Server Version#: 1.19.5.3006
I’m finding that a number of my multi-CD albums are now showing up with the tracks out-of-sequence, duplicate song/track numbers, and missing tracks. To fix, I must remove the album(s); scan the music library; add the albums back in; and scan again. This is a new problem, within the past month or so. Prior to that (and for years), these album tracks were correctly being displayed.
I uploaded a screenshot of an example. Until recently, these tracks displayed properly![Yessongs|690x386]
(upload://gnFpgt92rGf38fsoYGoNZzGQvY7.jpeg)
What kind of folder organization are you using for your music?
How much embedded meta data have you put into the files?
Is the checkbox ‘Use embedded metatags’ activated in your library? (Don’t change it, yet!)
What has been selected as Scanner and Agent in the properties of your music library?
Folder organization is: MUSIC LIBRARY> ARTIST> ALBUM
For some albums, I have placed embedded metadata in the “Review” field within Plex, but the problem extends to many other multi-CD albums that were not modified in any way.
I have no idea where the “Use embedded metatags” checkbox is, so therefore it must be at a default setting.
Not sure about the Scanner. Agent has always been last.fm.
I have been using mp3tag for over a decade, and ALL my albums have been properly tagged for multi-CD albums (1 of 2; 2 of 2; etc.). This problem did not affect all of the multi-CD albums. I have many hundreds of multi-CD albums, and I have only found about 50 that were corrupted (so far). Some artists were unaffected. Other artists had a mix of affected and unaffected albums. There is no pattern…
I have been using Plex since 2012, and multi-CD albums have been displaying properly until now. I believe the problem started around June 20, 2020. My music library currently contains 8078 albums (10,8626 tracks), and is 981 GB in size.
I am speculating that this problem “could” have surfaced a few months back when there was a known problem with the Plex scanner (when it was taking hours to scan). This was fixed in a later release, but I cannot say for certain whether that particular scanner issue caused this problem.
If you put literally 1 of 2 into the ‘disc number’ tag, then you are violating the spec. This field only expects a simple number. There is a separate meta tag for the total number of discs in an album.
These are both on the same page, on the ‘Adanced’ tab when you are editing the library.
Please verify that the agent is still set to last.fm
Is ‘Local Media Assets’ in the top position under both
- Settings - Server - Agents - Albums - last.fm
- Settings - Server - Agents - Artists - last.fm
?
Side remark: if your agent is still set to ‘last.fm’, you are using the old deprecated Python code for your music. This will no longer be updated and debugged.
For clarification, tagging “1 of 2” or “1/2”, “2/2”, etc. is taking place within the actual file metadata (mp3tag), and is done that way because all multi-CD’s are organized in separate folders (e.g. YES> YESSONGS CD1 and YESSONGS CD2. Even if this method is violating a spec, it is odd why Plex only did this to a small percentage of my multi-CD sets, and only within the last month. Upon examination of the Plex properties of the tracks that got corrupted, it still displayed the correct “Track” and “Disc” numbers. BTW, I have been using Plex since 2012 - and this is the first time this particular problem has arisen. By removing the actual album folders from the library; then deleting the album from Plex; and then placing them back into the library, they now appear fine. I am hard-pressed to believe that my tags are at issue here, since they re-added to the Plex library just fine.
My apologies, but I still do not see the “Use embedded metatags” anywhere.
Last.fm is listed BEFORE Local Media Assets. Should I swap their positions?
Yes, definitely.
Do the same for the Personal Media agent under Albums and Artists, i.e.
- Settings - Server - Agents - Albums - Personal Media Albums
- Settings - Server - Agents - Artists - Personal Media Artists
Apologies, it is called ‘Prefer local metadata’ now.
I’m attaching some screenshots FYI
Folder Structure:
Corrected Track Listing:
Corrupted Track Listing:
mp3tag Properties of both CD’s:
Could you copy the contents (not the URI!) of the Plex XML info of one of those tracks into here?
Folder org and file names and meta tags are all in order, to my knowledge.
I have modified the order of the agents for Album and Artists, as you suggested. I am ready to check the box for “Prefer local metadata.” This seems to make sense, yes?
