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More => Old Versions => Media Center 17 => Topic started by: prufrock on April 11, 2012, 01:00:11 am

Title: Some tracks separated from albums
Post by: prufrock on April 11, 2012, 01:00:11 am

Just noticed that some album tracks have become separated from their album. Is there an easy way of reuniting them? Not sure how this would have happened. Maybe dragged them when scrolling?

Title: Re: Some tracks separated from albums
Post by: MrC on April 11, 2012, 01:13:20 am

Generally user's experience this when Album, Artist or Date field differs in the tracks.  Select all the tracks for the album, and examine the values in Action Window > Tag.

These groupings are controlled by the Group By setting for the view.  The default is "Album", which is defined as

  Album by Artist     Date

So if any of these differs, the grouping for the view will show them as two entities.  Don't change the view settings to "fix" this; rather, set your tags correctly so the views work.  Once you gain familiarity with how tags and views work together, then customize as you need.

Edit: See rick.ca's better response.

Title: Re: Some tracks separated from albums
Post by: rick.ca on April 11, 2012, 02:07:25 am

I believe the default grouping is determined by [Album Artist (auto)] and [Album]. [Date] (and associated [Year]) don't enter into it. Compilation albums, for example, will have tracks with different dates if [Date] is used for the original release date.

The most common problem new users run into seems to be from having some tracks in an album with an [Album Artist] value different from [Artist] (or a different value from other tracks, if all tracks have an [Album Artist] value). In MC, the purpose of [Album Artist] is to override the value in [Album Artist (auto)] (which is [Artist] if that value is the same for all tracks, and otherwise '(Multiple Artists)'). Problems are easily resolved by displaying all three of these fields together in a list view. Unless needed for other software or devices, good practise would be to delete all [Album Artist] values not needed for the intended purpose. These issues will then be that much easier to spot and resolve in the future.

Title: Re: Some tracks separated from albums
Post by: MrC on April 11, 2012, 02:16:41 am

Ah, right on all accounts.

I forgot that I'm using my own Album grouping, which just today did split on date in a view.

Sorry for the confusion.

Title: Re: Some tracks separated from albums
Post by: rick.ca on April 11, 2012, 02:48:25 am

Quote

Sorry for the confusion.

Some are entitled to an occasional slip. ;D

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v115/whitehat/regular_expressions.png)

Title: Re: Some tracks separated from albums
Post by: prufrock on April 11, 2012, 08:40:24 am

So have [Artist], [Album Artist] and [Album Artist (auto)] all displayed in the column view. Will do. Thanks for that.