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"Album Artist" tag "grayed out? How to change?

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macdonjh:
After copying my files to another hard drive and creating a new library, my "multiple artist" albums (think sound tracks and "tribute" albums) now appear several times in my "Album" view-- one for each separate artist on each album.  I've had this trouble before, so I tried to change the "Album Artist" tag, but was unable to because it's "grayed out" in the tag view. 

Given that, how do I change the tags of these albums so each album acts like a "multiple artist" album and only appears once in my album view?  Of course, I could recopy them, but I'd prefer not to.

JimH:
Read only files ir folder?

Client / server?

blgentry:
Read only files or disk is my best guess also.

But there's a bigger point here:  You should not need to re-create your library like this.  If you are copying existing files, you should be able to transfer the entire library's properties to this new area also.  Including the Album Artist tags.

The best way to do this, to preserve all tags, is first to have the tags written to the media files.  Check the setting of this option:

Tools > Options > General > Importing & Tagging > Update file tags when file info changes > (should be checked to write tags)

For file types that can accept all tags (like FLAC) this should also copy the Album Artist tag when it changes.  If it is NOT set and you set it, you will need to update all files to write those tags.  I recommend this moving forward.

If the tags are not populated inside the files, you can still preserve the tags!  All you have to do is move the files and then use RM&C in Update mode to tell MC that the files have moved.  All of the tags are in MC's internal database, so it will retain everything.

This is a key point that I'm not sure you have gotten:  Using RM&C in Update mode preserves all tags.  Import date, play count, Album Artist... everything.

If you still want to make a new library, you can do that too.  Clone your existing library, switch to the clone, and then do your RM&C update process there.  Then you will have the new library with the correct tags and the old library with the correct tags.

Brian.

macdonjh:
I'll check my tags options...

When I originally copied the files I'm asking about, all tags were preserved, and the compilation album displayed once in "album view" of my library.

Then I used MR&C to rename the files in accordance with the convention I'm now using: [Artist] - [Name].  Unfortunately, when I did that I now had a dozen files for the same album with different artists and MC displayed each artist separately.  I remembered the "Album Artist" tag that someone (probably you, blgentry) pointed me to and tried to update that, but I wasn't allowed to.

As for read only files, they weren't read only when I copied them, if they're read only now, I wonder what could have changed them?

Anyway, thank you for the ideas.  I thought this was weird behavior, so I asked.

blgentry:
That sequence of events doesn't make sense to me.  RM&C should not alter any tags.  Are you invoking RM&C while highlighting songs in your library?  Or through drives and devices?  Or some other way?

Brian.

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