Server Version#: 1.41.8.9834
Player Version#: PlexWeb 4.146.0
I am very meticulous when it comes to my music metadata and have been on top of it for years so when setting up my Plex server, I opted to use personal metadata over everything. I noticed that plex had a weird interaction with one artists where it took the album artist field from a compilation album and applied to every album by the artist
I have verified that this is not the case for the files themselves (as seen in foobar2000):
Album Artist is listed first in the line above each album. I have tried fixing this manually in Plex as well as refreshing the metadata but it never takes.
Here are my advanced music library settings with the prefer local metadata option selected:
I’m at a loss for how to fix this. Similar issues are why I have tried Plex for music in the past and gave up. I don’t want it to ever look up or try and correct metadata, I have already set everything and would like it to just use what is already there. How hard could it be?
Is the Various Artists compilation album placed within the same folder as the artist Firienholt?
The best practice for plex music is to meticulously follow the plex support guides
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Could you also update your foobar screenshots to include the column names (and ensure the album artist column is shown)?
I am pretty sure that how you did it thus far, will work in other players.
However, Plex has some quirks which can throw a spanner in the works – particularly with compilation albums like your example.
- https://support.plex.tv/articles/200265296-adding-music-media-from-folders/
This folder structure must also be used for compilation albums/samplers! The AlbumArtist of such a sampler album is usually called “Various Artists”. Thus, the parent folder where this album is stored in, must then also be called Various Artists.
- Always tag an AlbumArtist.
- Keep the folder structure Music>AlbumArtist>Albumtitle>Tracks
That also applies to samplers and compilations!
- Inside of an AlbumArtist folder there must not be a single track with a deviating AlbumArtist tag content.
- All tracks of a particular album must have an identical AlbumArtist tagged. (keep in mind that AlbumArtist is not [Track]Artist. The Trackartist can differ on each track of an album.)
- always tag a track number, on multi-disc albums tag also a disc number
- There is no multi-artist support in Plex. Ensure to put only one name into AlbumArtist. On collaboration albums you must decide which single name you want to use as AlbumArtist. You can add all contributing artists to the [Track]Artist tag.
- The iTunes-“Compilation” flag in the metadata is not observed by Plex
Is the Various Artists compilation album placed within the same folder as the artist Firienholt?
Nope, it’s in a Various Artists folder just like the plex support guides suggests
I’ll do you one better, I can show you the properties view:
Night Eternal example:
Compilation Example:
Thanks for that. In your second screenshot, it shows multiple values for Album Artist. It should not. There is only one Album Artist; in this case it should be “Various Artists.” This is likely at least part of the problem. Each track can have its own artist; but each track’s Album Artist must be the same for a compilation such as this.
- This folder structure must also be used for compilation albums/samplers! The AlbumArtist of such a sampler album is usually called “Various Artists”. Thus, the parent folder where this album is stored in, must then also be called
Various Artists.
My current folder structure does follow this style, with a separate folder for Various Artists
- Always tag an AlbumArtist.
- Keep the folder structure Music>AlbumArtist>Albumtitle>Tracks
That also applies to samplers and compilations!
Yep, this is how I’ve always done it.
- Inside of an AlbumArtist folder there must not be a single track with a deviating AlbumArtist tag content.
- All tracks of a particular album must have an identical AlbumArtist tagged. (keep in mind that AlbumArtist is not [Track]Artist. The Trackartist can differ on each track of an album.)
Yep, AlbumArtist is the same across an album (otherwise foobar2k would split it in my current setup) and they’re identical.
- always tag a track number, on multi-disc albums tag also a disc number
I do this as well but in this case, this is a digital album that is all one medium Edit: Seems it does mark it as two disks even though it’s digital but the files are named to match for multi-disk items (file naming is automated via MBz Picard).
- There is no multi-artist support in Plex. Ensure to put only one name into AlbumArtist. On collaboration albums you must decide which single name you want to use as AlbumArtist. You can add all contributing artists to the [Track]Artist tag.
This so far is the only thing that is deviated from Plex’s guidelines however in previous instances, Plex usually just makes an independent artist folder with the combined name (for splits and the like) which I expected how it would handle it here. A terrible looking massive name like what we see but the only album would be the compilation. The correctly tagged Firienholt independent albums would all be under a different artist called Firienholt.
