Plexamp not showing all compilation albums

[thomasjbarrett]

Plexamp 4.2.2 on Windows and Android.
Plex server Version 1.26.2.5797.

Issue came to my attention from someone else on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/plexamp/comments/v4vkx6/how_do_i_get_my_compilations_to_show_in_plexamp/

I have an oldies box set called Malt Shop Memories with different names for each album inside the set. All are in the “Music/Various Artists/Album Name” folder structure, but not all show in Plexamp compilations. Album does show in Plex web under the Albums filter. Pretty sure this started before 4.2.2 because my Windows app hadn’t updated yet and the Compilations windows didn’t appear to change after the update.

I noticed that I only see 100 albums in the Compilations display. Is there some kind of “SELECT TOP X” filter?

Album does exist in Musicbrainz: https://musicbrainz.org/release/47cad095-895d-4e12-bb8d-2c51ee318d8e

Screenshots:

[elan]

@thomasjbarrett

I only see 100 albums in the Compilations display

There shouldn’t be any limit.

@thomasjbarrett

but not all show in Plexamp compilations

They would have to all be tagged as such on MusicBrainz.

How do they look inside Various Artists?

[thomasjbarrett]

@elan

They would have to all be tagged as such on MusicBrainz.

I used another CD in the box set “Save the Last Dance For Me” as a comparison since that does show up in compilations. Both are type = “Album + Compilation” in Musicbrainz, and neither have any tags.

Jukebox Gems

Save the Last Dance For Me

@elan

How do they look inside Various Artists?

Interestingly, there’s one entry for Various Artists under Artists, but when I search I get 3 artists.

Tangential to this, it’s odd that the artist name under the albums is always the same incorrect artist.

Drilling down into Various Artists does not show any under Albums.

The same 3 albums show under Artist → Compilations, but still not Jukebox Gems.

[thomasjbarrett]

I don’t know if it helps with troubleshooting, but I just noticed that the 3 albums that show up have Various Artists as the displayed artist name, but the 3 that don’t show up have the incorrect artist name displayed.

[OttoKerner]

Only albums with Various Artists as their album artist are appearing as Compilations in Plexamp.

Make sure that:

• the albums are stored inside /PlexMusic/Various Artists and nowhere else
• all tracks on these albums are tagged with “Various Artists” as their Album Artist

Perform the Plex Dance with these albums.

[thomasjbarrett]

@OttoKerner

Only albums with Various Artists as their album artist are appearing as Compilations in Plexamp.

As a test I tagged the album Top Down Convertible Sounds with Various Artists and refreshed the metadata. Doing that by itself does not make it show up in Compilations.

@OttoKerner

Make sure that:

• the albums are stored inside /PlexMusic/Various Artists and nowhere else
• all tracks on these albums are tagged with “Various Artists” as their Album Artist

This is how they are stored and tagged.

@OttoKerner

Perform the Plex Dance with these albums.

Performing the Plex Dance on Jukebox Gems did not fix the issue. As soon as I moved the album back to the Various Artists folder and scanned the library, it did not tag it under Various Artists, and instead gave it a different random album artist.

Looking further for any differences between the “good” and “bad” albums, I see that Jukebox Gems has some ID3v1 tags for some reason, but Save the Last Dance For Me only has ID3v2.3 tags. Is this an issue where the library scanner gets confused by v1 tags?

[OttoKerner]

@thomasjbarrett

This is how they are stored and tagged.

At which folder did you point the Plex library? It must be /Music/PlexMusic and not just /Music.

@thomasjbarrett

Looking further for any differences between the “good” and “bad” albums, I see that Jukebox Gems has some ID3v1 tags for some reason, but Save the Last Dance For Me only has ID3v2.3 tags. Is this an issue where the library scanner gets confused by v1 tags?

I’d say test it with one album.
Remove all id3v1 tags and leave only id3v2 tags in there (do also remove other tags, like ape if present.)

[thomasjbarrett]

Yes, I have a local music folder that is periodically synced up to the NAS folder /PlexMusic, and Plex is pointed at the NAS.

Tested removing the ID3v1 tags using MP3Tag and then doing the Plex Dance with Jukebox Gems. No luck, it did not tag the album under Various Artists (same random artist) and does not show under Compilations. I’m open to any other suggestions, thanks.

[OttoKerner]

Please update your server to the latest beta version.

[elan]

I just checked the Plexamp code, and it looks for all items under an artist called Various Artists. If there are multiple identically named Various Artists entries (which can happen for several reasons), it will pick one.