In many cases I’ll have different versions of the same album; original, remasters, mono, stereo, mp4, flac, etc. The metadata is correct and the tracks are in folders of different names yet Plex will still combine these albums of the same title into one album.
I’m using: Prefer local metadata, Scanner is now set to Plex Music Scanner, Agent is Personal Media Artists. I just changed the last two from Plex Music then Refreshed Metadata. No change was noticed.
Server Version#: 1.19.3.2764
Can’t recommend this.
This is using the old, decrepit code which is no longer maintained.
The keys are:
Albumtitle [vinyl] vs. Albumtitle [RM 2018]The rest of the tags must use at least
/Music
/Album Artist
/Album Title
1. Track Artist - Track Title.mp3
...
All albums (and all tracks within) which are stored inside a certain AlbumArtist folder must be tagged with a common AlbumArtist meta tag!
So you would recommend ‘Plex Music’?
I have three versions of the same album I’m testing. The Mahavishnu Orchestra - The Inner Mounting Flame. I’ve just edited the albums and have the following meta tags;
The Inner Mounting Flame
The Inner Mounting Flame [24-96 flac]
The Inner Mounting Flame [16-44 flac 2012]
I also updated the artist name from Mahavishnu Orchestra to The Mahavishnu Orchestra (added prefix ‘The’).
I then went to Plex to Refresh Metadata, Analyze, and Scan Library Files. I’m still only seeing one album. This album has changed from The Inner Mounting Flame to The Inner Mounting Flame [24-96 flac]. Perplexingly, a fourth alum (Apocalypse) by the same artist is now appearing under The Mahavishnu Orchestra (added prefix ‘The’).
Each album is in its own folder. All are in the folder, Mahavishnu Orchestra.
How can I make Plex use the proper meta tags and display each album separately?
Yes. It’s what I use since it came out.
Did you switch to it? Because everything else is moot if you don’t.
After switching, go to the artist level and Refresh Metadata.
That’s what I’ve done. Results are as reported above.
Could you please show me the file names and the embedded meta data as they are now? Here is an example of how this could look like (and it also shows a working example in Plex)
Path names are looking good. No need to change anything about them.
I’d add the track number at the beginning of the file names. Either in the form 1 - ... or 1. xxx
Are there columns for
meta tags?
Both are important for Plex.
Another thing to check:
look out if the tracks of the missing album version(s) have been added to one of the existing album versions.
look out if the tracks of the missing album version(s) have been added to one of the existing album versions.
I’m not sure I understand your question. This is what I’m trying to undo. Plex is combining albums which have different album metadata.
So, I just renamed all the files in all three albums in the format: 0 - song [info]. When I went to the album or artist and Refresh Metadata, nothing changed. In fact, when I went to edit a track in Plex, the file name shown in Info had not been updated.
Then I rescanned my entire library. This did move things around.
The following two albums are now combined and showing in Plex in one album titled “The Inner Mounting Flame [24-96 flac]” under the artist name “The Mahavishnu Orchestra”:
The Inner Mounting Flame [16-44 flac 2012]
The Inner Mounting Flame [24-96 flac]
The two above albums should be listed separately. Does the information between [ ] not differentiate albums?
This single track is also listed under artist “The Mahavishnu Orchestra”:
/Volumes/Music/Mahavishnu Orchestra/Inner Mounting Flame/07 - You Know, You Know [Layer 3, 256 kbps, 44.1 kHz].mp3.
The above track is from the album “Inner Mounting Flame (no suffix)”.
Edit: I see the this single track is an MP3 while those below are MP4s.
The other 7 songs from the above album, “Inner Mounting Flame (no suffix)” (note that this is missing the prefix ‘The’ shown in metadata), are listed under the artist “Mahavishnu Orchestra (no prefix)” and the album “The Inner Mounting Flame [24-96 flac]”. This is the incorrect album name and also the same name as the album under “The Mahavishnu Orchestra”.
Needless to say, this is a frustrating mess and this is only variants of one album. I have about 900 albums.
Edit: I’m going to rename that one folder that doesn’t start with “The” then rescan again.
When you go to the Album page in Plex, of the album which has the tracks combined, Do you have the menu item ‘Split’ available under the ellipsis ⋮ ?
Making progress…
I’ve renamed the album and artist folders and album and artist metadata to match exactly. After a rescan and refresh of metadata, this has resolved most of the issues.
I find the remaining issue interesting. The one album which has no suffix, “Inner Mounting Flame" has 7 mp4 files and 1 mp3. (why, I don’t know and it really bothers me). The mp3 is sorted properly in Plex while the mp4s are still showing in the artist name “Mahavishnu Orchestra” (no prefix). The AAC mp4 may have come from iTunes.
I’ve rescanned my library a couple times and refreshed metadata a few times as well. I then deleted the album folder from my Plex directory, rescanned, added it back, and scanned again. After this process, the album is now properly listed under the correct artist “Mahavishnu Orchestra” (no prefix). Although, now 6 of the 8 tracks are showing in the album “The Inner Mounting Flame [Flac 24-96]” and the other 2 tracks (4 and 7) are properly listed under “The Inner Mounting Flame”.
Interestingly, I had accidentally cleared all the metadata for track 4. I’m sure I can clear meta for the other 6 tracks and resolve the issue. Although, the larger concern is regarding how Plex is using metadata to sort songs. It’s clearly not just album and artist. It appress just slight variations in metadata is causing issues with sorting songs correctly.
Add the various album versions one-by-one. It can happen that Plex does mix up different versions when they are added during the same scan operation.
Do you have an overview of how the metadata are looking now?
I cannot recommend to go without metadata.
Regarding the iTunes: I have no experience with it. I avoid it like the plague. You better do that as well. It just introduces yet another layer of error source.
I deleted all three albums and ran a library scan.
I took the mp4 album and reprocessed it through an audio converter and applied all new metadata. When I first added it to Plex it was correctly listed as “The Inner Mounting Flame” (no suffix).
I ran a library scan as I added each album one at a time. This album is now listed as a second version of “The Inner Mounting Flame [Flac 24-96]”.
Plex is failing to properly recognize or display albums based on their metadata. I don’t know what the problem is but clearly Plex is not optimized to host music. iTunes doesn’t have this problem. My NAS doesn’t have this problem. Any other music program I use to view and play music does not have this problem. It seems to me that if anything should be avoided like the plague it would be Plex.
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