One album being incorrectly identified as Various Artists instead of Alabama

Plex Media Server Metadata & Adding Files
1

Server Version#:4.142.10054
Player Version#:4.147.1
<If providing server logs please do NOT turn on verbose logging, only debug logging should be enabled>

I have one album that is not being correctly identified: Alabama - Cheap Seats, the Artist is showing “Various Artists”. I verified the Artist tags on the files are all set to Alabama and do not find a single instance of another Artist name or Various Artists in the metadata. I’ve even let MusicBrainz match and apply all of the metada from their DB to the files but it still shows as Various Artists. I’ve tried manually changing it and it just reverts back seconds later. I’ve tried matching within Plex, Fixing Match within Plex, Unmatching within Plex, nothing is working. All of this would easily be avoided if Plex actually used the local metadata (which is checkmarked in settings.) Any ideas on how to fix Plex’s mistake?

2

Have you also verified and set the Album Artist tags?

If you did that, you also better stick to these rules:

  • all files must be tagged with an Album Artist tag
  • all files in an album must also be tagged with a track number, on multi-disc releases also with a disc number (different tag!)
  • all files of a particular album must be tagged with the same Album Artist. (the regular Artist tag can be different for each track)
  • more than one Album Artist is not supported. Try to use Plex like that, and you will get chaos.
  • all files must be in a folder hierarchy like this one: https://support.plex.tv/articles/200265296-adding-music-media-from-folders/
    That includes sampler albums and compilations as well!
  • The Album Artist of compilations is usually “Various Artists”. Ensure that all albums tagged with this Album Artist name are stored inside a same-named Artist folder (in accordance with the above linked folder structure)
  • all albums which are stored inside a particular Artist folder must be tagged with the same Album Artist name

To achieve the above, I urge you to use a dedicated meta tagger software. The Windows file explorer properties dialog is insufficient.
Peronally, I use mp3tag

After you have checked and corrected your files according to the above, perform the Plex Dance light with the affected albums. (“light” meaning you can omit step 4)

3

I was able to workaround the bug in Plex by removing the artist folder from my music directory, scanning the library to remove them, doing a “Clean Bundles” under troubleshooting, then moved the music back and doing a rescan. Initially it listed all of my “Alabama” albums as “Various Artists” but I was able to correct them and get the change to stick this time.