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[pcstockton]

Good day everyone.

This one has been REALLY bothering me.  I simply cannot figure it out for the life of me.  I have changed "Medeski, Martin and Wood" to "Medeski, Martin & Wood" on one album at least 4 times now.  Each time I ask myself, "Haven't I already done this?" This is happening with about 50 different albums.

Set-up:
- Using 17.0.154 build (newest available as of today's post)
- In settings, "Change tags when file info changes" is checked

Problem:
- Some tags simply will not "take".  After I reimport the problem files or "update library from tags", it reverts back to the original.
- I even went in to BOTH MC and files themselves (using tag&rename) and changed the tags, and they still revert.

Example:
- I have 1 of 6 MMW album with Album Artist as "Medeski, Martin and Wood" and Artist as "Medeski, Martin & Wood".
- This makes them show up as different artist in MC.
- In MC I retag both Album Artist and Artist as both "Medeski, Martin & Wood"
- I then manually (although i shouldn't need to with my tag settings) "update files from Library"
- All is well until an auto-import runs.  Then it reverts back to "MM and W"

I tried this over and over and even retagged the files both from within MC, and also by bringing the files into Tag&Rename.  All Artist related tags are now "Medeski, Martin & Wood" in both MC and Tag&Rename.

Every time i re-import it reverts back.

So I fixed them yet again and then went directly into the file folder for the offending album.  I right-clicked for properties and it shows a tag ALBUMARTIST (no space).  Here is where we are seeing the "and" tag.  In this view both Artist and Album Artist are correct with "&"

Any thoughts?  What is this ALBUMARTIST tag and how is it overriding my Album Artist (auto) and Album Artist tags i am changing?  It doesn't do anything to the Artist tag

I should mention that I do not see this ALBUMARTIST tag inside MC.  Even when I request "show all tags with values".

Please help?  ?

Thanks,
Patrick

[Alex B]

Is the file format FLAC or OGG?

If yes, here is how the "Album Artist" tagging is supposed to work:

Most FLAC tags are "WYSIWYG", i.e. the default name of the library field is exactly the same as the tag header inside the file, but a few tags are mapped differently to make them compatible with other popular implementations. Here is the latest change:

15.0.99 (8/20/2010)
10. Changed: Ogg and flac tags map database PUBLISHER to ORGANIZATION, database ORGANIZATION (if existing) to JR_ORGANIZATION, and if there's an ALBUM ARTIST write it out as both ALBUM ARTIST and ALBUMARTIST. Read either, ALBUM ARTIST preferentially.

When MC writes the Album Artist field value to file tags it is supposed to write both variants in order to maximize compatibility with other applications. An existing ALBUMARTIST tag value should be overwritten and in any case the ALBUM ARTIST tag should have preference when tags are read.

I don't know why this is not working in your case. Do other tag changes stick?

[pcstockton]

Thanks for chiming in Alex.  I was hoping I wasn't just dreaming about those three times I meticulously noted every artist tag I wanted to fix then changed them all in MC only to find they reverted back to the incorrect tag after an auto-import.  In fact, if memory serves, I have dealt with this particular MM&W tagging issue for a LONG time.  Of course I keep fixing it....

Yes, all files are FLAC.

It seems that all other tag changes are working as expected with MC.  It is only the Album Artist and Album Artist (auto) that change back.  Artist remains unaffected.  But of course most views in MC use Album Artist, as does JRemote (my main interface).

At some point, right around the implementation of list fields for artists and genres, I started getting strange Album Artist tags like "John Zorn; John Zorn".  I thought this was due to the list-type fields.  But now I am thinking it was something to do with a hidden ALBUMARTIST tag.  I will check a few recent ones i "fixed".

I can confirm that MC is definitely not overwriting ALBUMARTIST when I change Album Artist.

Do you know a way I can:
1) delete ALL ALBUMARTIST tags in my library
or
2) make MC write ALL of the Album Artist to the ALBUMARTIST

I cant figure out to make MC show me ALBUMARTIST.  It doesn't seem to exist in MC, but it is letting it override MC's tags.  I cant find ALBUMARTIST in the tagging area or in any column view.

Lastly, just for fun I performed the same operation on a Bjork album that I dont want the little umlaut over the "o".  Same deals.  I suspect this is the case with every album I am having trouble with.


Thanks again for the help.
Patrick

[MrC]

Interesting; I just wrote out a flac file.  ALBUM ARTIST is written, but not ALBUMARTIST.  Maybe this is broken now?

