Server Version#: 1.18.8.2527
Player Version#: 4.28.3
Hello,
I have Album art coming from “Both Plex Music and Local Files” but there seems to be an issue because most of my artwork looks the same. However, if I click Edit and go into the record I can see the proper artwork there. I’ve included a few screenshots. One is a screenshot of an example album where you can see it’s selecting this random artwork as the one to display even though it has the correct one also available. The other is the advanced section of the library configuration. I’ve also included a screenshot showing the correct artwork being embedded in the actual file and the configuration of the agent in the server settings to prefer local media assets. I’m at a loss to what I need to change in order to get Plex to select the correct artwork. Any help would be appreciated.
Hey @BigWheel. Thanks for responding. Yes, the incorrect image seems to be caused by the metadata agent. It shows up after telling the app to Refresh the Metadata and persists. It’s not embedded in the file. I tried fiddling with the various options in the Edit Library section when making the library, but nothing seems to have worked to load the Album Art from the Local Files as configured int he advanced settings, so I’m stuck with like half my library looking like this.
I do have that album and I found the issue. You were correct - it as a stray hidden file that made it into the directory somehow. I’m not really sure how this happened but I’ll keep an eye on the logs.
Also, I tried to use Plex Music but it put every single file under the same album. The album has Various Artists as the artist and it has a seemingly random Album contained in the library as the Album name. I commented on another forum post, but nobody responded there. Is this expected behavior? I’d rather use Plex Music and migrate off the legacy method if I can get it to stop this behavior.
So it put everything in entire library into a single album? very odd. how exactly are your files organized. Do you have Artists folder and album folders for each artist?
No. I described it in a little more detail above but everything’s in a global music folder but it’s mostly all pre-tagged by MusicBrainz Picard application, so all the tags should be easily understood since Plex now also uses MusicBrainz logic to do the matching. However, because MusicBrainz doesn’t have every single song available, I also have some in the same folder that it didn’t understand.
You need to set it up so it’s one folder per album. Putting tracks from different releases in the same folder will not work, and will result in what you see. You need to follow the guidelines here.
Yes, I understand that. I read the guidelines previously.
But after reading a few posts on the forum, I think there is some room for improvement to the way the Plex Music scanner is operating. There seems to be a few users perplexed by the way the Plex Music scanner is operating because it’s different from the previous scanner and requires all users to reorganize their libraries to match the new naming standard despite it working in a previous scanner version. I also find it weird because one of the posts indicated MusicBrainz was the reason for this, but I’ve already tagged it with the official application from the same company including AcoustID tags but that doesn’t seem to affect the logic of the scanner if you have a global music folder setup. At least if the scanner would prioritize ID3 tags over folder structure if the file is located in the root library directory, that would be a huge difference to a lot of the older users.
One of the things that hasn’t been answered in the guidelines your posted was how to handle albums where album data isn’t available in the file or on MusicBrainz platform. Are there any best practices for that scenario?
It doesn’t require all users to reorganise their libraries, as this was the same standard used in the old Premium Music libraries. We’ve just flattened it, so there’s now just the one kind of music library. The scanning and matching processes are slightly different, and the same track with the same AcoustID can be on multiple releases by multiple artists.
You’re right. Not all users, just all users which have global music folders. I don’t understand your comment about the Premium Music libraries though. I used to have a Premium Music library, but I deleted it and recreated it as a Plex Music library and now it doesn’t work the same as previously. To me that would say it isn’t using the same standard but rather a more rigid methodology for matching which your first link also indicates.
Regardless, I think it would be a good idea to enhance the new Plex Music scanner logic to understand if the file’s path being scanned is in the list of directories defined in the Library Folder definition to use the embedded information for Album and Artist instead of getting it from the filepath.
From a user perspective, I would think the Prefer local metadata option would do this, but it requires so many ID3 fields being accurate that it isn’t useful for the majority of cases where you have a global music folder like many other users.
Since a user’s only option is now to conform to this new standard to use Plex Music or go back and embed my entire library with data that even MusicBrainz doesn’t have available, the only option to try is to reorganize my thousand of files, but it is going to be a tedious process. Did the Plex Team use any software during development to do this programmatically? I can’t imagine your team would be doing this by hand.
The guidelines for how to structure your files under the Premium Music Libraries is the exact same as how we recommend now. If it worked before, that was fortunate, but we’ve been recommending this folder and file structure for quite a while now. It is indeed more rigid, but results in significantly better results for those who follow it.
I’ve been following the guidelines on how to structure my files for many years (which is also the same as the iTunes default setup), and didn’t have to move anything, but there are tools out there like Filebot, which I believe will do the kind of thing you’re after. If MusicBrainz doesn’t have the data available, feel free to add it yourself, and enhance the experience for yourself and others.
I have the exact same problem, I also have a large local music collection with thousands of Various Artist songs that I just can’t separate into individual album folders…
See Post Various Artists cover with Plex Scanner
I do understand that you set up such guidelines. But please also consider users such as us.
It would be nice if some sort of solution was developed. Probably the most easy solution would be a “Various Artists” (or whatever name) parent folder, and everything after that is by user choice (no matter if subdirs are created inside that or all files are dumped in that folder). And plex honoring the “Various Artists” in cover.
Or - independant of such a folder idea: Plex still honors “Prefer local media data” and/or album art “Local files only" also in “Plex Scanner”. Otherwise thise options are pointless to begin with…
I’ve personally made almost 3,000 edits on MusicBrainz, correcting things and adding in some of my own content that didn’t exist there.