Unknown Artist

General Discussions
1

So, strangest thing. I downloaded the Iji soundtrack and noticed that one of the files was categorized as “Unknown Artist.” So, I copied the file off my server, deleted it off the server, put the correct info for the artist into the file, and re-uploaded it to my server. I double checked, by downloading the file again off my server, to make sure the changes stuck. Then I updated my Plex library, even deleting my music section and having to go through it again, yet it still says “Unknown Artist.” So I downloaded the file through Plex, and sure enough it didn’t have an artist tag. Why is this file different from the one on my server?

2

In their original form, these files are not an album.
They don’t have track numbers, release year, genre and , most importantly, no AlbumArtist.
Having an AlbumArtist is crucial in Plex.

Put these metatags into the files, (and for good measure rename them properly)
then perform the Plex Dance (minus step 4, which can be omitted with music)

3

Are you adding these into a Premium Usic library or a normal (last.fm) library?
The data of this “album” are probably not in any music database.
So you have to give your embedded tags priority.

Settings - Server - Agents - Albums - last.fm
drag the line ‘Local Media Assets’ to the top of the list

do the same if you are using a Premium Music library, just under
Settings - Server - Agents - Albums - Premium Music
and do also edit the properties of your premium muisc library and activate ‘use embedded tags’

4

I added all of the embedded tags myself into the “tor” track, which was the one that originally had none whereas the rest did. It is a Premium Music library. I have also told it to use embedded tags. For some reason though, the file I download from plex has no embedded tags, where as the file I download straight from the server through FTP does have embedded tags, even though they should be the same file.

5

Actually, secintro.mp3 has only the TrackArtist set but nothing else.
Did you embed the data exactly like noted in the txt file? I’d imagine that embedding N/A as TrackArtist would do no good. :wink:

6

Well I’m not sure what to do at this point. I organized every track the way Plex likes them, checked the embedded tags on every track, and deleted and re-uploaded fresh copies of each file to the server. Plex still says it’s an unknown artist, and still downloads the wrong file.

EDIT: Got it working, and now every one of the artists has their own “Album”. I was hoping since all tracks are from the same album it would group them together, but it thinks each album is different since it has a different artist.

7

@Kristian221 said:
EDIT: Got it working, and now every one of the artists has their own “Album”. I was hoping since all tracks are from the same album it would group them together, but it thinks each album is different since it has a different artist.

Have you set the AlbumArtist to the same name in every file? You must if you want these files to ‘hold together’ in one common album.
Could you show me the file names you used?

8

Media\Music\Chris Geehan & Dan Byrne McCullough\Iji Soundtrack or.mp3
as an example

And what would I set the Album Artist to, considering the content? Currently I believe they are all blank. I have the contributing artist tag filled in though.

EDIT: I think I came to a compromise that I can live with. Under my ‘Music’ folder I made a ‘Various Artists’ folder which will contain any albums made by multiple artists. So the structure for this soundtrack is:
Media\Music\Various Artists\Iji Soundtrack
It came up in Plex as ‘Various Artists’ with ‘Iji Soundtrack’ below it, and the ‘tor’ track is in there as I wanted. I slapped some cover art onto it and it’s looking pretty.

DOUBLE EDIT: Just as a side note, for things like this that don’t have any album art or background art you can drop images labeled ‘cover’ and ‘background’ into that album’s folder to have Plex use them.

9

@Kristian221 said:
Media\Music\Various Artists\Iji Soundtrack

This is actually the intended/official way to deal with sampler style albums. You can now set the AlbumArtist in the metatags to Variuous Artists too.

10

All: I am really struggling to get the Hamilton Soundtrack to be picked up by a library update. I purchased it off Google Music, and came with tags embedded in the files.

Looking at the tags on the files, I copied the files to this structure:

\Media\Music\Various Artists\Hamilton (Original Broadway Cast Recording)\files.mp3

However, I can’t get the tracks to be recognised. I have a number of other soundtracks in this “Various Artists” directory that all seem to work.

My daughter is anxiously awaiting the ability to sync it with her phone…

Any suggestions?

Thx.

11

Ok, I have been trying to solve this a bit more, with no success.

I opened “Picard” which is the MusicBrainz app to check/edit tags. All seemed good.

I also purchased a song by a different artist from Google Music, and when put into the folder structure /Music/Artist/Album/Song.mp3 it also wasn’t recognised. Is there a problem with the tags from Google Music?

Thanks.

12

I cannot advise until I can look at the tags.
I don’t use Google Music, so I don’t know, how they’re tagging files.

13

Thanks for your response. Here is an image of the tags for the first track from MusicBrainz:

14

Tags looking all good.
The AlbumArtist is set to Lin-Manuel Miranda so that is the name for the Artist folder

  1. Perform the Plex Dance (with music, you can omit step 4)

  2. Try restructuring the album to

\Media\Music\
   Lin-Manuel Miranda\
      Hamilton (Original Broadway Cast Recording)\
         Disc 1\
             01. trackartist - tracktitle.mp3
             02. trackartist - tracktitle.mp3
             ...
         Disc 2\
             01. trackartist - tracktitle.mp3
             02. trackartist - tracktitle.mp3
             ...

Then perform the Plex Dance once again.

15

Ok, thanks for all the suggestions, but I couldn’t get it to work. Google’s tags must be a problem.

I downloaded another song I couldn’t get to work that I originally purchased from Google, and tried another version of the same track from 7digital.com and it worked, while the Google didn’t.

Similarly, I purchased the CD’s for Hamilton from Amazon and they ripped perfectly and Plex immediately recognised and catalogued the music.

Thanks again for the help.