Plex Hates id3 tags

[aaronnewsome]

Seriously. I’ve been using Plex a “REALLY” long time now. Since around 2103 maybe? I don’t know. It’s been a long time. What I’ve learned over the years is that Plex seriously hates id3 tags in audio files. Other files are probably just as bad as Plex tries to match everything to some online database. I’ve struggled with this for so long. My files are all properly tagged, by design and it’s a serious struggle to try and get Plex to stop trying to lookup and match all my files with an online database.

A question to the Plex developers, why in the world is it preferred to ignore the tags in the files?

I thought I had this figured out once and for all but the last few days, media has been showing up with the dreaded “Unknown Artist”. Checking the id3 tags on my files reveals exactly what I expect. The tags are in order. why oh why in the world is Plex ignoring the tags!!! They are correct. So frustrating.

[BigWheel]

There is a prefer local metadata option in the library if you want to use it. When creating or editing a music library.

[aaronnewsome]

I already have that option enabled. I have scripts downloading about 50 files per day. Scripts create the folder structure, scripts tag the files. The naming is very consistent, the tagging is very consistent. Yet still, Plex will occasionally show a file has unknown artist or it’ll have the album wrong.

I double check the file, inspect the tag carefully. Everything looks fine with the file but yet Plex is still getting it wrong. So I force Plex to refresh the metadata. Still wrong.

The only thing that fixes it is to move the file out of the library, scan the library, move the file back and the Plex will read the tags correctly.

Notice I didn’t have to fix the file, since it was already correct to begin with. This behavior is mad frustrating. Why can’t Plex just read the id3 tag correctly the first time or even the second time when using the refresh metadata option?

[aaronnewsome]

[Noah0504]

@aaronnewsome

Seriously. I’ve been using Plex a “REALLY” long time now. Since around 2103 maybe?

Ah, a fellow time-traveler. How do you do?

@aaronnewsome

A question to the Plex developers, why in the world is it preferred to ignore the tags in the files?

They’re definitely not ignored.

@aaronnewsome

I have scripts downloading about 50 files per day. Scripts create the folder structure, scripts tag the files. The naming is very consistent, the tagging is very consistent. Yet still, Plex will occasionally show a file has unknown artist or it’ll have the album wrong.

@aaronnewsome

The only thing that fixes it is to move the file out of the library, scan the library, move the file back and the Plex will read the tags correctly.

So, the actual issue is that sometimes Plex is not using embedded metadata and not that it’s outright refusing to use them?

Do you have Plex set to do a library scan on changes, every so often or manually? Not sure how your scripts function, but maybe when it’s copying files it’s kicking off a library scan and maybe that’s happening too soon? Maybe try changing it to manual just to see if that helps?

[OttoKerner]

From your description, it sounds to me as if Plex is scanning the new files sometimes too early. Before your script had a chance to add the proper metadata.
Is your script downloading and tagging the files while they’re still outside of a “watched” Plex library folder?

@aaronnewsome

The only thing that fixes it is to move the file out of the library, scan the library, move the file back and the Plex will read the tags correctly.

At least this will change with the new music code. A simple refresh will then cause Plex to read in all meta tags.
By the looks of your screenshot, you havent yet updated to the server beta with the new music code.

[aaronnewsome]

Yes Otto. I am running the latest stable release.

I’ve already considered that maybe Plex is scanning the files before the download is complete or before the id3tag has been applied.

I’ve gone through every option I can find to try and stop this from happening. I’ve turned off every feature that looks like it will scan my library automatically. I have a script to start library scan when there’s no downloads running.

To be extra safe, I’d already started modifying my scripts to download to a temp directory, apply the tag and then move them into place. This will be complete today.

I also think that I might see these issues less if my plex library were not on CIFS share. I’m fixing that too by moving the library from CIFS share to local disk on the server. That should be done today too.

None of this explains why Plex is so stubborn to completely ignore the tag when manually force a refresh of metadata. I’m looking at a file with correct meta data. Plex has the metadata wrong. I force refresh the metadata and Plex still has it wrong.

The Plex dance should NOT be necessary. Even if there’s a reasonable explanation for why Plex got it wrong in the first place, this should be fixable without manually moving the data out of the way and back again.

[TeknoJunky]

vote here

Tag support for ROBUST music library organization

This is a request for comprehensive support of the ID3/Vorbis/etc. tags that are necessary for truly meaningful and complete organization of music libraries, both classical and popular. Here is what I hope will be a comprehensive list of the ID3 tags that are essential for digital music management (including special needs for classical music). For FLAC and other file formats, the appropriate equivalents of these tags, if they exist, should be supported. Tags which are necessary for complete ma…

[fost219]

I have tried to activate the “Advanced” settings but it is dark and cannot be clicked on. I have a library that I organized with SongKong, which I find very good. I have set SongKong to tag in a Plex compatible manner (there is a setting for this within SongKong) but Plex rescans the library and moves tracks to different places than where I (and SongKong) wanted them. Is there anyway to activate that “Advanced” gear?

