Issues with albums containing a pregap track

Plex Media Server Metadata & Adding Files
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1

Note: I posted about these issues about a year ago on discord, but didn’t get any real response.

Server Version#: 1.42.0.9975

I have a couple of issues, both of which deal with albums with pregap tracks.

Firstly, this album: Release “La De Da” by Joel Plaskett - MusicBrainz

Has two track 1s:

image
image326×198 25.4 KB

The pregrap track isn’t even first, though.

Second issue: https://musicbrainz.org/release/c5729b32-d992-4283-9d86-d38bcb814a14

It shows up in my plex as a different release:

image
image442×781 36.5 KB

The pregap track is showing up as the last track on disc 2.

If i try to change it to the correct match, it spins for a minute but never changes anything.

I see these two errors in the console. Not sure if they matter.

[Req#2a61] Couldn’t copy file “/config/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Metadata/Albums/5/0b600732d22508973d078adc73f38aca451089a.bundle/Contents/_combined/posters/tv.plex.agents.music_dd5c1af8b1c30e3463ee6094b0b3e6b0c71e9ee1” to “/config/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Metadata/Albums/f/d1d6542d47778c756ca25f8210fac05cfd30f11.bundle/Uploads/posters/tv.plex.agents.music_dd5c1af8b1c30e3463ee6094b0b3e6b0c71e9ee1”: File exists

[Req#2a61] Couldn’t copy file “/config/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Metadata/Albums/f/d1d6542d47778c756ca25f8210fac05cfd30f11.bundle/Uploads/posters/5f5b3615a5b5773b38729958c6bf204142f50dc0” to “/config/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Metadata/Albums/5/0b600732d22508973d078adc73f38aca451089a.bundle/Uploads/posters/5f5b3615a5b5773b38729958c6bf204142f50dc0”: File exists

Here’s the console log (apologies if there is unrelated stuff in there, it’s hard to tell!).

fix-match.log (36.3 KB)

Thanks in advance!

-Brian

2

That’s not supported.

There is no such thing as a pregap track.
If you need a track to get sorted before track 1, number it either zero, or renumber all the following tracks.

3

Heya! Thanks for replying.

When I say it has two track 1s, I meant that it’s not supposed to, actually. It shows up that way in Plex, which is what I don’t understand.

The pregap track is numbered 0 in my files, as it should be.

4

Just pinging this thread to say that the issue still remains: releases with a track 0 (aka pregap, as marked in musicbrainz) are either:

  • Listed with two track 1’s
  • Matched to an incorrect release, and can’t be changed

Hoping a dev will see this. :folded_hands:

5

ScreenCapture at Wed Oct 22 10:24:35 BST 2025
ScreenCapture at Wed Oct 22 10:24:35 BST 2025750×1089 379 KB

It works fine here. how are you naming/tagging your files?

i use musicbrainz picard for tagging and naming as per the plex guidelines…

/MUSIC/Joel Plaskett/La De Da (2005)/00 - Hissy Fit.mp3

/MUSIC/Joel Plaskett/La De Da (2005)/01 - Absentminded Melody.mp3
6

Thanks for replying!

All of my files are tagged with Picard. I use $num(%_absolutetracknumber%,2) for track naming, so it will start with 01 in the filename, but the track metadata clearly states track 0.

I wonder if this is a case of the Plex code doing something like:

if (track.number) {
  // Use number from metadata
}
else {
  // fallback to filename
}

But because the track number is “0”, if fails the first check and falls back to the filename, which is “1.” Obviously this is a complete guess, but just a thought.

7

Do you have “prefer local metatags” in the library preferences activated?

8

@OttoKerner I do not:

image
image723×521 33.7 KB

9

Then this might be why Plex is not using your embedded track numbers, but uses them from some different version of the album on Musicbrainz.org.

Be advised that enabling “prefer local metatags” will require you to adhere to quite strict rules about the completeness of said embeddd meta tags – as well as how to store your music in subfolders.

10

There are two versions on MB Release group “La De Da” by Joel Plaskett - MusicBrainz and both contain pre-gap tracks.

11

Why not just keep the track naming to match the track number tagging? - What benefit do you get using absolutetracknumber?

12

It keeps things simple for multi-disc releases. That’s all. Plex has no issue handling those cases.

13

Did you try my naming/tagging style to see if that works for you? Could you just add some logic to the Picard naming script to adapt for pre-gap tracks maybe?