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[skarsol]

TL;DR: Clearing an (auto) field should not ever affect non-auto fields.

If Album Artist (auto) is set to the Album name (dunno how that happens, but it is that way for a bunch of my files) then when I clear the Album Artist (auto) field it fills it with whatever is in the Artist field. This is expected behavior.

If Album Artist (auto) is set to the same thing as the Artist field and I clear the Album Artist (auto) field, it *also* clears the Artist field. This was unexpected. In order to fix the problem in the first paragraph (Album Artist set to Album) I selected all my files and cleared the Album Artist (auto) field. For ones with the problem, it worked great. For every other file it stripped out the Artist and lumped them all into Unclassified. Less than ideal.

[JONCAT]

Use Album Artist to retain unique Artist tags and this (Album Artist) will propagate into Album Artist (Auto)....IIRC.

Album Artist (auto) is progated according to:

all Artist fields exactly same>Album Artist (auto) = "Artist"
any difference in Artist fields>Album Artist (auto) = Multiple Artists

DC

[skarsol]

Yes, I'm aware of how Album Artist (auto) is filled. (although I have a whole bunch of files where Album Artist (Auto) = Album, which doesn't fit in with your explanation.) My quibble is the behavior when Album Artist (Auto) is cleared (due to it somehow getting bogus info in it).

[JONCAT]

It's a little counter intuitive, but if:

if x = 0 > y = 0 True

if x = 1 > y = 1 True

if  x = 1 > y = 0 False

So when y = 0, x must = 0

?yes ?no ?maybe so?

DC

[skarsol]

I think what you're saying is that because Album Artist (auto) is empty then that should imply that Artist is empty and that's why it's being cleared? But the response I would expect from clearing Album Artist (auto) is that it would be immediatly reset according to the rules (ie: to the "Artist" or to "Multiple Artists") and not clear out the Artist field sometimes.

Basically, if I want Artist to be cleared, I'll clear Artist.

[JONCAT]

So AAA was filled with Album, but your saying that Artist was correct but somehow AAA was filled with Album? In that case, I see what your saying. I thought you meant that AAA and Artist were the same, filled with what was actually Album. If so, then when you cleared AAA, what else could MC do but clear AAA.

DC

[skarsol]

Right, my Library has 2 types of files right now:
Type 1: (Good)
   Album - XXX
   Artist - YYY
   Album Artist (auto) - YYY

Type 2: (Bad)
   Album - XXX
   Artist - YYY
   Album Artist (auto) - XXX

If I select all files of both type and clear the Album Artist (auto) field (but don't touch the Artist field), Type 2 will become Type 1 (Album Artist (auto) gets filled with what was in the Artist field) and Type 1 will become Type 3.

Type 3: (Ugly)
   Album - XXX
   Artist - (blank)
   Album Artist (auto) - (blank)

What I'm saying is that modifying an *auto* field (like Album Artist (auto)) should *never* cause a change in it's parent fields (in this case, Artist). So Type 3 should never be created.

[skarsol]

Okay, so I'm just trying to fix my library now. Since I can't clear the Album Artist (auto) field for all the tracks at once due to the behavior above, is there any way to make a Smartlist that contains all tracks where Album = Album Artist (auto)? I can't seem to find a way to do it and I REALLY don't want to go through album by album and fix them manually.

[Alex B]

I think the Album Artist (auto) field value should be not be editable by default. (That could be adjustable in the field options so that advanced users could use the feature.)

You should never adjust the Album Artist (auto) value (-- unless you know exactly what you are doing).

The separate Album Artist field is for that. If you are unhappy with the automatic value you can change it with the Album Artist field.

[skarsol]

Ooooh, heh, okay, if I clear Album Artist then it behaves as expected.

So I guess my issue is that Album Artist (auto) should not be editable (like it is now). (In my default tag view, it shows Album Artist (auto) and not Album Artist so I didn't even think about that)

Thanks!

[Alex B]

is there any way to make a Smartlist that contains all tracks where Album = Album Artist (auto)? I can't seem to find a way to do it and I REALLY don't want to go through album by album and fix them manually.

Even though you may not need this anymore (or just now), here's a way to do what you want.

1. create a calculated user field or expression column with this expression:
    IsEqual([Album], [Album Artist (auto)], 1)

    From: http://wiki.jrmediacenter.com/index.php/Media_Center_expression_language

IsEqual(...): Compares values and outputs a "1" if the values pass the test, and "0" if they don't pass the test.

2. create a smartlist that lists files with the value 1 in that field.

EDIT

I removed the "expression column" part. I don't think an expression column can be referenced in a smartlist rule. An expression column is usable only in the specific view in which it is present. You can add an expression column by first right-clicking the column header area. After it is in place you can sort the view by that column.

[skarsol]

Ah, okay, I was trying to do autoalbumartist=[=Field(Album)] and similar that I got from reading that page. I guess I skipped over the IsEqual. Thanks.