Topic: Tags changed (Read 5158 times)

m1abrams · « **on:** June 30, 2008, 05:31:50 pm »

Well I just noticed this afternoon that 2095 tracks now have the Artist "A3".

I checked the actual files and they do not have the artist A3 so it is just in the MC database. I noticed this because when I went to sync my ipod I had many more updates than I expected.

this is with MC version 518. My music files reside on an smb share.

Matt · « **Reply #1 on:** June 30, 2008, 05:33:02 pm »

Media Center automatically makes frequent library backups. They would probably be helpful in this case.

m1abrams · « **Reply #2 on:** June 30, 2008, 05:37:08 pm »

Yes they are

Any idea what could have caused this? Maybe something I can avoid. I do not get bothered by it myself, I have very good backups myself

.

lalittle · « **Reply #3 on:** June 30, 2008, 05:38:45 pm »

My brother is currently seeing some "tag corruption" issues on his MC system (518). Numerous songs spontaneously get assigned the wrong album name, and other songs appear to lose certain tags and become "unassigned" for these fields. An "update library from tags" fixes the issue when run on any given file, so it appears that it's the library that is becoming corrupted and not the files themselves.

On a similar note, he also just noticed several albums just vanish from the library for no reason. An "auto import" brought them back, but he's still seeing songs suddenly appear under the wrong album.

We're trying to figure out a pattern these issues, so I was wondering if anyone else is seeing any issues like this.

Thanks,

Larry

lalittle · « **Reply #4 on:** June 30, 2008, 05:45:23 pm »

Album tags on a bunch of songs were spontaneously changed. In our case, the tags on the files themselves were not changed, so an "update library from tags" fixed the issue for the ones we tried, but it's disturbing that the tags were just spontaneously changed for no apparent reason.

Larry

JimH · « **Reply #5 on:** June 30, 2008, 06:16:26 pm »

Try restoring a library backup.

I don't think MC has any problems like this.

JimH · « **Reply #6 on:** June 30, 2008, 06:36:59 pm »

What other software are you using that writes tags?

m1abrams · « **Reply #7 on:** June 30, 2008, 06:42:40 pm »

I only use MC after the audio is ripped. I use dbpoweramp for ripping, but do NOT use it to modify tags after the music has been ripped and imported into MC.

m1abrams · « **Reply #8 on:** June 30, 2008, 06:46:19 pm »

Well I loaded a backup from the other day before 518 was installed. Then had it run the auto-import because I had added some music since that backup. That took awhile loading thumbnails.

After that was done I check for errors, did not see any. Then had the ipod recheck sync and it now only shows a need to load about 30 tracks which is what was expected.

Matt · « **Reply #9 on:** June 30, 2008, 06:50:51 pm »

Please report any other strangeness you see. Database corruption is the most serious kind of bug.

In build 518, we did this:
Optimized: Database uses less memory.

The change was very well tested, but the timing with this report is suspicious.

lalittle · « **Reply #10 on:** June 30, 2008, 08:02:27 pm »

Quote from: JimH on June 30, 2008, 06:16:26 pm

Try restoring a library backup.

I don't think MC has any problems like this.

He did a restore pretty early on in the troubleshooting process, but the problems continue to occur. There seems to be 'some' degree of repeatability with the "auto import" causing some of these issues. There are some albums that import correctly if imported directly from their folders, but when auto import is run, the album tags can get scrambled again. It also "seems" like some scrambling occurs at other times, but it's difficult to tell exactly when these things happen since you don't necessarily notice right away.

We're not sure what action caused the vanishing songs.

Note that at the same time all this is happening, he's having a lot of trouble syncing the iPod as well. He gets songs that lose tag data when transferring to the iPod (i.e. they get an "unassigned" album, for example), and he's getting a LOT of inconsistencies with sync "re-checks," where subsequent checks give different results, and MC seems to want to sync certain songs over and over again. It seems like this may be related since it all started happening at the same time.

Thanks,

Larry

matsukaze ninja · « **Reply #11 on:** June 30, 2008, 10:01:11 pm »

MS Vista
MC 518

Yup, I've been seeing some issues where the Album tag (in the library) gets changed to some other album in the library for some songs. If I delete those songs from the library, then re-import, they'll be okay. But at least a couple of times, running a subsequent Auto-import (set to only look at all the mp3 files) re-scrambles things.

