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[macdonjh]

I recently moved my media files from USB drives to a NAS and switched from a Mac to Windows.  Something weird happened to some of my tagging/ metadata when I copied my files from my USB drives to my NAS.  I have troubles with the following things (I wonder if deleting the problem files from my Library and reimporting them is the answer?):

Compilation albums: almost none of my albums with more than one artist (e.g. sound tracks, tribute albums, etc.) is displaying as a single album.  When I check Tags, [Album Artist (auto)] shows the [Artist] for the track rather than (Multiple Artists).  I know I can't simply enter (Multiple Artist) as the "value" for [Album Artist (auto)], that has to be done automatically by MC.  How do I get MC to do that?

Music cover art: some miscellaneous albums are missing cover art.  I have my preferences set to:
   File -> Options -> File Location -> Cover Art -> Audio mode: in the same folder as the file.
I have verified that several of the albums not showing cover art do in fact have a .jpg file in the [Album] folder on my computer.  When I checked the tags for a few random song files, the Image file location was shown as "inside file".

However, when I click on a song file which isn't displaying Cover Art, there is no image file shown in Tags.  For an [Album] which isn't displaying Cover Art properly I tried Cover Art -> Add From File, and selected the .jpg in the [Album] folder.  It didn't work.

Movie cover art: none of my Movies is displaying its "cover art" properly.  I have checked random [Movie] folders on my computer and every folder I checked had a .jpg file as well as a MediaCenter sidecar file.

TV Series cover art: none of my TV Series is displaying its "cover art" properly.  I have set my preferences to:
   File -> Options -> File Location -> Cover Art -> ...Folder \\NAS\Multimedia\Cover Art\Series
Within that folder is a .jpg file named [Series].jpg. 

[Doof]

Compilation albums: almost none of my albums with more than one artist (e.g. sound tracks, tribute albums, etc.) is displaying as a single album.  When I check Tags, [Album Artist (auto)] shows the [Artist] for the track rather than (Multiple Artists).  I know I can't simply enter (Multiple Artist) as the "value" for [Album Artist (auto)], that has to be done automatically by MC.  How do I get MC to do that?

Try clearing the value of the [Album Artist] field. [Album Artist (auto)] will take the value of that field if it has one, and if it's empty then it's automatically set to (Multiple Artists).

Music cover art: some miscellaneous albums are missing cover art.  I have my preferences set to:
   File -> Options -> File Location -> Cover Art -> Audio mode: in the same folder as the file.
I have verified that several of the albums not showing cover art do in fact have a .jpg file in the [Album] folder on my computer.  When I checked the tags for a few random song files, the Image file location was shown as "inside file".

However, when I click on a song file which isn't displaying Cover Art, there is no image file shown in Tags.  For an [Album] which isn't displaying Cover Art properly I tried Cover Art -> Add From File, and selected the .jpg in the [Album] folder.  It didn't work.

Sometimes when MC is being finicky about Cover Art I've managed to coax it along by doing Cover Art -> Remove Cover Art, say No to the question about permanently deleting the cover art files, then Cover Art -> Quick Find in File/Cover Art Directory. The Remove Cover Art step is key, I think.

Movie cover art: none of my Movies is displaying its "cover art" properly.  I have checked random [Movie] folders on my computer and every folder I checked had a .jpg file as well as a MediaCenter sidecar file.


TV Series cover art: none of my TV Series is displaying its "cover art" properly.  I have set my preferences to:
   File -> Options -> File Location -> Cover Art -> ...Folder \\NAS\Multimedia\Cover Art\Series
Within that folder is a .jpg file named [Series].jpg.

A few options that have worked for me in the past:
Option 1. Cover Art -> Rebuild Thumbnail
Option 2. Same process as audio above
Option 3. Get Movie/TV Info

[macdonjh]

Thank you, Doof.  I will try those steps.

[macdonjh]

Try clearing the value of the [Album Artist] field. [Album Artist (auto)] will take the value of that field if it has one, and if it's empty then it's automatically set to (Multiple Artists).

Sometimes when MC is being finicky about Cover Art I've managed to coax it along by doing Cover Art -> Remove Cover Art, say No to the question about permanently deleting the cover art files, then Cover Art -> Quick Find in File/Cover Art Directory. The Remove Cover Art step is key, I think.

