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[Vocalpoint]

Doing some "tag" maintenance work this weekend and have come across some bizarre behavior within the last build of v23 (I presume this is part of v24 as well).

Some background on what I am seeing started from here:

https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,114021.msg789098.html#msg789098

and then here

https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,114763.0.html

Today - I decided to run some tests - and I do not understand at all what I am seeing.

First off - I am convinced that there continues to be some major internal issues with MC picking up tag changes from network based files - especially if the changes are made by another instance of JRiver.

I have two instances of MC installed here - one running Media Server and another stand alone install that I have on my personal workstation. All my music is FLAC based and is stored in a single location on a Windows 2012 File server in a share called Music.

For reasons I will not get into - I find it much easier to add/edit and maintain our master library using my standalone install of MC. It gives me complete freedom to add/change and delete music at will. And up until recently - I thought the server install of MC would pick up my changes via Library Auto Import when changes are available.

Let me clarify - this seems to work great when adding new tracks - I can prep a new album on my standalone instance of MC, tag it up, analyze audio etc etc and then hit F6 to move it to the master share. A few minutes later - the album appears in the server install and everything is great.

NOTE: Within Auto-Import on the server instance - I do have Update for External Changes checked. The overall intent is to ensure whatever I do on my workstation instance of MC - replicates to the server instance of MC - once the server picks up any changes.

Where this start to fall apart is when I want to make changes to albums out in the share (from my workstation) - which were previously imported and appear correctly in either instance of MC. The server version of MC usually ignores these changes or worse - the tracks in the share - when examined on the server instance - display tags which are not longer present in the file - even after a manual auto-import or even something more aggressive like Update Library from tags.

Earlier this week - I even had the server instance in an RDP window - made a change or two to a specific file from my workstation and confirmed the change had occurred - then quickly switched to the server instance, pressed Auto-import manually - only to see MC report that this one file had changed - but none of the actual changes I made - were displayed within the Tag Editor on the server?

Today I noticed something even more bizarre. Based on Matt's update in the first thread I referenced above - when one does "Remove Tags" on an album - MC should strip the tags completely from all files. Which it does. (See "Tags Stripped" attachment below)

But if I keep the same file highlighted and switch back to the Tag Editor (See attachment "Tag Window - Mystery Tags") - I see a while pile of old tags - even after the strip. And after a manual auto import AND a manual Update Library From Tags - I still see old tags that I thought would be removed when I hit "Remove Tags"

If tags are stripped - I would expect to see an empty tag editor window after all this messing around.

What is going on here? What exactly am I missing or not seeing here? Am I seeing a mismatched library database displaying old data against the files that should have no tags in them? Is Update Library From Tags simply not working?

Very confused on this one.

Appreciate any intel from the field.

VP

[Vocalpoint]

Confirmed.

FLAC files with tags that use the "edit type" of List (for example - Country) - will not be updated correctly by a second Media Center instance if ALL tag values are cleared from the Tag

Example

I used a single Dire Straits song that originally had a value of "England" for Country.

On my personal workstation running a standalone instance of MC - I added another Country Value of "Canada" to this song - giving it multiple tag values of England and Canada. MC reports the file was updated correctly.

I then switch over to an RDP session with my other "server" based install of MC - I right click on the same Dire Straits song and choose "Update Library (From Tags". MC updates the file and does correctly display the two Country values.

Back my workstation - I drop Canada from the Country tag then I switch to the server version of MC and choose "Update Library (From Tags)". MC updates the file and does correctly display just one Country value of England.

Finally - back on my workstation - I drop the last remaining Country value of England so the Country value is now blank. I switch to the server version of MC and choose "Update Library (From Tags)". MC should clear the Country field completely (Blank) but England remains in the tag field.

Since my custom "Chart" field is also an "edit type" of "List " - it is clear now why all my edits over the last few weeks were being ignored. The bulk of my recent edits were clearing specific chart values completely. Seems that no songs that had a blank "chart" value were updated correctly.