That all said, I am for some reason unable to duplicate the problem today. My guess is that if I was to delete all songs from the library then run an auto-import, that they'd come in funny (as they did yesterday) but I'll do that when I have a little more time to go through and delete and re-import each album one at a time (the only way to fix things that I know at this point... I'm glad there is a way though!)

I don't know if it's related, but yeah I'm having inconsistent "recheck sync" results, the report is over in the ipod discussion area.

Glenn

matsukaze ninja · « **Reply #12 on:** June 30, 2008, 10:06:38 pm »

Well, okay, I bit the bullet and selected all songs, deleted from library, than ran the auto-import. It took no time at all and things still appear okay at first glance anyway. I'm a little surprised that it went so fast, is it relying on a cache or something? If so, I suppose the real test would be to clear any cache first and let the auto-import really do its work.

But for now, until I run into something else odd, auto-import is no longer hashing things up like it was yesterday.

Glenn

m1abrams · « **Reply #13 on:** July 01, 2008, 07:09:49 am »

Ok so after I did the sync of my ipod that I mentioned above. It was a sync of about 30 tracks to a ipod that already had ~5800 tracks, after that sync ALL of my coverart on the ipod disappeared. ugh. Course I have been having since 512 issues with coverart getting mixed up on the ipod, have done multiple initialize and reloads to the ipod and eventually the coverart db on the ipod gets scrambled.

JimH · « **Reply #14 on:** July 01, 2008, 07:19:36 am »

Larry, is your brother also syncing with an iPod?

lalittle · « **Reply #15 on:** July 01, 2008, 08:24:46 am »

Quote from: JimH on July 01, 2008, 07:19:36 am

Larry, is your brother also syncing with an iPod?

Yes -- 160GB iPod Classic (6th gen) running the latest firmware.

Larry

m1abrams · « **Reply #16 on:** July 01, 2008, 06:47:13 pm »

Another weird issue that I think might be related.

My smartlist "imported last month" has gone up by about 10 tracks since lastnight. I have not added any new music since last night. The 10 songs that showed up have been in my collection for years.

m1abrams · « **Reply #17 on:** July 01, 2008, 06:48:54 pm »

oh and as I typed that last message I was connecting my ipod and my ipod wants to now sync 2652 tracks. That is not right.

Yep my library is all messed up again.

lalittle · « **Reply #18 on:** July 01, 2008, 06:49:29 pm »

Quote from: m1abrams on July 01, 2008, 06:47:13 pm

Another weird issue that I think might be related.

My smartlist "imported last month" has gone up by about 10 tracks since lastnight. I have not added any new music since last night. The 10 songs that showed up have been in my collection for years.

That sounds similar to some of the issue my brother has been seeing -- basic database "changes" that don't make sense, some of them effecting songs that were ripped a long time ago.

Larry

lalittle · « **Reply #19 on:** July 01, 2008, 06:53:43 pm »

Quote from: m1abrams on July 01, 2008, 06:48:54 pm

oh and as I typed that last message I was connecting my ipod and my ipod wants to now sync 2652 tracks. That is not right.

Yep my library is all messed up again.

Again, we saw that same type of behavior with an iPod classic. The "recheck sync" would often give different results each time it was run, and MC wanted to keep syncing a lot of songs even though they were already on the iPod. Some songs were also put on the iPod more than once, with one version having an "unassigned" album.

Is it possible that connecting and/or manipulating an iPod with MC is causing database corruption within MC?

Thanks for the feedback here,

Larry

JimH · « **Reply #20 on:** July 01, 2008, 07:03:41 pm »

Do you think that this is an iPod related issue? In other words, can it be reproduced without an iPod in the scene.

m1abrams · « **Reply #21 on:** July 01, 2008, 07:16:29 pm »

Well I am fixing my db as we speak.

I was thinking it was an issue with auto-import.

My plan was to disable auto-import, however if you would rather I not use the ipod I can do that. Probably best to eliminate one at a time no?

JimH · « **Reply #22 on:** July 01, 2008, 07:18:17 pm »

Quote from: m1abrams on July 01, 2008, 07:16:29 pm

Probably best to eliminate one at a time no?