- The iTunes-“Compilation” flag in the metadata is not observed by Plex
Don’t use iTunes, most tagging is done via MBz Picard and I add custom tags beyond that. Not that I expect Plex to pick up everything, just what I use for Foobar2k.
Each track can have its own artist; but each track’s Album Artist must be the same for a compilation such as this.
That is the case here. As you can see on the Artist Name line, foobar2k added the “«multiple values»” flag to indicate that the values differ between the 26 different items however the Album Artist line does not have that indicating that the Album Artist line is the same across all tracks. For Plex’s purpose, it should be reading it as a single album artist called
Various Artists; Firienholt; Ringbearer; Line of Durin; Elador; Durthang; Schneesturm; Ash Nazg Búrz; Anglachel; Belegûr; Gates To The Abyss; Torchlight; Erebos; Ondolindë; Skald of Morgoth; Moongates Guardian; Braveslair; Morguth; Mornedhel; Sattyg; Khazaddum; Sprites Of The Wood; Khazad Dûm; Kortirion; Keys of Orthanc; Nazgir; Khazad-dûm
which it has done in the past for splits. An example:
Both Abscess and Bonesaw have their own pages unaffected by the split:
(cropped for NSFW album art)
Sorry, this was intended as a reply here. Not sure if it makes a difference but trying to stay organized.
Just some thoughts as I’m looking through, the various artist compilation uses semi colons as those are my preferred delimiter in foobar2k whereas the Abscess-Bonesaw split was tagged by MBz Picard and I never modified the Album Artist field after. Foobar2k still shows them as semi colons but I know from experience the MBz Picard likes to use forward slashes as the default delimiter. I’m wondering if Plex interprets the semi colon as a delimiter as well despite not allowing multiple artists in the field and searches to match the metadata for last.fm with the first entry in the field. Checking this, I noticed I had this same issue with Mesarthim from another compilation that I modified the album artist field from Picard auto-tag:
Whereas for a compilation that doesn’t use Various Artists on Musicbrainz, thus I didn’t modify the Album Artist field, does not seem to have this issue:
You cannot put albums in a “Various Artists” folder if the album artist is not exactly “Various Artists”
You need to create a folder named by whatever you consider to be the same as the album artist which in this particular case is…
Various Artists; Firienholt; Ringbearer; Line of Durin; Elador; Durthang; Schneesturm; Ash Nazg Búrz; Anglachel; Belegûr; Gates To The Abyss; Torchlight; Erebos; Ondolindë; Skald of Morgoth; Moongates Guardian; Braveslair; Morguth; Mornedhel; Sattyg; Khazaddum; Sprites Of The Wood; Khazad Dûm; Kortirion; Keys of Orthanc; Nazgir; Khazad-dûm
This album artist is ridiculous.
Reduce it to “Various Artists”, or you will continue to have difficulties.
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That’s not the case, I have plenty of split albums in my Various Artists folder that work just fine. Example:
It treats the album artist as one artist despite two being present and both Sargeist and Drowning the Light have artist pages that are not impacted by this issue.
It’s a little disappointing that a moderator would take such a dismissive stance. If you lack the patience to troubleshoot, you could just not say anything.
I’m more interested in the inconsistencies with which Plex handles this rather than getting a quick fix. If I understand better as to why a semi colon seems to cause this issue when the words “Various Artists” is present, I could try and find a solution that works for me in both Plex and outside of Plex rather than trying to edit files specifically for Plex and keeping two different metadata systems.
It worked before due to luck I guess
I already laid it out above that Plex doesn’t have suport for more than one albumartist.
Quite apparently you still are trying your luck with more than one per album.
I say from long experience that this is not going to work. You will get inconclusive results, with some instances seemingly working and some don’t.
It is not worth investigating, it’s not work trying to troubleshoot.
It’s gonna stay that way – until we get explicit support in Plex for multiple artists per album, collaborations, etc.pp. Currently we don’t. No amount of tinkering will change that.
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Plex doesn’t support more than a single album artist. Period. You can try to cajole it or manipulate it however you want. But don’t be surprised when it doesn’t work as expected. If you think you had success in the past it was by pure happenstance.