A few options that have worked for me in the past:
Option 1. Cover Art -> Rebuild Thumbnail
Option 2. Same process as audio above
Option 3. Get Movie/TV Info

[Album Artist (auto)] There were no values in [Album Artist], so I cleared [Album Artist (auto)].  I shouldn't have done that.  For some reason, clearing that tag cleared all the [Artist] tags as well.  That's going to take a while to correct (Fill in Properties from Filename isn't working the way I thought it would- inserts the entire filename, including the path).

Music cover art: still no luck.

Movie cover art: "Remove Cover Art", then "Add From File" worked, but it's such a manual process.

Show cover art: "Remove Cover Art", then "Add From File" worked, but it replaced all the thumbnails for each [Episode] with the artwork for the [Series].  I haven't figured out how to change it back.  Ugh!

[Doof]

Hm, that's weird. There isn't any connection between the [Artist] and [Album Artist (auto)] fields that I'm aware of. Only between [Album Artist] and [Album Artist (auto)].

Is there any chance you might have changed the display name of [Album Artist] to just say "Artist" in Options -> Library & Folders -> Manage Library Fields? That might explain the behavior you're seeing but other than that I'm not sure.

This is really weird too:

Fill in Properties from Filename isn't working the way I thought it would- inserts the entire filename, including the path

The Fill Properties from Filename tool breaks the filename up into two components, directory and filename. I honestly can't think of anyway to make it fill in the entire filename path for a single field. Can you show a screenshot of how you have it configured and the preview it's showing of your files?

For the TV shows, if the cover art files for each episode are present in the correct location then Rebuild Thumbnail should do the trick I'd think, but barring that if they're that messed up I'd probably just resort to re-running the Get Movie/TV Info tool on them.

[macdonjh]

Hm, that's weird. There isn't any connection between the [Artist] and [Album Artist (auto)] fields that I'm aware of. Only between [Album Artist] and [Album Artist (auto)].

Is there any chance you might have changed the display name of [Album Artist] to just say "Artist" in Options -> Library & Folders -> Manage Library Fields? That might explain the behavior you're seeing but other than that I'm not sure.

This is really weird too:
The Fill Properties from Filename tool breaks the filename up into two components, directory and filename. I honestly can't think of anyway to make it fill in the entire filename path for a single field. Can you show a screenshot of how you have it configured and the preview it's showing of your files?

For the TV shows, if the cover art files for each episode are present in the correct location then Rebuild Thumbnail should do the trick I'd think, but barring that if they're that messed up I'd probably just resort to re-running the Get Movie/TV Info tool on them.

No, all the tagging fields are still default.

A new twist:

Movie cover art/ thumbnails: I used Cover Art -> Remove Cover Art, then Cover Art -> Add From File -> (chose a file) -> chose "yes" to place the image file in the location chosen in Options.

That "fixed" my movie cover art, it is now displayed.  But every movie I did that for was deleted.  The .mkv file no longer exists on the NAS.  Any idea what the %$!$% is going on?  This is getting me down.

[macdonjh]

Update:

[Album Artist (auto)] = multiple artists: I tried deleting a troublesome album from my NAS and recopying it from my USB drive (using <Copy> and <Paste> as suggested by @RoderickGI), then re-importing that folder (Import - Single Folder) to my Library.  That didn't work: in the newly copied and imported files still suffered from [Album Artist (auto)] = [Artist].  When I tried deleting [Album Artist (auto)], [Artist] was also deleted.  Then I repopulated the [Artist] and for some reason [Album Artist (auto)] automatically populated with what I typed into the [Artist] field.  Pretty please, what's going on?

Cover Art, TV Series: Still a problem.  I had the idea to put my Cover Art\Series folder on my local hard drive rather than on my NAS.  However, when I tried to point MC28 to the new "local" folder (Tools -> Options -> File Location -> Cover Art) I was asked if I wanted to move all my cover art from my current NAS folder to the new folder.  I chose not to because the last time I did that several dozen media files were deleted from the NAS folders (yes, the actual media files, weird, unexpected and frustrating).  Again, help me with this, please.  I am running out of ideas to try.

Cover Art, Movies: Perhaps still a problem.  I am still working through this.  Some of my media files are working and displaying art/ thumbnails properly.  Many are not.

[lepa]

Hm, that's weird. There isn't any connection between the [Artist] and [Album Artist (auto)] fields that I'm aware of. Only between [Album Artist] and [Album Artist (auto)].

I think... that if you clear [Album Artist (auto)] it also clears [Artist] for selected files.

