Why did some of my Artist metadata in Music change?

Plex Media Server Metadata & Adding Files
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Server Version#: 1.23.3.4707
Player Version#:
Plex Web version#: 4.59.2

I just noticed that quite a few of my entries in my Music library appear to have had their “Artist” metadata changed. I’d say about 140 albums where assigned the wrong “Artist”

I just recently updated my PMS version but I can’t say for sure that the problem didn’t exist prior to this update.

I have not been editing any of the metadata so I can’t believe I created the changes.

Anyone else experiencing unexpected changes in any metadata ?

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Yes, same here. This new .4707 version (or maybe the version prior?) they’ve made some changes to the scanner and introduced new bugs. Doesn’t pick up the correct artist in some cases, and doesn’t recognise compilations anymore.

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Thanks for confirmation that someone else has observed similar stuff.

I may need to review the settings/preferences. I don’t see why a re-scan of the library should allows the overwrite of existing metadata - so perhaps there is a setting which allows/disallows that action – or, if such setting exists, ignoring the setting is part of the new bug(s) introduced.

I’ve also begun to notice that my browser tab where I’m using Plex (watching TV or listening to music) will occasionally hang. If I close and reopen a Plex tab, it seems better.

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I think most of my artists are okay, but my various artist/soundtrack customs are a lost cause. Elsewhere on here it was posted that if you unmatch them and lock the fields you could custom sort them using the ALBUM ARTIST tag to group them outside of the unwieldly VARIOUS ARTISTS default. Whatever this update did just wiped out I don’t know how many hours of custom work I’ve been doing to get my library to look like I want it to look like.

Is this another lost cause due to the plex staff hammering how their product should be used and offering zero flexibility, or should I start to fix it for the second time?

Is their a fool proof way for me to have a my Boulders series appear in my library grouped under a master album artist of “Boulders” with custom artist art and information that won’t get wiped out, or is forced into an ugly everything and kitchen sink, “Various Artist” dump? It’s a lot of work to set it up how I like it, and having to do it within 6 months of starting my music clean-up project is a real disappointment.

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I ran into the same issue…

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Same issue, server updated as of this post. I spent hours ensuring the metadata for every single track was perfect, only to have plex still get confused. This more than a little frustrating. Month after month, I am getting less impressed by Plex and the money I spent on it.

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New update today, Plex still unable to read artists correctly, or sometimes at all.

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Still waiting on any response from Plex, problem persists.

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Version 1.23.5.4862 just installed, metadata is still screwed up.

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Same here: just noticed that Plex merged some Artists and Composers: Herbert von Karajan and Tchaikovsky are now one and the same, as are Jordi Savall and Ludwig van Beethoven, and certainly more – I’m not really willing to check, as I find it as disappointing as disheartening.

That’s hours of meticulous metadata setting deleted, probably quite a few more hours to eventually properly re-assign albums to artists (I really doubt Plex will resort correctly as automatically as it mixed it up), and one unhappy customer.

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Couldn’t resist checking, of course.
So, Plex didn’t just mix up one composer and one artist, it properly jumbled all of it.

Sigiswald Kuijken (probably 10 albums on here) now looks like Johann Sebastian Bach, and Plex thinks is the artist for 130 albums from Bach to Vivaldi, and played by dozens of other artists.

So that’s probably more like an entire day of work lost, and at least another day to fix.

Thanks a lot, Plex.

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I’ve been slowly fixing my jumbled mess, but since there isn’t a proper fix that I can see I’m not sure how long it will last which is why I’ve been slowly doing it.

It seems to be working (when I scan my library it’s not re-lumping everything) with matching of albums, and un-matching custom “AlbumArtist” updates in plex, and locking every dang field you possible can, but who knows if the next update will undo all of it?

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Haven’t broken down yet, so things still are a jumbled mess and will probably remain so a while. However, I’m amusing myself (doesn’t take much, admittedly) by trying to figure out if there is any reason to how Plex proceeded to mess things up.
E.G. noticed that probably all of Glenn Gould, all of Nikolaus Harnoncourt and all of Dunedin Consort ended up as being Sigiswald Kujiken, whereas Karajan only had one recording by Evgeni Kissin added. :crazy_face:

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I don’t have much classical music in my library, but the little I do have had my eye twitching in regards to how to tag it haha so I can only imagine what it must be like to have composers lumped in with conductors or whatever else is happening with yours.

So far I’m okay, it’s various artist albums that are the problem for me. so far my “fix” is working, but I haven’t ran a plex dance to confirm nor trust that another update will knock it apart.

