Additional tracks appearing in this Unknown Album include a Storytime thing…

..and a Sheryl Crow track…

So it looks like..

1. its ignored the folder structure
2. its ignored the embedded tags
3. its decided to curate playlists of random files - is this the early signs of Plex gaining a personality? Perhaps rename it to "Skynet?

[akillablitz]

Sorry, meant to add this… here is the Super Furry Animals album on disk…

[OttoKerner]

Have you performed the Plex Dance as instructed?

When you created the library, did you check ‘Import from iTunes’? (you should not)

[Arn_Ld]

Hello,

Similar problem with .aiff files. It recognized albums by the year instead of the artist. For example : I read “2017” instead of “Four Tet”. This concerns more than 300 LP.
Any solution ?