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[tseipel]

Good morning,

Some time ago I created a custom library field (Album Artist Sort), which allowed me to sort files by the artists' last names. Upon reimporting my files from a new drive, the Album Artist Sort field is no longer populating. I've deleted and recreated the field, to no avail. Any assistance in rectifying this problem would be appreciated.

Best,
Tim

[JimH]

The  name must match exactly, including case.

[marko]

Can you give more details regarding the field? It sounds as though it should be an expression based field, which would cause it to auto populate... Maybe you're expression is slightly off?

[tseipel]

Thanks for the quick responses guys. In my ID3 tags, the field is ALBUM ARTIST SORT. Up until I reimported my files from a new hard drive, I had been able to sort them using a custom field titled Album Artist Sort. I've since deleted the field and tried recreating it, both all caps and as before. No luck in either case.

Thanks as always,
Tim

[tseipel]

How I've configured it in MC.

[marko]

Ok, so that file in the first screen shot... If you right click on it in MC, library tools, update library from tags....

Does your field populate now?

[dtc]

You need to look at the rest of the logic for other tags for your sort/swap  logic. My guess is that this tag is one you can use to manually override an automatically calculated name swap tag.  Do you have a tag something like [AA Name Swap], with the swapping logic. That was part of the original way to swap names.  If so, there is probably some display logic that uses [AA Name Swap] if [Album Artist Sort] is empty.  Mu guess is that this tag is empty unless you put something there, at which time it becomes the tag value to use.  There is certainly no logic in your definition to fill it in.  Maybe look for an example where you want to override an automatic name swap and see if [Album Artist Sort] is filled in manually for that one.

[tseipel]

Hey Marko,

No joy after updating. Field still stays blank. dtc: No luck there either. Weird thing is this used to work just fine. Not sure what changed.

Any other thoughts/suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Best,
Tim

[dtc]

At the bottom of the tag window, there is an area called Tag Dump. That will show the fields in the file. Is the same tag there? If so, is it filled in for any files?  Your tag definition has it write the tag to the file. It is hard to see that that field had data in it in the library, but did not get written to the files. 

I think you have to try to recreate how that tag got populated originally in the library. The tag definition has nothing in it to create the data, so it must have been manually.

Do you have an old library backup that you could import to see if the values are there? If you want to be super careful, you could create a new library and import the backup.  If the tags populate, you could write them to the files for all the tracks. Then you should be able to bring them into your new library, as Marko described.

[RoderickGI]

Rather than trying to update the new Library, if you have an old Library Backup and all you did was add a new drive, then why not just Restore the old Library and point it to the new drive?

There are lots of threads here describing how to update a Library after installing a new drive, using the Rename, Move, and Copy Files function. Specifically, in the "Update database to point at new location" mode. There are a few things to be careful of, such as turning off Auto Import immediately after the Restore to stop it "fixing" broken links. But otherwise it is an easy process.

Or you might only have needed to change the assigned drive letter for the new drive to what the original drive used.

It is always better to fix a Library, rather than reimport all your files, particularly when you have any customisations.

[tseipel]

Thanks for all of the help y'all. i'm going to go scare up a backup from my other machine.

Best,
Tim

[dtc]

Did you look at Tag Dump? Is the tag in the files?

[marko]

Did you look at Tag Dump? Is the tag in the files?

As per DB Poweramp screenshot in reply #3, it's there.

[dtc]

As per DB Poweramp screenshot in reply #3, it's there.

Agreed. Just wanted to be sure MC was also seeing it.  If Update Library from Tags is not populating the field in the library, then something is strange.

[RoderickGI]

This is just an issue with inconsistent tag naming between different applications. The "Album Artist Sort" and "Artist Sort" tags have always been a problem.

The relevant change in MC was in MC23: https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Release_Notes_MC23
23.0.96 (1/24/2018)
1. NEW: Added support for the Album Artist Sort field and Composer Sort field to the ID3v2 code (TSO2 and TSOC).

However, that change may not have been implemented for all file types. I'm not sure. See https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,122322.msg846744.html#msg846744

We load these from ID3 as "Album Artist Sort" and "Artist Sort", but we do not have built-in fields for them.  If you create "Album Artist Sort" and "Artist Sort" custom fields, they should be populated.  I do need to add them to FLAC and maybe other file types.

I don't know if that extra work was ever done, or even required.

This is not a new issue: https://forum.dbpoweramp.com/showthread.php?36252-FLAC-metadata-conventions

The issue has always been that some applications use the name without spaces and some include spaces in the name. MC can't force a standardisation of naming, particularly if different people are tagging using different applications. i.e. mp3tag, DBpoweramp, PerfectTunes, etc.

Work out which format your external tagging tool uses, and use that in MC. Or set up both versions in MC and have one populate the other if the version you want to use in empty.

Note that the name of the tag can be different to the Display Name of the tag. The name must be used exactly as it is in the source file for MC to import it. The Display Name doesn't matter.

Note also that tagging in MP3 files can be different to tagging in FLAC files, depending on the external tool.

Note also that mp3tag for example can use tag mapping, and some use code, so that the "ALBUM ARTIST SORT" tag populate the "ALBUMARTISTSORT" tag.


With a little research I'm sure this can be solved, or it can be shown that MC functionality has changed without notification. Look into it a little deeper.

[dtc]

More analysis added here

https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,125090.msg866334.html#msg866334

It looks like MC now maps library fields [Artist Sort] and [Album Artist Sort] to the vorbis standard file tags of artistsort and albumartistsort.  Before the changes Rod referenced, I believe those fields would have been mapped to file tags using the same names, including the spaces. Because of the ne mapping, I do not see any way for MC to access the file tags of Artist Sort or Album Artist Sort that MC used to allow for the corresponding user defined custom library fields.

Further insight appreciated.

[dtc]

Matt will make changes so  Album Artist Sort tag data is loaded if there is no albumartistsort tag data.

See the other thread.

[tseipel]

Thanks for all of the assistance folks. I truly appreciate all of you.

Best,
Tim