Screenshot of the bulk of multi-CD albums that were affected by all of this. Again… no rhyme or reason as to why these particular CD’s were affected. Some not visible in the screenshot are: Blind Faith, Paul Simon, John Denver, ZZ Top, and Grateful Dead.
Don’t do it, yet. It will have severe effects, if not all albums are organized in the required
Music > Artist > Album > Tracks
structure.
Particularly for ‘Various Artists’ / sampler albums.
What I meant was clicking on that yellow link in the lower, left corner which says “View XML”.
Sorry… here it is:
This XML file does not appear to have any style information associated with it. The document tree is shown below.
<MediaContainer size="1" allowSync="1" identifier="com.plexapp.plugins.library" librarySectionID="3" librarySectionTitle="Music Library" librarySectionUUID="6f3a7145-56da-459a-85cf-919a2a10493f" mediaTagPrefix="/system/bundle/media/flags/" mediaTagVersion="1593788012">
<Track ratingKey="669026" key="/library/metadata/669026" parentRatingKey="669025" grandparentRatingKey="2148" guid="local://669026" parentGuid="com.plexapp.agents.lastfm://Yes/Yessongs?lang=en" grandparentGuid="com.plexapp.agents.lastfm://Yes?lang=en" type="track" title="Opening "Firebird Suite" [Excerpt from "Firebird Suite"]" grandparentKey="/library/metadata/2148" parentKey="/library/metadata/669025" librarySectionTitle="Music Library" librarySectionID="3" librarySectionKey="/library/sections/3" grandparentTitle="Yes" parentTitle="Yessongs" summary="" index="1" parentIndex="1" thumb="/library/metadata/669025/thumb/1593736726" art="/library/metadata/2148/art/1593736986" parentThumb="/library/metadata/669025/thumb/1593736726" grandparentThumb="/library/metadata/2148/thumb/1593736986" grandparentArt="/library/metadata/2148/art/1593736986" duration="227631" addedAt="1593736499" updatedAt="1593737293">
<Media id="899476" duration="227631" bitrate="320" audioChannels="2" audioCodec="mp3" container="mp3">
<Part accessible="1" exists="1" id="907369" key="/library/parts/907369/1485037109/file.mp3" duration="227631" file="O:\Hals Music Library\Yes\Yessongs Disc 1\01 Opening [Excerpt from 'Firebird Suite'].mp3" size="9269347" container="mp3" deepAnalysisVersion="4" hasThumbnail="1" requiredBandwidths="313,313,313,313,313,313,313,313">
<Stream id="1562631" streamType="2" selected="1" codec="mp3" index="0" channels="2" bitrate="320" albumGain="-7.19" albumPeak="1.000000" albumRange="11.501961" audioChannelLayout="stereo" endRamp="-4.61 0.13;-2.92 12.93;" gain="-7.19" loudness="-23.20" lra="17.90" peak="0.422394" requiredBandwidths="313,313,313,313,313,313,313,313" samplingRate="44100" startRamp="-51.00 0.00;-39.02 2.20;-29.82 3.60;-23.99 4.80;-20.22 5.40;-17.61 5.80;-14.64 7.40;-11.33 50.60;-8.99 94.10;-5.70 99.50;-2.96 213.60;" displayTitle="Unknown (MP3 Stereo)" extendedDisplayTitle="Unknown (MP3 Stereo)"/>
</Part>
</Media>
<Extras size="0"> </Extras>
<Related> </Related>
</Track>
</MediaContainer>
BTW, I can’t thank you enough for looking into this so promptly.! I am a rabid Plex user, and I strive to maintain a comprehensive and accurate library. These miscues with a portion (albeit small) of my multi-CD’s was really bothering me. I’m thinking that maybe this was a “one-off”. Perhaps some process ran awry, or something? Doesn’t seem like anyone else had this issue. Anyway… thanks for helping
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These tell us that the artist and the album has indeed been matched with the last.fm agent.
So this library will fall into disrepair more and more in the coming years, I’m afraid.