[BigWheel]

@fost219

activate the “Advanced” settings but it is dark and cannot be clicked on

can you take screenshot of what you are looking at

[aaronnewsome]

I hear ya. My problem in this thread is really for podcast audio files. I mostly gave up Plex for music audio files a long time ago. It really boggles the mind why it can’t read the id3 tags in the file and use them, even when it looks like the developers have actively implemented options to make it do precisely that,… read the tag.

[aaronnewsome]

Blockquote So, the actual issue is that sometimes Plex is not using embedded metadata and not that it’s outright refusing to use them?

Correct. Plex will about once in 100, ignore certain metadata tags. Sometimes it’s the artist tag, sometimes it’s the album tag, sometimes something else. Re-analyzing or refreshing meta data doesn’t help. I have to do the plex dance to get the file recognized properly.

Blockquote Do you have Plex set to do a library scan on changes, every so often or manually? Not sure how your scripts function, but maybe when it’s copying files it’s kicking off a library scan and maybe that’s happening too soon? Maybe try changing it to manual just to see if that helps?

This should not have been the issue but I’ve gone ahead and disabled every auto-scan option I could find. I now only scan the library when I’m sure no downloads or tagging are in progress. Again though, refreshing metadata SHOULD fix the issue if somehow plex were reading the tag before the tag had been completely written.

[OttoKerner]

@aaronnewsome

I have to do the plex dance to get the file recognized properly.

Please inspect the Plex XML info of the affected tracks. Look at the contents of the guid="..." property.
Do the affected tracks all have none in there, instead of plex?

[aaronnewsome]

@OttoKerner

Please inspect the Plex XML info of the affected tracks. Look at the contents of the guid="..." property.
Do the affected tracks all have none in there, instead of plex ?

Thanks OttoKerner. I will. I currently don’t have any tracks that are showing up incorrectly in Plex since I’ve danced them all into correctness. I’m sure it won’t be long before some show up though.

[aaronnewsome]

@aaronnewsome

Please inspect the Plex XML info of the affected tracks. Look at the contents of the guid="..." property.
Do the affected tracks all have none in there, instead of plex ?

I just caught a track with a screwed up tag today Otto. The guid in the XML looks normal. But Plex has created a “ghost” album.

See the screenshot. Plex has created another 2019-10 album. It has one track in it and all the other October tracks are in the other album. I’ve inspected the id3 tags on these files and the tags are correct. Why in the world do I have two albums with the same name? I’ve double checked the path, there’s only one folder with the name 2019-10 and all the October files are in there. Refreshing the metadata does nothing but I bet the plex dance will.

[OttoKerner]

Compare the contents of the parentGuid from both albums. One might be still matched to the old music agent and the other to the new one.
There should be a ‘merge’ action available if you select both.

[aaronnewsome]

@OttoKerner

Compare the contents of the parentGuid from both albums. One might be still matched to the old music agent and the other to the new one.
There should be a ‘merge’ action available if you select both

Thanks for the tip. I’ll try that next time I see this issue. I’ve already deleted the errant ghost album.

[leelynds]

Really trying to understand how Plex reads id3 tags now. Here’s a recent problem, with some background.

A lot of my albums have not matched because they are not listed on the MB website. A lot of them are vinyl rips of old compilations albums and 45’s. I’ve taken the extra step of adding the release to MusicBrainz, and then re-matching with MusicBrainz Picard to the release I have added. Should work flawlessly, I would think… Not so, unfortunately.

One of the albums in question is “20 Top Star Festival Dynamic Hits Volume Two” previously unmatched, but shown in Plex as one album, with the relevant info from the embedded tags properly displayed. After the new metadata was applied, using MusicBrainz Picard, Plex added a new album with only half of the tracks, and updated the old album, removing half of the tracks. So now I have two albums, with the same title, in the library.

Examining the “guid” for the tracks under each album finds they are matched to the Plex Music agent, and all of the tracks have the identical parentGuid, and obviously the same album title and year in the embedded tags.
Example:
track 3 from duplicate album 1:

guid=“plex://track/5d0807db403c6402903ce062”
parentGuid=“plex://album/5d07ccca403c640290eaddff”
grandparentGuid=“plex://artist/5d07bbfc403c6402904a5ec9”
type=“track” title=“One Bad Apple”

track 4 from duplicate album 2:

guid=“plex://track/5d0807db403c6402903cd7b3”
parentGuid=“plex://album/5d07ccca403c640290eaddff”
grandparentGuid=“plex://artist/5d07bbfc403c6402904a5ec9”
type=“track” title=“Fire and Rain”

I understand I can fix this by Plex Dancing the album, or possibly by merging the the two albums. I was hoping the rumours that “No Plex Dance Required” were true, and updated metadata would be applied,

EDIT: I’ve refreshed the metadata for the albums several times, but nothing changes.

If you get thru all of this, my question is basically, why did Plex split the album, and why did it decide half of the tracks were new additions to the library in that album.

[OttoKerner]

Normally, those 2 albums should be one, since their grandparent and parentGuid are identical. Are these tracks perhaps stored in separate folders?

I can really only tell you more if I can take a look at the metadata of the files.
If you could arrange them in mp3tag like so, then make a screenshot, it’d be easier:

Do you have ‘prefer local metadata’ activated?

[leelynds]

Done! Thanks for any assistance.