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.