To prevent this kind of confusion [Album Artist (auto)] perhaps should be non-editable field as it is calculated field anyway

Album Artist (auto) is a calculated field to automatically detect multiartist albums. So if you have album with multiple artists MC will fill (Multiple Artists) to it. This can be overridden by setting value to [Album Artist] field. e.g

Track 1. Artist=Neil Young
TracK 2. Artist=Neil Young
Track 3. Artist=Buffalo Springfield

==>
Album Artist (auto) = (Multiple Artists)

Now if you set [Album Artist] to Neil Young for every file in the album
==>
Album Artist (auto) = Neil Young


@macdonjh
Is every file for album in the same folder? MC requires that when it is considering the album completeness and it could also affect [Album Artist (auto)]

[macdonjh]

@lepa,

Thanks for your reply.  Before I copied these multiple artist albums to my NAS and converted to MC for Windows, the albums displayed properly.

Yes, each track of these multiple artist [Album]s is in a folder titled with the album title.
There are, in fact, different [Artist] for several tracks of each of these [Album]s.
Each track for each multiple artist [Album] has the same name/text string for the [Album] field.
Previously, MC (for Mac) did automatically detect different artists for the same [Album], and acted as you describe.  For some reason, MC (for Windows) is not treating these [Album]s the way you describe.

That's why I'm confused and frustrated.  I expected MC to behave exactly as you describe, but it's not and I don't know how to fix it.

[macdonjh]

Update:

First, thanks to everyone for posting their ideas here to help me out.  I am slowly getting things sorted out, but it is frustrating.

Multiple Artist Albums: I still don't know how to fix this.  Almost all of them are displayed as individual albums for each [Artist] on the album, rather than a single album with [Album Artist (auto)] = (Multiple Artists) like it should be.

TV Series cover art: Still won't display the .jpg file I have chosen for the [Series].  Many of my other problems were caused by faulty copying and/or corrupted back-ups (my main USB has different files on it than my back-up USB, even though I used rsync to copy from my main USB to my back-up USB, no explanation for that).  So I've spent some time rebuilding my media files on my NAS and have most of that sorted out. 

Movie cover art: I think my problems here are due to faulty copying/ faulty back-ups.  I can't believe how many files are missing.  I've been copying files one movie at a time and using Get Movie and TV Info to restore cover art, again, one movie at a time.  Sheesh.

[Doof]

I think... that if you clear [Album Artist (auto)] it also clears [Artist] for selected files.

Interesting. I never noticed that, but you're right. I just tested it.

Multiple Artist Albums: I still don't know how to fix this.  Almost all of them are displayed as individual albums for each [Artist] on the album, rather than a single album with [Album Artist (auto)] = (Multiple Artists) like it should be.

What does the directory structure that all these files are in look like? Can you post a screenshot of MC that shows the [Artist], [Album Artist], [Album Artist (auto)], [Album], [Complete Album], and [Filename] columns of an affected album?

Also, just out of curiosity, you don't have any other media systems monitoring your files that might be doing any sort of auto-tagging or auto-renaming?

TV Series cover art: Still won't display the .jpg file I have chosen for the [Series].

How are you doing this? AFAIK you have to manually copy a file into the Series cover art location with the correct name.

Movie cover art: I think my problems here are due to faulty copying/ faulty back-ups.  I can't believe how many files are missing.  I've been copying files one movie at a time and using Get Movie and TV Info to restore cover art, again, one movie at a time.  Sheesh.

This really shouldn't be necessary. What method are you using to copy files from your drives to your NAS? I know you said you used rsync for your backups but how are you moving them to the NAS? I'm in the process of moving ~20TB of video files from my old Windows server to my new Synology NAS, using Robocopy, and I've literally rebooted the NAS in the middle of the copying job and Robocopy happily recovered and continued along as soon as the volume became available again. I really wouldn't trust the built-in file copy tool to do the job correctly on a large volume like that.

Once the files are all moved over you can select all of the movies and run Get Movie and TV Info all at once to assign posters. Then it's just a matter of hunting through and fixing the few that matched incorrectly. Migrating a library like this can certainly be a pain but it generally isn't this big of a pain! Sorry it's not going more smoothly for you!

[macdonjh]

Interesting. I never noticed that, but you're right. I just tested it.

What does the directory structure that all these files are in look like? Can you post a screenshot of MC that shows the [Artist], [Album Artist], [Album Artist (auto)], [Album], [Complete Album], and [Filename] columns of an affected album?