If your server is up to it, you could create a second music library, which you are pointing to the very same folders. But you select ‘Plex Music’ for both Agent and Scanner.
And activate ‘Prefer local metadata’ as well.
Scanning this may take very long time (with the size of your collection it make take days).
But if you let it proceed as long as it takes (don’t interfere too early and correct any mistakes manually) you’ll have a library which you can use to compare how the old and the new code behave.
You need to keep in mind that this will enlarge your database and the Plex data folder considerably. So only try it if your server has plenty of resources.
OK. Duly noted. While I do have the resources to do this, I think I’ll hold off for now. My PMS folders are huge as it is, so building another library on the same server would grow those folders incredibly. Going forward, I may build PMS + music library on a different PC, with Plex Music as the scanner. If that goes well, ditto to the main server.
Thanks!
I’ve been giving the matter a lot of thought. I am still using the “Basic” music library I created about 8 years ago. During that time, I have introduced a substantial amount of metadata within Plex (poster art, artist bios, etc.). Years ago, I created a “Premium” music library, but it was missing too many artist bios and pics, etc. Simply stated, it was no where near the accuracy of my basic library. I abandoned/deleted the premium library. As I mentioned, I have personally tagged EVERY album in my collection, using mp3tag. My confidence in the embedded metadata is very high. Despite the fact that my current Plex music library is extremely comprehensive and accurate, I really do not wish for my library to fall into disrepair, going forward. Therefore, I am considering the “Upgrade to Plex Music” option, as follows:
- Perform a verified system image. This would create an exact copy of all my Plex Media Server folders/metadata, etc., in the event that I need to restore my basic library.
- Initiate the Upgrade to Plex Music option.
- Accept the new Plex Music - or restore my old version, if I see too many problems.
My big question is this: Shouldn’t I enable the “Prefer local metadata” preference, since I am 100% confident in my local embedded tags? - and do I enable this before or after I initiate the upgrade to Plex music?
What do you recommend? Thanks!
Verify the presence of ‘Album Artist’ meta tags. These are very important in Plex.
The folder organization and the ‘Album Artist’ are intertwined.
As mentioned already, all albums must be in a stored in a folder structure of
Music > Artist > Album > Tracks
Now imagine a bunch of albums stored inside a certain album artist folder.
If only one of these albums has a deviant album artist in its metatags, the whole artist and its albums may get renamed to the deviant artist name.
If you can guarantee that this is not the case for any of your albums, then enable “Prefer local metadata” – before starting the first library scan.
(Now this may seem unlikely to you, but consider albums which were made as a collaboration. Or think of “sampler” and soundtrack albums. These are handled as a regular artist in Plex [with the name Various Artists], so these too must follow the folder structure.)
As soon as I checked “Prefer local media”, it took-off and did a scan. Took a little over an hour to complete. Before I opt to “Upgrade to Plex Music”, would you be able to answer these questions?
-
If Plex Music cannot match an artist, will it retain the metadata I have already added to Plex (poster art and bio)? I have a fair amount of obscure albums by obscure artists. Finding and replacing band poster art and bio’s from Wikipedia, would represent a lot of work on my end.
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Will Plex Music override my ID3v2.3 tags and use its own Release Year for albums? For example, a 2018 re-issue of a 1972 album, typically shows as 2018 in Plex. I have a tendency to override the Year to reflect the actual release date of the album. Actually, I always wished Plex allowed for both the ‘actual’ and ‘re-issue’ Year.
Thanks!
Thanks for your reply!
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I think it best to physically go through my entire music library and check all obscure artists and ensure that any metadata I’ve added, has been locked. Then for added protection, I should copy and paste artwork and bio’s for those artists as well. More and more it looks like the safest way to approach this is to completely build a new plex music library on another PC, and then see how much “stuff” I lose in the process.
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So, even though I am now using "Prefer local media, it is likely that Plex will override the release date values in my ID3v2.3 tags?
Sorry for all the questions, but I have so many man-hours invested in my library, that I want to ensure a smooth upgrade, and avoid a lot of reconstructive work to get it back to where I had it.
