I have a reasonably large library of ~2500 albums, all in .flac. Currently stored on SYNOLOGY 1815+ running DSM 6.1 and latest PMS.
q1: After doing a library scan, i see lots of ‘doubles’. Meaning the same album is shown twice in the PMP. Is there an easy way to consolidate these two? What causes this? It’s fairly prevelant (perhaps 10% of collection?) so anything automatic would be preferable.
q2: some albums are just not showing up. They are valid .flac files (play fine in foobar for example), but after a scan they simply aren’t there. With a collection this large its hard to even know whats NOT there. Any suggestion how to ensure the scan picks up every album and any ideas how to identify what is NOT getting picked up?
Apologies if these questions have been asked before but my search did not find anything.
Thanks in advance,
Thanks for that response. I have my collection organized:
Music / Genre / Arist / Album / Track names without artist name at front.
I see two discrepancies from your suggested structure:
- i like to sort the whole collection with Genre
- I REALLY dont like ‘artistname - trackame.flac’, and much prefer simply ‘trackname.flac’ with the artist derived from a) the folder it’s in, or b) the meta-tag data.
Will that work? Keep /genre in the tree and NOT add ‘artistname’ to each music file itself? (if i understand correctly)?
thanks,
@jsunandmax said:
- i like to sort the whole collection with Genre
- I REALLY dont like ‘artistname - trackame.flac’, and much prefer simply ‘trackname.flac’ with the artist derived from a) the folder it’s in, or b) the meta-tag data.
Will that work? Keep /genre in the tree and NOT add ‘artistname’ to each music file itself? (if i understand correctly)?
To have the TrackArtist in the file name is kind of a “safety net”, in case the metadata fail.
It will work with your structure as well, as long as your embedded metatags are complete and in order. My links above tell you which are absolutely necessary.
Though consider this: many artists will work in several genres or will change their genre over their career - sometimes drastically. To “nail down” this genre by folder structure makes it inflexible.
@OttoKerner -
If this is a certainty, why wouldn’t Plex mention this in their outline for tagging music files in preparing for Plex?
As of right now, the structure is
Artist
Album
Track
Katy Perry
Teenage Dream
01 California Gurls.mp3
If you’re saying is should be:
Katy Perry
Teenage Dream
01 Katy Perry - California Gurls.mp3
Checking on Use embedded tags [When scanning this Library, base the content matching only off of the embedded metadata tags (e.g. ID3 tags for MP3 files.).] is broken. Correct me if I’m mistaken.
@SanchezHouse said:
If this is a certainty, why wouldn’t Plex mention this in their outline for tagging music files in preparing for Plex?
What is a certainty?
If you’re saying is should be:
Katy Perry
Teenage Dream
01 Katy Perry - California Gurls.mp3
That’s what it says here: https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/200265296-Adding-Music-Media-From-Folders
It is up to you whether to do it or not. It is a personal recommendation to by me to do it this way.
Checking on Use embedded tags [When scanning this Library, base the content matching only off of the embedded metadata tags (e.g. ID3 tags for MP3 files.).] is broken. Correct me if I’m mistaken.
From where do you draw this conclusion?
@OttoKerner -
It’s a personal recommendation from you and it should be able to work, but if a user checks Use embedded tags, it should use it. A user should not have change their file naming from 02 Help.mp3 to 02 The Beatles - Help.mp3 to help create a library.
Thank you for the recommendation.
@SanchezHouse said:
It’s a personal recommendation from you and it should be able to work, but if a user checks Use embedded tags, it should use it.
It will do so - if the necessary metatags are present and correct.
And the option has been set before the files are added into the library.
@OttoKerner said:
@SanchezHouse said:
It’s a personal recommendation from you and it should be able to work, but if a user checks Use embedded tags, it should use it.
It will do so - if the necessary metatags are present and correct.
And the option has been set before the files are added into the library.
@OttoKerner -
How do you set the option in settings before the files are adding into your library? I’m following the directions stated here:
https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/200265296-Adding-Music-Media-From-Folders
My metatags are present and correct. I do not see in settings where you can enabled embedded tags. Only during the adding music process, not before.
@SanchezHouse said:
How do you set the option in settings before the files are adding into your library? I’m following the directions stated here:
https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/200265296-Adding-Music-Media-From-Folders
There is nothing in this link which speaks of creating a library.