I don't have a View like that set up, but I can at least post the values of those tags for an example:
[Artist] Bert
[Album Artist] _ (blank)
[Album Artist (auto)] Bert
[Album] All-Time Favorites 1
[Complete Album] ? no tag with that "title"
[Filename] //NAS//Multimedia/Music/All-Time Favorites 1/Bert - Doin' the Pigeon - Bert.wav
I also highlighted all the tracks in this album, and the [Album] tag for all the tracks is "All-Time Favorites 1"

Also, just out of curiosity, you don't have any other media systems monitoring your files that might be doing any sort of auto-tagging or auto-renaming?

Just whatever the default media player for Windows 10 is.  I don't use it, but I haven't deactivated it, either (if that's possible).

How are you doing this? AFAIK you have to manually copy a file into the Series cover art location with the correct name.

That's what I tried initially, and it worked when I was using MC27 for Mac.  I manually created a /Cover Art/Series folder and then saved various .jpg files in that folder.  They were named /Cover Art/Series/[Series Name].jpg.  Then I used Tools-> Options -> File Location -> Cover Art to "point" both MC27 and MC28 to that folder for my non-music cover art.  In MC27 for Mac it worked as I think you expect it to. 

In my new MC28 for Windows installation, I manually created and manually populated a Cover Art\Series folder.  I used Tools-> Options -> File Location -> Cover Art to "point" MC28 there.  Series cover art does not display properly.  I though I would connect one of my USB drives with a Cover Art/Series folder.  When I did that and tried to change the path in File Locations MC28 asked me if I wanted to "move my cover art" to the new folder.  That didn't seem right to me, so I hit cancel.

This really shouldn't be necessary. What method are you using to copy files from your drives to your NAS? I know you said you used rsync for your backups but how are you moving them to the NAS? I'm in the process of moving ~20TB of video files from my old Windows server to my new Synology NAS, using Robocopy, and I've literally rebooted the NAS in the middle of the copying job and Robocopy happily recovered and continued along as soon as the volume became available again. I really wouldn't trust the built-in file copy tool to do the job correctly on a large volume like that.

I don't remember exactly what I did, but I didn't know about Robocopy at the time, so I didn't use that.  I may have used Window Explorer to drag and drop, but again, I don't remember the details.  I am currently doing what RoderickGI recommends: <Copy> and <Paste>, for individual files as well as folders.  But I am doing things one movie at a time because at least one of my USB drives is completely screwed up: many files completely missing.

Once the files are all moved over you can select all of the movies and run Get Movie and TV Info all at once to assign posters. Then it's just a matter of hunting through and fixing the few that matched incorrectly. Migrating a library like this can certainly be a pain but it generally isn't this big of a pain! Sorry it's not going more smoothly for you!

Me too.  This is WAY more work, and way more frustrating than I'd anticipated.  Not all of it is problems with MC, something went horribly and invisibly wrong with my using rsync to back up my media files.  Copying from my USB drives to my NAS also went badly.  Unfortunately, since I can't trust what's on my USB drives I don't want to use Robocopy to re-copy everything.  I don't trust the results I'd get.

All that venting aside, thank you for your help.  I really appreciate it.

[Doof]

[Filename] //NAS//Multimedia/Music/All-Time Favorites 1/Bert - Doin' the Pigeon - Bert.wav

Ok, I think this is the source of your issue with the multi-artist albums. Since this album's directory is in your root music folder instead of under an artist, it could be tricking up MC's multi-artist album detection.
Try moving the album into like a "(Multiple Artists)" or "Various" directory like so: //NAS/Multimedia/Music/(Multiple Artists)/All-Time Favorites 1/Bert - Doin' the Pigeon.wav
I don't think the directory name itself matter, just that it's not at the root music folder. I think once you do that you'll see MC detect it as it should. I just took one of mine and moved it out into the root Music folder and after running Auto Import MC now displays it the way you describe. Putting it back in when the rest of my mixed artist albums fixed it.

The other possibility is that they're wav files, so don't support tagging. Do all the files have track numbers assigned to them in MC's database? I can't remember if that matters or not for multi-artist album detection, tbh, but if so it's possible that information got lost in the move unless it's still part of MC's database. Out of curiosity, any reason you prefer .wav files to other formats?

I manually created and manually populated a Cover Art\Series folder.  I used Tools-> Options -> File Location -> Cover Art to "point" MC28 there

Did you point this to "Cover Art\" or "Cover Art\Series\"?

Unfortunately, since I can't trust what's on my USB drives I don't want to use Robocopy to re-copy everything.  I don't trust the results I'd get.

Fair enough, I had a similar situation a bunch of years ago where I had a RAID 1 setup and thought I was safe from dead hard drives until the RAID controller itself corrupted the data on one of the disks and then mirrored it to the other. I still have a folder somewhere full of music files that I someday intend to go through and see what's salvageable. 