[Alex B]

The library has no ALBUMARTIST field. MC simply writes (or should write) the value of the Album Artist field simultaneously to two different file tag fields.
Regarding the Album Artist (auto) field, it is not stored in the physical file tags and you are not supposed to tag it by hand. MC fills and updates it automatically.

I just tested the current build (154). A separate ALBUMARTIST tag was not written (in addition to ALBUM ARTIST) if it did not already exist, but after adding it outside MC and importing the file as a new library entry MC started to write both tags. ALBUM ARTIST seemed to correctly have preference when the tags were read. Interestingly, if a newly imported file had only the ALBUMARTIST tag, MC started to use it and did not write the ALBUM ARTIST tag at all, just ALBUMARTIST.

The behavior is odd. I am pretty sure that this used to work as described above, in the 15.0.99 change log.

[pcstockton]

Thanks for isolating the issue Alex. 

Do you think it is a big enough issue to warrant attention and remedy from JRiver?  If not, can you think of a process by which I can remove, edit, then reimport?

I tried three different pieces of tagging software and none can see the ALBUMARTIST tag so I can delete it.  The only program which reports its existence is dbPoweramp (right click context menu).  But I dont own dbPoweramp.  Im not sure why i even get this view in Properties.  I think i downloaded a trial of it years ago....

Thanks again for the help.

I will refrain from re-tagging any ALBUM ARTIST tags for the time being. 

-Patrick

[MrC]

I can confirm AlexB's findings.  I just changed an Album Artist in MC and only ALBUMARTIST was updated (ALBUM ARTIST was not).

You can see which tags have ALBUMARTIST.  Add an expression column in your file list, using the expression:

  Tag(ALBUMARTIST)

it will be slow as it has to read the physical tags.  You could also add one for ALBUM ARTIST.

You can delete these tags in mp3tag.

[vagskal]

can you think of a process by which I can remove, edit, then reimport?

MP3Tag can read and delete that tag. I am not sure what MC will do if you just update the library from file tags after that. Usually a deletion of a file tag using external tools does not lead to an update of the MC library. You can always delete the entries from the MC library and re-import instead.

[MrC]

I just did that - Update library (from tags) after the tag was removed.  It worked fine.

[vagskal]

MrC was a tad faster. As always.

[MrC]

My "vagskal" notifier alarm rings, and I race upstairs frantically trying to Beat the Clock.

[MrC]

My library seems to imply that the ALBUMARTIST tag was being written by MC during Oct 2011, and then no longer after about mid-Jan 2012.  This is approximate, as of course I don't know exactly when the tag was written, but I know when I ripped (and hence imported) the tracks.

Ah, and lookie here:

17.0.76 (1/25/2012)
1. NEW: Artist, Genre, Composer, and Conductor are list-type fields.

[pcstockton]

My library seems to imply that the ALBUMARTIST tag was being written by MC during Oct 2011, and then no longer after about mid-Jan 2012.  This is approximate, as of course I don't know exactly when the tag was written, but I know when I ripped (and hence imported) the tracks.

Ah, and lookie here:

17.0.76 (1/25/2012)
1. NEW: Artist, Genre, Composer, and Conductor are list-type fields.

Yup!  That is exactly when I started experiencing strange things.  I posted a few messages about what I was finding but no one bit.

All of a sudden, without changing any tags, I had all kinds of wrong ALBUM ARTIST tags. 

At some point all of my "hidden" ALBUMARTIST tags overrode my ALBUM ARTIST tags.  And I cant change them back.

I will add a custom field and to find them all, write them down, then omit the ALBUMARTIST tags in mp3tag, i suppose??  Then re-import?

Sound right?

Thanks for the help everyone.

-Patrick

[MrC]

There were a number of fixes that came after the initial implementation.

It is easy enough to get a list of the files that are affected, and rid the tags.  So, don't worry about that part.  If you're in desperate need, I or someone, will give you a set of steps to identify/resolve.

But since this likely affects many users, perhaps JRiver will be able to take a look and have a quick fix.  Probably this was a minor oversight.

[vagskal]

I would recommend just waiting for the very quick fix that I expect. This sounds like a serious issue where MC is not working according to its own specs AND is producing incoherent file tags that affect/distort presentation not only in MC but also in other programs. I am sure a fix has the highest priority.

When the double album artist file tags were introduced I had to change my workflow and remember to never ever use external tools to change precisely those tags to avoid the confusion that you are now seeing...