-
Go to Settings- Server - Agents - Albums - last.fm/Premium Music and drag the ‘Local Media Assets’ agent to the top of the stack
-
create your music library. If you already have a music library, edit it instead
-
in the create/edit library dialog window, go to the ‘Advanced’ tab and ‘check’ the option ‘Use Embedded Tags’
-
Now your library is prepared.
-
Now ‘tag’ your files (if you haven’t done so already) outside of Plex with the metadata software of your choice
(tip for Windows: mp3tag or ‘Musicbrainz Picard’)
-
copy the fully prepared files into your plex music folder
-
update your music library (‘scan for library files’)
If you already had the concerned music files in your library
before they were fully tagged
or before you made the above settings in 1) + 3)
you have to perform the Plex Dance with the files. (with music, you can omit step 4, though)
@OttoKerner said:
@SanchezHouse said:
How do you set the option in settings before the files are adding into your library? I’m following the directions stated here:
https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/200265296-Adding-Music-Media-From-Folders
There is nothing in this link which speaks of creating a library.
-
Go to Settings- Server - Agents - Albums - last.fm/Premium Music and drag the ‘Local Media Assets’ agent to the top of the stack
-
create your music library. If you already have a music library, edit it instead
-
in the create/edit library dialog window, go to the ‘Advanced’ tab and ‘check’ the option ‘Use Embedded Tags’
-
Now your library is prepared.
-
Now ‘tag’ your files (if you haven’t done so already) outside of Plex with the metadata software of your choice
(tip for Windows: mp3tag or ‘Musicbrainz Picard’)
-
copy the fully prepared files into your plex music folder
-
update your music library (‘scan for library files’)
If you already had the concerned music files in your library
before they were fully tagged
or before you made the above settings in 1) + 3)
you have to perform the Plex Dance with the files. (with music, you can omit step 4, though)
I have done all of the steps you have instructed.
It takes 2-3 minutes to add a single artist on Plex. The files are properly tagged. Could it be the Plex Media Server itself that delays the creation of the music library? I have a Seagate Personal Cloud. I know it’s weak.
@SanchezHouse said:
It takes 2-3 minutes to add a single artist on Plex. The files are properly tagged. Could it be the Plex Media Server itself that delays the creation of the music library? I have a Seagate Personal Cloud. I know it’s weak.
I am not surprised by this.
a) you already acknowledged that your Plex Server device is not the fastest
b) when you are using a Plex Premium music library
b1) If this artist has not only 1 album but several albums or
b2) you don’t have album folders but one giant folder with lots of single tracks in it
Then the scan is expected to take a long time. (“sonic fingerprinting” is done on every track and then each possible combination of tracks within that folder is probed whether it constitutes a ‘known’ album)
@OttoKerner said:
@SanchezHouse said:
It takes 2-3 minutes to add a single artist on Plex. The files are properly tagged. Could it be the Plex Media Server itself that delays the creation of the music library? I have a Seagate Personal Cloud. I know it’s weak.
I am not surprised by this.
a) you already acknowledged that your Plex Server device is not the fastest
b) when you are using a Plex Premium music library
b1) If this artist has not only 1 album but several albums or
b2) you don’t have album folders but one giant folder with lots of single tracks in it
Then the scan is expected to take a long time. (“sonic fingerprinting” is done on every track and then each possible combination of tracks within that folder is probed whether it constitutes a ‘known’ album)
I don’t have the fastest one. I’m thinking of getting a Western Digital PR2100 8TB to solve this server issue. It’s the only NAS that’s Plex Optimized.
My Music folder structure is:
Music Collection
Coldplay
A Head Full Of Dreams
03 Hymn for the Weekend.mp3
04 Everglow.mp3
05 Adventure of a Lifetime.mp3
11 Up&Up.mp3
Based on this example, what would be your method in organizing the music library? All of the information is properly tagged from iTunes (genre, track number, album name, etc.)
@SanchezHouse said:
Based on this example, what would be your method in organizing the music library? All of the information is properly tagged from iTunes (genre, track number, album name, etc.)
Please follow the links I set above in my very first response in this thread. It has all been answered in there.
@OttoKerner -
The structure you have written up in your very first response, has this helped create a premium music library better or faster?
@SanchezHouse said:
The structure you have written up in your very first response, has this helped create a premium music library better or faster?
It helps to avoid “mismatches” and mess-ups in the library structure.
Plus, if you want to re-structure your library some time in the future, you can do so much easier because more detail information is already in the filenames and folder structure.
So software like mp3tag will have it easier to e.g. generate meta tags from filenames (and vice versa as well).
