Plex Media Server continually shows incorrect music dates, in spite of accurate local metadata

Plex Media Server NAS & Devices
1

Server Version#: PlexMediaServer-1.19.3.2852-219a9974e-x86_64

SUMMARY
I have the same problem described by @markpaterson at Why does Plex *insist* on displaying the wrong year for some of my music? Found no solution so far. Please help! - #9 by markpaterson However, my Plex Media Server (PlexMediaServer-1.19.3.2852-219a9974e-x86_64) is a fresh install on a Synology 1019+ NAS, so I don’t think the same solution applies. Can anybody help, please?

MY SETUP
Plex Pass. Thousands of albums with metadata organised meticulously by hand.

MY PLEX MUSIC LIBRARY SETTINGS
Include in Dashboard NO
Album sorting DEFAULT
Prefer Local Metadata YES
Store track process NO
Include related content YES
Artist Bios YES
Album Reviews YES
Popular Tracks YES
Concerts YES
Genres PLEX MUSIC
Album Art LOCAL
Scanner PLEX MUSIC
Agent PLEX MUSIC

MY CHECKED PLEX AGENTS SETTINGS (in order, top to bottom)
Artists\Personal Media Artists
Local Media Assets (Artists) \ Personal Media Artists
Artists\Last.fm
Local Media Assets (Artists) \ Last.fm \ Home Theater Backdrops
Albums\Personal Media Albums
Local Media Assets (Albums) \ Personal Media Albums
Albums\Last.fm
Local Media Assets (Albums) \ Last.fm \ LyricFind

THE PROBLEM
Plex displays several albums with incorrect (Originally Available) dates.

AN EXAMPLE
Two versions each - originals then re-releases - of three albums by Pet Shop Boys.

The folder location for each album is:
Music\Pet Shop Boys\Actually (1987)
Music\Pet Shop Boys\Actually (2001)
Music\Pet Shop Boys\Bilingual (1996)
Music\Pet Shop Boys\Bilingual (2001)
Music\Pet Shop Boys\Please (1986)
Music\Pet Shop Boys\Please (2001)

My files are organised by Mp3tag using a variation upon a theme of @OttoKerner ’s final string at Telling Plex to ignore music files already processed? - #11 by D_B :
$validate(A:\Music1%albumartist%%album% (%year%)$if2(Disc $meta(discnumber),)$num(%track%,2) - %artist% - %title%,~)

For example:
Music\Pet Shop Boys\Please (2001)\Disc 01\11 - Pet Shop Boys - Why Don’t We Live Together~.mp3

I have double-checked the metadata in all these files for these albums using both Mp3tag and exiftool. The only years referred to are the correct release years, shown in brackets above, and the years when the tracks were created and modified, which don’t seem to be in any way related to this problem.

When I enter these albums to Plex, Plex shows the year for all of them as 2001, except Bilingual (1996), which it presents correctly as 1996. Actually (1987) and Please (1986) both stubbornly resolve to 2001, and I can’t see why.

The only potentially relevant difference I can see between these albums is that Bilingual (1996) and Bilingual (2001) were both originally two-disc releases, with the second disc containing different tracks in each case. Actually (1987) and Please (1986) were both originally one-disc releases, with the 2001 re-releases both being two-disc . I have tried organising Actually (1987) and Please (1986) with and without discnumber 01 in their metadata and folder location, but this makes no difference.

If I unmatch Actually (1987) and Please (1986) in Plex, it shows their correct dates, so I presume Plex is pulling date data from Musicbrainz in spite of my expressed preference for my accurate local metadata. I’ve tried using the old Plex Music Scanner and last.fm instead of Plex Music but the problem remains the same. I have attempted to sort this by using various combinations of Plex Dance and creating new music libraries, to no avail. I’ve even done an entirely fresh install of Plex Media Server on my NAS. I feel out of options, hence this approach to the forum.

I’m aware that @anon18523487 and @OttoKerner have addressed topics like this previously. I’ve checked through these and don’t believe I’ve missed any potential solutions that I should’ve implemented.

If anyone can help, I’d appreciate it. I don’t really want to try re-constructing my whole Music Library until I’m confident that this problem is resolved. Thanks :blush:

2

Hi. I got an email alert about this because you mentioned my username – thanks for the opportunity to maybe help you out on this, I feel your pain! After sending my logs to the dev team it was discovered that the culprit in my case was Tautulli. It had somehow corrupted my database. I’m not sure why that isn’t mentioned in my original thread.

To fix, I did a complete wipe of my library (the database, not the media), literally started over fresh. I did not re-install Tautullu – I just gave up on it because the benefits don’t outweigh the headache if this was to happen again. In the 6+ months since I’ve never had a single problem.

If you don’t have Tautulli then perhaps another 3rd party Plex script/service has messed something up? Hope this helps!

3

Tautulli has zero access to your files or to modify your metadata or database.

4

I’m just repeating what the Plex dev told me after he analyzed my logs…

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This is the conversion he was talking about:

It looks like there is an issue with the PMS install on your NAS. When the new music system was introduced for 1.18, your previous premium music library was suppose to get converted to the new system. It appears there was an issue with this conversion so your library is not using our new system properly.

The only 3rd party tool I had was Tautulli. He wasn’t 100% certain it was the culprit, but that was his theory. And after never re-installing it I haven’t had the problem since.

5

His assumption was wrong. You don’t have to take my word for it. The Tautulli source code is completely open to be reviewed.