There will be some cleaning up to do when this is fixed.

[pcstockton]

awesome.

Love this place, love this program, love you guys!

[Matt]

MC sets 'ALBUMARTIST' if it's there, otherwise sets 'ALBUM ARTIST'.

MC reads 'ALBUM ARTIST' if it's there, otherwise reads 'ALBUMARTIST'.

Is 'ALBUMARTIST' or 'ALBUM ARTIST' more standard?

[MrC]

Today I believe even foobar (the last holdout?) uses ALBUMARTIST.

The issue I believe is:

  MC sets 'ALBUMARTIST' if it's there, otherwise sets 'ALBUM ARTIST'.

needs to do:

  MC sets 'ALBUMARTIST' if it's there (AND set ALBUM ARTIST if its there), otherwise sets 'ALBUM ARTIST'.

because today it sets one, but not the other if they both exist.

It would be best though to hear AlexB's sage advice and insights.

[vagskal]

Alex B described the behaviour that has been prevalent from v. 15 http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=72211.msg488689#msg488689

The problem is that there is no "standard" for flac files in this regard. Some programs reads/writes Album Artist and some reads/writes Albumartist (and dBPoweramp switched between the two naming conventions a couple of years ago). Having MC read/write both ways is good and provides the best compatibility.

The serious issue is that MC since v. 15 has been writing both tags, but that it seems that MC stopped doing this a while ago. This could lead to issues in MC with auto import and to issues with other programs, compare this very recent thread http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?95182-Database-HELP (concerning ID3v2.3 tags, not Vorbis comments). Having, or risk having, multiple file tags for the same information (who is the album artist?) with different content in the same file is a bad thing. Since MC put two tags in the file with identical values (from v. 15), MC should continue to keep the information in those tags identical.

[vagskal]

And I see once again that MrC's "vagskal" notifier alarm is effective...

[Matt]

needs to do:

  MC sets 'ALBUMARTIST' if it's there (AND set ALBUM ARTIST if its there), otherwise sets 'ALBUM ARTIST'.

because today it sets one, but not the other if they both exist.

Or is it better to just always set both?

AlexB, what do you think?

Thanks everyone.

[pcstockton]

Today I believe even foobar (the last holdout?) uses ALBUMARTIST.

The issue I believe is:

  MC sets 'ALBUMARTIST' if it's there, otherwise sets 'ALBUM ARTIST'.

needs to do:

  MC sets 'ALBUMARTIST' if it's there (AND set ALBUM ARTIST if its there), otherwise sets 'ALBUM ARTIST'.

because today it sets one, but not the other if they both exist.

It would be best though to hear AlexB's sage advice and insights.

I cant quite follow the above....  but I know that any changes to ALBUM ARTIST should also change ALBUMARTIST, regardless of what is or isn't there.

They should ALWAYS be the same right?

As of now it is allowing those tags to be different.  Also it is taking preference to ALBUMARTIST and auto-changing ALBUM ARTIST upon import.

Maybe that is exactly what he said above......

Cheers!
Patrick

[Alex B]

MC sets 'ALBUMARTIST' if it's there, otherwise sets 'ALBUM ARTIST'.

MC reads 'ALBUM ARTIST' if it's there, otherwise reads 'ALBUMARTIST'.

So it actually has changed.


This behavior is configurable in dbpoweramp and foobar. (See the attached screenshots.)

From: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?s=5250f083fbf519485a756de0cb30f753&showtopic=94687&view=findpost&p=793889

foobar2000 writes either field to Vorbis/FLAC/Speex files as "ALBUMARTIST" or "ALBUM ARTIST" depending on the configuration setting, but reads both back as "ALBUM ARTIST".

Having, or risk having, multiple file tags for the same information (who is the album artist?) with different content in the same file is a bad thing. Since MC put two tags in the file with identical values (from v. 15), MC should continue to keep the information in those tags identical.

I agree. Any other way to handle this will always cause trouble to someone. The old MC15-17 behavior was probably the best possible compromise.


Log in to the forum if you can't see the attachments.

[Matt]

Next build:
Changed: FLAC tagging writes the album artist to both 'ALBUM ARTIST' and 'ALBUMARTIST' instead on only writing to one ( http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=72211 ).

[Alex B]

Thanks.

OGG too? (I don't know if it has changed. I have not tested it now.)

[Matt]

OGG too? (I don't know if it has changed. I have not tested it now.)

It should already write both values.

[pcstockton]

thanks Matt!