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My test fix doesn’t work. One of my albums just got clumped with the ones I hadn’t “fixed” yet.

This simply sucks, and that no one from PLEX seems to give a damn sucks even more. Buyer remorse on the plexpass is real. I don’t love the fact that I’m going to be stuck with an ugly music collection because plex won’t let us custom assign AlbumArtists.

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I used to create and use Music libraries with the following settings in PLEX:
Library name: same as folder name on my pc in which my properly named and tagged .mp3 are. Also I set the agent to only use local metadata on every option which is possible - in other words: HEY PLEX, DO NOT BOTHER WITH TAGGING AT ALL - JUST DO WYSIWYG.

Example:
Library name: ALTERNATIVE (no subfolders)
Content: Interpret1 - Song1.mp3, Interpret1 - Song2.mp3
Content: Interpret2 - Song1.mp3
Content: Interpret3 - Song1.mp3
and so on…

Tags are set as follows:
Interpret: Interpret01 Title: Song01 Album: AlbumOfInterpret01Song01 Album-Artist: Interpret01
Interpret: Interpret01 Title: Song02 Album: AlbumOfInterpret01Song02 Album-Artist: Interpret01
Interpret: Interpret02 Title: Song01 Album: AlbumOfInterpret02Song01 Album-Artist: Interpret02
Interpret: Interpret03 Title: Song01 Album: AlbumOfInterpret03Song01 Album-Artist: Interpret03

and so on…
Also, every album cover are set fine within the ID3 tags.

Before the PLEX SERVER UPDATE of around May/June I could sort a music library in PLEX as follows: INTERPRET / TITLE View: POSTER (not list) and it would show the same as if I would open my music folder on my PC. Same Interpret/title name sorting and same album covers which means my self set album covers in the according mp3-files. I mean, I could set a picture of Micky Mouse as album cover and PLEX would show me the exact album art in my music library.

This sorting is not possible anymore. Why on earth have you changed this?
PLEX seems to “oversee” my settings:
Scanner: PLEX MUSIC SCANNER
Agent: PERSONAL MEDIA ARTIST
check mark set on: PREFER LOCAL METADATA
all other check marks are not checked!
Genre: NONE
Albumcover: ONLY LOCAL FILES
(translated from my german version of PLEX, so maybe the wording on some PLEX options/settings may differ slightly).

This is how the mp3-files are listed on my PC in File EXPLORER:

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And these are the metadata I set:

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If I don’t change the sorting of PLEX’s standard which is ALBUM / DATE ADDED all interprets/albums are showing fine with also the correct self set album cover.

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As soon as I set to already mentioned sorting order INTERPRET / TITLE:
PLEX does not show any album covers at all; or, as soon as I reload all metadata, it shows some pics of the concerning artist but not the local album cover I set in the ID3 of the song and the showing pictures are not album covers at all. Also, the song title is not showing right below the artists name as it did in earlier versions.

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Is it understandable what I’m trying to explain here and are you guys experiencing the same?

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Just to mention what I already tried:
1 plex dance
2 Even tried to delete and recreate all of the music libraries in PLEX (now 3 of the 24 libraries I had can not be deleted anymore!!!)
3 Used EDGE instead of CHROME
4 Recreated all ID3 tags (also using %interpret% instead of %artist%)

no success - the problem is PLEX made. It does recognize all of my id3 tags correctly as we can see in other sorting combinations and views (list view is OK), but in this peticular sorting AND/OR view it doesn’t.

Screen shot showing correct recognition of ID3 tags in “list view” with sorting artist/title. Please note that there is no view changer icon anymore (change between list view and poster view) on this page, (while on some other sorting views there still is):

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@PLEX employees: is it possible that there is a mismatch between the used variables for interpret, album interpret, artist, album artist, composer in different sorting options and/or views?

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Still no fix or even an employee comment to verify anyone knows or cares. The lack of communication from Plex in general is getting ridiculous. I’m starting to research Plex alternatives now. I got plex primarily for my music, and if Plex can’t manage that, what’s the point of it.

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Am I right in thinking that all we require to fix this is locking the “ALBUM ARTIST” tag that we currently can’t do and then being able to lock the matching as “unmatched” would fix this and allow us to do what we are looking to do?
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I’m positive that it was posted before the change on here that you can keep unmatched artists but doing the plex dance with this update rematches them incorrectly instead of leaving them.

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It’s also dicking around with my metadata local file art that I had set up on properly matched albums. This is getting frustrating that it undoes locked fields for “Album Artist” and now this customer selected art.

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