6

It makes no difference to me if the source code is public or not, I wouldn’t be able to make head nor tail of it. Don’t assume that everyone has that skill. The vast majority of people just install things based on reputation and good faith.

Also, he might not even have Tautulli installed. The main point the dev was making was that something had accidentally locked the database. That could be a helpful starting point in this case.

@whit35ilver I recommend you just contact the Plex support team. They’ll have you send your logs and will get to the bottom of it. Feel free to reference my previous thread about it.

7

Thanks, both, for responding so quickly to my query - @markpaterson, I particularly appreciate your empathy :slight_smile:

To the best of my knowledge, I don’t have any third party tools or scripts installed on Plex, unless they’re included and installed automatically in the PlexMediaServer-1.19.3.2852-219a9974e-x86_64.spk Synology install package, which I downloaded and installed fresh from Media Server Downloads | Plex Media Server for Windows, Mac, Linux, FreeBSD and More This is difference that I find interesting between my case and yours, inasmuch as - if I read your posts correctly - you previously had a premium music library which didn’t get converted properly during a music system update and therefore locked up, whereas I’ve never had such a thing because I’m totally new to Plex. Literally, my whole install has been done from scratch and yet I’ve ended up from the start with exactly the symptoms you described at Why does Plex *insist* on displaying the wrong year for some of my music? Found no solution so far. Please help! - #9 by markpaterson Looking at the dev’s comments above, then, I guess my library too must not be using the new system properly and/or something must be corrupting my db. However, I can’t see that this can be happening for the same reasons, unless I’m missing something.

May I ask how you contacted the Plex devs, please? Thanks again for your help.

8

I wish I had a better answer for you but if I remember correctly, a Plex dev team member chimed in on the original thread and after that we corresponded through private message. Hopefully someone will do the same here. You could also try posting on http://reddit.com/r/plex as I believe that some dev members are active on there too.

9

So I’ve had a few more goes since I last posted, most recently with a clean install of PMS 1.19.4.2902-69560ce1e - the latest version, I believe. Sadly, all’s been to no avail. I’ve double-checked @ChuckPa’s Synology install instructions at Installation & Setup of Plex Media Server on Synology , and have tried both with and without split shares per Using Read-Only and Read-Write shares for Optimized media on Synology My present PMS install has read-only access to my media folders; my standard setting. After a bit more hunting, I’ve found other users with similar issues to me, like @Fred_rik at Date of Music Album field 'Originally Available' is set to most recent year found Indeed, after reading @Fred_rik’s post, I went hunting for ‘audiohelpers.py’ to attempt the suggested amend, but couldn’t find it on my Synology.

The bottom line seems to be that, as with @Fred_rik and @markpaterson 's experience, PMS is pulling erroneous date data to my albums, even though their metadata, filenames, and folder organisation are all accurate, and I’ve created my Music Library with Prefer Local Metadata checked. In the case of some fields, I could live with this - the occasional funky album cover or mis-allocated review, for example, is bearable. However, date is more problematic because it directly impacts upon PMS’s sorting of albums within each artist.

I suggested above that I thought this problem might be something to do with album re-releases that have different numbers of discs. However, I’ve since demonstrated that this isn’t the case. For example, in the case of

Music\Faith No More\We Care A Lot (1996)\ …1 disc, 10 tracks…
Music\Faith No More\We Care A Lot (2016)\ …1 disc, 19 tracks…

PMS dates both to 2016.

I’m also confident that the problem doesn’t (consistently) result from the fact that I’ve not separated albums with version clarifiers in folders, filenames, or metadata, e.g., appending “Deluxe Edition” or sim to %album%. For example, I’ve confirmed that

Music\Pet Shop Boys\Bilingual (1996) …2 discs, 12 and 7 tracks respectively…
Music\Pet Shop Boys\Bilingual (2001) …2 discs, 12 and 15 tracks respectively…

and

Music\Joan Osborne\One Of Us (1995) …1 disc, 4 tracks…
Music\Joan Osborne\One Of Us (2005) …1 disc, 11 tracks…

, both of which have identical %album% fields, all date correctly in PMS.

In short, I’m pretty confident that my problem is similar to @Fred_rik’s, inasmuch as my mis-dated albums (which I believe are all re-releases where I have both the original and the re-release) always show with the date of the most recent version. The problem also presents exactly as described by @markpaterson ,i.e., the correct year shows briefly when files are first scanned but then spins to become incorrect, though can be resolved by unmatching individual albums. I’m wondering therefore whether, like @markpaterson , I’m somehow getting a locked database. However, I don’t know what’s causing this, given that my PMS install is fresh and I’m not to the best of my knowledge using any third party plugins.

If anyone’s got any more advice about ways I could troubleshoot this conundrum then I’d appreciate it. Perhaps date simply isn’t a field that PMS can consistently draw accurately from local metadata, but given the eventually happy experience of @Fred_rik and @markpaterson , I’m hopeful that it is. If any of @ChuckPa , @anon18523487 and @OttoKerner would be willing to chip in here, that’d be awesome - I don’t know how to read PMS logs in sufficient detail to work out what’s happening but I’d be really glad to PM my logs to any of you guys, if you’d be willing to take a look.

Thanks again.

10

Can you PM me tracks 1 and 2 from both versions of Actually?

11

Thanks and, yes, of course. I’ll do that directly.

12

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