Server Version#: Version 1.41.9.9961
Player Version#: Version 1.109.0.329-ea562b95
I run the Plex server on MacOS. I use the Apple Music client (née iTunes) to load songs from CDs. Plex is configured to find its music library in the same directory that the Apple Music client stores music.
Every now and then I have a problem with what our music taxonomy calls “Compilations”. Most of my albums are Broadway shows so each track has a different artist listed. In the past, when I discovered this problem, I went into the Apple Music interface and made sure the “Album is a compilation of various artists” was set and the “Album Artist” was set to “Various Artists”.
But today this doesn’t work anymore. Every compilation album I read in from a CD shows up in Plex with every song in its own album, all with the same name. I looked around in all the docs and forums and can only find the same advice I am already following. And I already have “Prefer local metadata” turned on for this library.
I compared in Plex two songs - one in an album with different artists that shows up correctly, and the other is one of the new songs that aren’t getting indexed properly.
The correctly indexed song has the following data:
Path: Music/Compilations/Guys And Dolls/01 Overture.mp3
“Album Artist” (as seen in the Plex “Edit” menu): Various Artists
The badly indexed song looks like this:
Path: Music/Compilations/The Rage Of 1710/01 Mouret_ Sinfonies De Fanfares - Rondeau.m4a
“Album Artist” (as seen in the Plex "Edit menu) is NOT DISPLAYED ANYWHERE IN THE EDIT WINDOW. It’s as if the tag wasn’t in the file.
Then I went to the command line:
$ mediainfo 01\ Mouret_\ Sinfonies\ De\ Fanfares\ -\ Rondeau.m4a | grep -i artist
Album/Performer : Various Artists
$ mediainfo 01\ Overture.mp3 | grep -i artist
Album/Performer : Various Artists
So the tag is there in both files, at least according to mediainfo . Why doesn’t Plex see it anymore? It’s not an m4a vs. mp3 thing - I’ve got plenty of compilation m4a files that correctly index to one album.
First thing coming to mind: With regards to metadata tags, Performer isn’t Album Artist.
Have you considered using mp3tag to verify the album artist is correctly set for all songs in that album?
I was wondering why mediainfo reported the tags that way, but since it reported it the same way for the old files that index correctly, I figured there was some underlying renaming going on.
I took your advice and installed mp3tag, and it does show the tag as we’d expect to see it in the imported file that won’t index correctly:
I found another command line utility that shows tags, ffprobe:
$ ffprobe 01\ Overture.mp3 2>&1 | grep -i artist
album_artist : Various Artists
$ ffprobe 01\ Mouret_\ Sinfonies\ De\ Fanfares\ -\ Rondeau.m4a 2>&1 | grep -i artist
artist : Maurice Andre, Armand Birbaum, Pierre Cochereau, Etc.
album_artist : Various Artists
Just a guess but I suggest you strictly follow the naming guidelines posted in the support articles, especially if you prefer local metadata, plus that you plex dance a couple of the non working albums after you rename them as follows.
If you have a music library that points to Music/
then according to the naming guidelines all albums with various artists belong in a directory called Various Artists. So you should have
Music/Various Artists/
and under that you should have all your compilation albums, e.g.
Music/Various Artists/Guys And Dolls/
Music/Various Artists/The Rage of 1710/
Music/Various Artists/Guardians of the Galaxy Awesome Mix, Vol. 1/
Music/Various Artists/The Great Romantic Classics Vol.4/
and under each of directories you are strongly encouraged to name the tracks per the specification, e.g.
Music/Various Artists/The Rage of 1710/
01 - Rondeau from Sinfonies De Fanfares.m4a
02 - Canon for 3 Violins & Continuo.m4a
03 - The Four Seasons 3rd movement from "Autumn".m4a
You asked why it worked before but not always. Good question, but it’s better to start off by following the current naming convention exactly to eliminate variables rather than debug code none of us can access.
It takes a long time to build the perfect library, but doing that for a few albums as a test won’t be too hard.