This is the identical bug that I reported about a year ago ago with the Ratings stars. In that case - if I removed all ratings stars from a track and updated the song on the server by choosing "Update Library (From Tags)" - MC would ignore a setting of zero stars and leave/display whatever the last value was in the ratings.

I will bet money that this bug is the reason that "Remove Tags" does not work either (as above). I suspect that while MC does in fact clear all tags from the Vorbis block from a given file (or files) when the user executes Remove Tags - the code that reads the file upon choosing "Update Library (From Tags)" (or during the Auto Import interval) does not actually correctly report (and display) blank tags - it simply ignore them and displays whatever the last valid values were in that file per the MC database. I would also bet that this bug extends out across all tag types in the library. Except for maybe the Ratings star values - which Matt fixed a year ago or so.

Here's hoping for a fix as soon as possible as I now have to manually fix 2400 tracks. If not for v23 - then hopefully for v24 (if it is found to exist there as well). This is a fairly serious scenario if we cannot trust MC to update the tags correctly.

Thanks,

VP

[Matt]

By default the Country field doesn't save to the tags.  Look in Options > Library & Folders > Manage Library Fields... > Country > Save in file tags (when possible).

Could that explain what you're seeing?

[Vocalpoint]

By default the Country field doesn't save to the tags.  Look in Options > Library & Folders > Manage Library Fields... > Country > Save in file tags (when possible).Could that explain what you're seeing?

Well - for all "list" type items - in both libraries (the server instance and my workstation instance) - ALL tags that I use have "Save in file tags (when Possible)" checked. This is especially critical for any custom fields that I add.

An examination of the Vorbis block of a correctly tagged file shows the Country value clearly listed. So I know the mechanism to store the tag value is working correctly. During the test that I outlined in the prior thread - I checked the block after each change and it listed two country values, then one country value etc. All looked fine.

The real serious issue for me is when I drop a tag values completely. A change to any tag that has "Save in file tags (when Possible)" by one instance of MC should be picked up correctly by the other MC instance via manual action ("Update library from tags". ) or via standard library import interval cycle. I should be able to fully trust my server instance of MC is picking up ALL changes made by my standalone install.

This issue has other ramifications if I decide I want to make changes to "standard" FLAC tags using a tool other than MC like Tag N Rename for example. I should be able to open up an album in Tag N Rename from our file share, change anything in the standard tag block and have those changes propagate to the MC server instance (and it's library) when it runs it's Library import routines (or when I decide to force an update to album by running "Update Library from tags"). I understand that my custom MC fields will probably not play nice - but those fields cannot be seen by Tag N Rename anyway.

This is identical to the issue I brought to you last year with the ratings stars. MC was all good until I removed all the rating stars. The same thing was happening - after dropping all stars using my standalone instance of MC - over on the server - I would manually run "Update library from tags" - and the file would retain it's last ratings star value - even if the file contains no stars at all.

As always - appreciate your time to look into this.

VP

[Matt]

When a field is set to empty, doing an update library from tags on another computer is going to keep the existing value instead of inputting blank.

The only exclusion to that are the rating and protection type fields.

[Vocalpoint]

When a field is set to empty, doing an update library from tags on another computer is going to keep the existing value instead of inputting blank.The only exclusion to that are the rating and protection type fields.

This is very disappointing news.

And if I actually want "blank" (like I decide to change my mind after having a value there for a while). What exactly is logic here?

This indicates that I do not have any real control over my tags as soon as any value appears in a field. Except to change it to another value - which is not always what I need.

I wish I would have known this several months ago - as it seems I have now made 2000+ changes to specific tags and pretty all of them were effectively ignored.

Does this also mean that the command "Remove Tags" command actually does nothing - if values already exists for various tags?

Do you have any solutions for my issues? How can I easily update the library in the other instance to match changes made in my desktop instance? Would a static playlist - imported into the server version make a difference?

I was thinking I could export the track list from my desktop instance to a playlist and then import that to the server instance and somehow update it's library from this static list. Instead of having to slog thru this manually?

I suppose I could also copy over all library files from one instance to another and work it that way too.

VP