That would be very helpful. Thanks.

lalittle · « **Reply #23 on:** July 01, 2008, 07:22:55 pm »

Quote from: m1abrams on July 01, 2008, 07:16:29 pm

I was thinking it was an issue with auto-import.

That's what it seemed like on my brother's system as well -- running auto import was the one thing that seemed to somewhat predictably cause issues. That said, the iPod seems to also be a common link between different users having these problems.

That said, the problems with my brother's system are suddenly not happening as predictably as they were a couple days ago, so I'm not sure what to conclude. Maybe he broke the pattern by not plugging in the iPod???

Larry

darichman · « **Reply #24 on:** July 01, 2008, 08:09:28 pm »

I do not use an iPod, and haven't had any database issues...
Don't know if that helps at all?

m1abrams · « **Reply #25 on:** July 02, 2008, 06:36:03 pm »

Update:
Last night after restoring my library I disabled auto-import. I sync'd my ipod with the latest podcasts that were available. Today I plugged in the ipod and it only wanted to sync 2 more new podcasts (that is expected). So far the library issue has not happened again.

Matt · « **Reply #26 on:** July 02, 2008, 07:02:55 pm »

We found the issue with 518. It's rare and only affects build 518.

It will be fixed in a build available here soon.

Sorry for any hassle.

JimH · « **Reply #27 on:** July 02, 2008, 07:18:12 pm »

If you have the problem, you can recover by selecting the files, right clicking, and doing Library Tools/Update Library from Tags.

lalittle · « **Reply #28 on:** July 02, 2008, 07:18:40 pm »

Quote from: Matt on July 02, 2008, 07:02:55 pm

We found the issue with 518. It's rare and only affects build 518.

It will be fixed in a build available here soon.

Sorry for any hassle.

Thanks for addressing this so quickly Matt (and all the JR team).

Larry

lalittle · « **Reply #29 on:** July 02, 2008, 07:23:56 pm »

Quote from: JimH on July 02, 2008, 07:18:12 pm

If you have the problem, you can recover by selecting the files, right clicking, and doing Library Tools/Update Library from Tags.

I can confirm -- this worked on my brother's system most of the time. The only time this didn't work was when some tags got updated while the information was incorrect (we're not exactly sure why/when this happened), which saved the incorrect data to the tags themselves. These files had to be manually fixed. Most of the time, however, the files themselves had the original, correct data, so the "update library from tags" worked.

So it seems like auto-import is a process that could potentially cause this issue with 518, correct?

Thanks again,

Larry

m1abrams · « **Reply #30 on:** July 02, 2008, 07:26:19 pm »

Quote from: Matt on July 02, 2008, 07:02:55 pm

We found the issue with 518. It's rare and only affects build 518.

It will be fixed in a build available here soon.

Sorry for any hassle.

No problem at all. Glad you were able to identify the issue. I know those types of bugs can be very difficult to solve.

Also wanted to point out that at NO time has MC made any changes to the actually tag data on the file, it was only in the library database. So as Jim pointed out you can recover by doing the update from tags trick.

matsukaze ninja · « **Reply #31 on:** July 02, 2008, 10:39:50 pm »

Matt, any chance you can briefly describe the nature of the problem? Might help those
of us inclined to ponder these sorts of things get on the right page and end up as more
effective field debuggers.

From where I sit, the puzzling bits are: a) was the ipod involved? b) was there caching
involved (would explain what looked from here like inconsistent failure)? c) how did
"busy-ness" of the program play into it?

In any case, I appreciate the quick turnaround.

Glenn

Quote from: Matt on July 02, 2008, 07:02:55 pm

We found the issue with 518. It's rare and only affects build 518.

It will be fixed in a build available here soon.

Sorry for any hassle.

JimH · « **Reply #32 on:** July 03, 2008, 06:42:32 am »

It's too obscure to explain, and it wouldn't help. But thanks for your concern.

Matt · « **Reply #33 on:** July 03, 2008, 08:50:32 am »

It was a direct result of the recent database memory optimizations. The optimizations are complicated to explain, but the new code had a bug in certain rare cases.

Build 520 was just posted, which retains the benefits of the memory optimization without the problem.

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Author Topic: Tags changed (Read 5158 times)