Plex Music - Matched albums not really matched? Bug?

[leelynds]

Server Version#: 1.18.2.2058

After re-building my music library with the new Plex music agent and scanner (again) I went from about 300 unmatched albums to a little over 400. The original 300 albums I expected, they are not in the MusicBrainz database. The others are in the databse, and were matched with the previous libraries, or at least they did not show up as unmatched.

An example: The Getaway by Chris de Burgh shows as umatched in the filter view. On the album page, there is not an option to Match, only “Fix Match” and “Unmatch” If I fix the match, with either the auto selection or the manual options, it still remains unmatched in the filtered view. Refresh metadata does not appear to have any affect, either.

Looking at the XML for any track from the album finds the guid's and parentGuid's are set to “mbid://” not “plex://track” and “plex://album”

The mbid match is identical to and part of the extra info that is added into the metadata by Picard, as “MusicBrainz Track ID” and “MusicBrainz Release ID” However, these albums were not tagged with Picard, and that info is not embedded in the metadata for the files. They were tagged with MP3Tag, with IDv2.3 (UTF-16) and have only basic info: Title, Track #, Track Artist, Album Artist, Album, Year, and Genre.

I haven’t added new music to the library for about a week, hoping that the un-matched albums would sort out during the scheduled maintenance periods. The server logs show the music library has been re-scanned during maintenance, but the albums remain unmatched.

Finally, I can get a match to the album by “Fix Match” at the artist level, even though the artist is properly matched. (grandparentGuid="plex://artist) for all of the tracks and albums.

I will attach some logs if it helps fix the problem - should I repeat the procedure to fix the match then get logs, using all of the methods that won’t match and then will finally match, or just one of the procedures?

[beckfield]

I just used the ‘unmatched’ filter out of curiosity, and I’m seeing the same thing. There are several albums that I expect to be unmatched, but there are a bunch that are matched, and so should not be appearing in the ‘unmatched’ filter list.

If I Fix Match and manually match it again, it goes away from the ‘unmatched’ list, but why is it there to begin with?

[leelynds]

Here’s another annoying “bug”

I’ve been adding releases to MusicBrainz, under the assumption, that at some point in time, either during the regular maintenance schedule, or the relentless re-scanning of unmatched albums and artists, it will find the match that is at MB.

Nope! - Remains unmatched, with the same problem. No option to match, only fix match, and the first option clearly shows the correct match at 100%. The XML for a track has the info as “guid="mbid://” and “parentGuid="mbid://” and “grandparentGuid="plex://artist/” with the identical track ID, album ID, and artist ID info that MusicBrainz has.

The problem gets worse, if you only have one unmatched album by the artist. The artist will be unmatched as well.

So, as far as I can tell, adding info to MusicBrainz has no effect unless you wait the required waiting time of 7-10 days to be approved. Plex will show there’s a match after one day, but will not apply it. It will remain unmatched until it has been approved.

And then only with a manual match.

[leelynds]

The “matched - maybe matched - unmatched” bug is frustrating. It’s another quirk in Plex music that needs some attention. In the screenshot below, there are 18 unmatched albums when the library is filtered:

However, none of them give me the option to “Match.” The only option is to “Fix Match,” which implies the album has been matched.

Everyone of these albums has in the XML info the guid="mbid://" and parentGuid="mbid://" I mentioned earlier. My theory is that this confuses Plex, and it considers the album/track matched, but not actually matched with the real Plex music. In that case, the XML would have plex://track/ and parentGuid="plex://album/"

This probably is related to another unanswered question I posted - Does the Plex Music scanner refresh metadata and re-match during scheduled maintenance periods?

Since it appears the metadata is not refreshed and there is no attempt to match albums during the maintenance periods, is my only option to actually match all of these albums manually?

I thought that Plex was supposed to read the embedded MusicBrainz ID’s to help match, but it seems it is of little use if the end result is an unmatched album. All of these albums have that data, and are of course available at MusicBrainz.

[leelynds]

some extra info relating to the problem:

In all cases, the albums can be matched if “Refresh Metadata” is used at the artist level, or if the “Fix Match” option is used at the album level. Refreshing the metadata for just the album will not match.