This happens if the disc number has been incorporated into the “Album Title” meta tag- Don’t do that. There is a separate metatag for disc number.
The cure is twofold:
Activate “Prefer local metadata” in the properties of your music library
separate your files into subfolders
Each Album Artist needs a seaparate folder.
Within this folder, Create separate subfolders for each album of this Album Artist.
If even one track on such an album has a different “Artist” in its meta tags, you need to add a metatag named “ALBUMARTIST” to all tracks of this album and fill it with the exact same artist name.
Never mix albums from different artists within the same subfolder.
Never mix tracks from different albums within the same subfolder.
Extract the album art and put it inside the album folder as cover.jpg. You can use really big, high-resolution files if you want.
There can only be one cover picture per one album.
This folder structure won’t work.
If you point Plex’s music library at the folder F23, it will miss the folder level for “Album Artist”.
If you point Plex’s music library at the folder Uncompressed, it will assume that “F23” is the Album Artist and all folders inside are by that same artist.
The song file names are perfectly OK.
Sorry, I can’t tell you why. I can only tell you what works more reliably.
Sorry, but than PLEX is not for me, requesting specific folder structure is very limiting, don’t understand why is made that way, when all that is important are the tags, and server should read only tags, where the files are located should be irrelevant.
It’s indeed regrettable, it’s disappointing in 2020 to still have folder-based scanning, but Plex has been that way for 10+ years and I don’t think this will change soon.
As alternatives, there’s Navidrome, Airsonic or Emby - but the client apps aren’t as nice as Plex/PlexAmp unfortunately.
Agree… if it wasn’t for that I would definitely buy a lifetime subscription, because would be a very nice and simple way to enjoy my collection outside the home.
I’ll check for the alternatives that you listed.
One option would be to make a small library with favorite albums only for Plex, but still have to decide if will be doing that.
“Various Artists” is treated just like any other album artist.
Since an album by Various Artists usually has tracks with differing TrackArtists, you need to name an Album Artist which holds the album together… This is what “Various Artists” does.
You create an Album Artist folder named “Various Artists” in your media storage, right beside the folders of all the other album artists.
Within which you place all the albums by “Various Artists” – again each album within its own, dedicated subfolder.
So the folder structure is always Music -> AlbumArtist -> AlbumTitle
as with all music. Only that in this particular case the AlbumArtist is named “Various Artists”.
In Plex the meta tag “Album Artist” is of very high importance. Make sure you always populate it – even if there is only one track within an album, which has a deviating TrackArtist.
Notice the two distinct columns “Artist” and “Album-Artist” in this screenshot:
The very same applies to tracks which appear within a regular album of a normal Album Artist, which features guest artists. As soon as there is an additional name in the Track Artist, you need to populate the Album Artist and make sure it has identical content for all tracks of a particular album:
@051PlexGrga if you have multiple versions of the same albums… Plex will be missing art for one or more of the albums. Bug was mentioned over a year ago, still hasn’t been addressed.
I’d just use something else instead of reorganizing your whole music library just for plex.
@Dr_Tone @051PlexGrga if you have multiple versions of the same albums… Plex will be missing art for one or more of the albums. Bug was mentioned over a year ago, still hasn’t been addressed.
I’d just use something else instead of reorganizing your whole music library just for plex.
+1
Plex is a hot mess when it comes to metadata/artwork for music files. Many of these are hilariously longstanding issues that Plex will likely never get around to addressing; I’ve been trying to get my music library to work with Plex for almost 3 years now, with no luck. I’ve spent literally months re-tagging and re-organizing my collection to suit Plex’s completely borked metadata scheme. No joy.
Best to save yourself the aggravation; cancel your sub and use something else.
