Starting with version 1.18.0, Plex Media Server introduces new and improved features for music libraries. There are no longer “basic” vs “premium” music libraries; there is just a single type of music library. Plex Pass subscribers will continue having access to premium music-related features (automatic lyrics, Sweet Fades, loudness leveling, visualizers, etc.) just like before.
Upgraded music in Plex starts with the best-in-class database of music content from MusicBrainz and then also adds in the best-in-class musical metadata from AllMusic. Just a few highlights of improvements:
High quality artist bios, album reviews, and critic ratings
Improved album release dates (original releases vs re-releases)
Awesome artist and album art coverage
Clean genres, rich styles, moods for artists and albums
How to upgrade your music library/content
Please visit our Upgrading Music Libraries to the New Metadata System article for information on how to upgrade your music library as well as the content within the library. If you don’t read through the article for instructions, then none of your existing music content will get upgraded.
Investigating scanning/matching issues
If you encounter an issue either with content not being scanned in correctly, matching to the wrong thing, or not matching at all, please review our Correcting Your Music Content Matches article, which has lots of information.
Before I potentially waste time, does it now understand “Compilations” versus an album with multiple artists? i.e. the COMPILATION tag or using ALBUM ARTIST or anything like it?
The pre 1.18 scanner was absolutely appalling in handling multi-artist albums, sometimes thinking it a compilation, other times being completely random, putting under one artists that wasn’t relavent etc.
What are the version numbers for the web app and server version from that screenshot? If you edit the library, which agent does it currently show in the advanced settings?
You can take a look at release groups at https://musicbrainz.org/ to get a sense of how things should match.
Sounds like the library was a premium library before and automatically has the new agent and scanner. You need to refresh metadata to migrate existing items in your library. Check out the support article for details.
I made a new library to test this out. I moved in two releases and the first thing the scanner did was match the album and move all the feat. artists from the song title field to the artist field in the database, but then it emptied them all out. The scanner just removed all the features and it now just shows the album artist. Even worse: any tags that would distinct a certain release (Clean Edition) or ‘- Single’ in the album tag field are gone and everything is now an ‘album’.
The only solution I’ve found to help is just changing back to local tags.
I’m on the SHIELD Android TV server v1.18.0.1846, web client v4.8.3.
Edit: I’ve been experimenting with it, and it just seems to grab MusicBrainz metadata and then after a minute Plex decides to wipe it all on a song level, the new album review, rating, release date & genre data stays.
Name credits from MusicBrainz aren’t fully wired up yet. If the track artist were different or the track title had the featured artist, it would show up, but proper track artists based on name credits will need to be a future enhancement due to how the data is currently structured.
Hello, I have a rather large music library (previously a premium library), and while the majority are fairly well organized and tagged, I do have a lot of content that is either not going to be in musicbrainz, and/or is not in a traditional album or release group.
How long is it expected for plex to continue to re-try un-matchable content ?
I have seen several of these be repeated when monitoring the ‘alerts’.
ie items repeatedly doing ‘matching “xxxxxxxx”’ then ‘finished processing “xxxxxxxx”’
Hello. I have some general issues/questions about Plex Music, the new agent. I’m not migrating anything, but my interface to the agent is not working 100%. If this would be better as it’s own topic, would someone move it please? Thanks
I’m trying to understand if there is a new music agent called Plex Music.
I’d like to know if I’m supposed to choose the Plex Music agent to get the benefits of this topic, MusicBrainz etc.
I have created my first music library after installing PMS-1.18.0.x beta.
I do not see any Plex Music agent in Settings - Agents using:
Bundled web app 4.8.3
Hosted web app 4.8.3
Plex-1.3.1.916 stable for Mac.
However, I can see the Plex Music agent when I use PMP-2.43.0.1015 on my iMac.
but I can’t configure the agent with the gears in PMP. I get an empty screen.
When I try to create a music library or edit one I created, PMP can’t make it use the Plex Music agent. Instead I get an error that says the changes can’t be saved. However, I can set my Agent to Plex Music if I do so in Plex for Mac, the web app, or the bundled app.
Don’t use PMP nor the new Plex for Windows/Mac apps. (At least for now)
They both don’t have the cutting-edge code to handle the new music stuff, yet.
Always use app.plex.tv to create and manage one of the new music libraries.
To make use of the new improvements/system, you have to select Plex Music for both the scanner and the agent for the library. They’re a “matched pair” and you cannot use them separately. As Otto mentioned, you’ll need to be using an updated version of the web interface (which currently means the hosted web app, ideally; at minimum, you can use the bundled web app that comes with the beta PMS, but it’s slightly older).
The new “Plex Music” agent does not have separate settings or appear under Settings > Server > Agent, since it’s kind of a special agent.
I went looking for the Plex Music agent settings there earlier and was confused at not finding it there.
You should make it clear in the app that/why it’s not there (given that people looking for it aren’t likely to first read this thread or a blog post). Ideally, I think you should try to make it consistent. At the very least, you should put a blurb at the bottom of the Artist and Album agent panes explaining to go to a library’s settings to configure its Plex Music agent.
If someone is looking for a certain setting (in this case, configuring an agent) they should be able to find them in the same place. It gets confusing if for-this-agent-you-go-here but for-that-agent-you-go-there when neither references the other. That isn’t to say that all agents must be created equal. But it should be intuitive/informative enough not to require one to have to work out “special circumstances” on one’s own.
Yes, that’s correct for the new system. The library creation/edit window (when running on the required/updated web app version) will enforce the “matched set” automatically. If you change either the scanner or agent to something else, then the other one should change automatically, too.