All that venting aside, thank you for your help.  I really appreciate it.

You're welcome! Hope we can get to the bottom of all this!

[lepa]

Ok, I think this is the source of your issue with the multi-artist albums. Since this album's directory is in your root music folder instead of under an artist, it could be tricking up MC's multi-artist album detection.
Try moving the album into like a "(Multiple Artists)" or "Various" directory like so: //NAS/Multimedia/Music/(Multiple Artists)/All-Time Favorites 1/Bert - Doin' the Pigeon.wav
I don't think the directory name itself matter, just that it's not at the root music folder. I think once you do that you'll see MC detect it as it should. I just took one of mine and moved it out into the root Music folder and after running Auto Import MC now displays it the way you describe. Putting it back in when the rest of my mixed artist albums fixed it.

It shouldn't matter as long as there are only one album's songs in one folder (e.g. All-Time Favorites 1) i think.

That [complete album] library field is the key though. I bet it is empty and therefore MC doesn't consider album as a whole multiple artist album but as an individual tracks. Screenshots of tags would be helpful so they information perfectly exact. You can find complete album field by typing it to left side tagging panel's search box.

So what were the rules for MC to consider complete album?
1. Songs must be in the same folder
2. [album] name is the same for all the songs
3. track numbering [track #] must exist and can't have gaps
Something else?

[Doof]

It shouldn't matter as long as there are only one album's songs in one folder (e.g. All-Time Favorites 1) i think.

I didn't think so either but when I moved one of my multi-artist albums out to the root music folder level MC immediately recategorized it as a bunch of single tracks.

So what were the rules for MC to consider complete album?
1. Songs must be in the same folder
2. [album] name is the same for all the songs
3. track numbering [track #] must exist and can't have gaps
Something else?

I think at one point there was also a minimum number of tracks necessary, but I'm not sure if that's still a requirement or not.

[lepa]

I didn't think so either but when I moved one of my multi-artist albums out to the root music folder level MC immediately recategorized it as a bunch of single tracks.

Ok, definitely worth checking that then also

[macdonjh]

I didn't think so either but when I moved one of my multi-artist albums out to the root music folder level MC immediately recategorized it as a bunch of single tracks.

I think at one point there was also a minimum number of tracks necessary, but I'm not sure if that's still a requirement or not.

Just verified:
Songs for my All-Time Favorites 1 [Album] are all in the same folder
Each [Name] (i.e. song title) has the same [Album] associated with it
Each song has a track number, the tracks are 1-14 with no gaps

Still appears as several different albums with several different [Artist].  Very weird.

[Doof]

Just verified:
Songs for my All-Time Favorites 1 [Album] are all in the same folder
Each [Name] (i.e. song title) has the same [Album] associated with it
Each song has a track number, the tracks are 1-14 with no gaps

Still appears as several different albums with several different [Artist].  Very weird.

Humor me and move that folder into another folder named "(Multiple Artists)"?

So... \\NAS\Multimedia\Music\(Multiple Artists)\All-Time Favorites 1\

And then have MC run auto-import to pick it up in its new location and see if that helps?

[macdonjh]

I'll try that, but in my previous installation I didn't have to do that manually.  MC took care of that.

Sorry, I completely missed your post on Wednesday about this. 

[edit] I just looked at the three multiple artist [Albums] being handled correctly by MC and they are, in fact, in a sub-folder called (Multiple Artists).  Perhaps the difference is "multiple artist" status was detected and properly tagged when I ripped those CDs.  Since my recent <Copy> operation was such a mess perhaps those tags got corrupted and the files didn't get Imported properly?

What ever, I will try moving those files to \Music\(Multiple Artists)\All-Time Favorites 1\[Name] and see what happens.

[macdonjh]

I tried using Rename, Move & Copy to Move All-Time Favorites 1 into my Music\Multiple Artists folder.  After I moved the files the album displayed properly.

However, I didn't get any benefit from trying the same procedure with other albums with multiple artists which are not displayed correctly. 

Interesting bit of information: All-Time Favorites 1 was not in my Music\Multiple Artists folder, but some of the albums I tried RM&C on were in that folder.  When I checked the tags of the "stubborn" albums, [Album Artist (auto)] = (varies).  I tried Update Tags from Library, but [Album Artist (auto)] = (varies) still. 

One album corrected, a dozen or more to go... 

[Doof]

When I checked the tags of the "stubborn" albums, [Album Artist (auto)] = (varies).  I tried Update Tags from Library, but [Album Artist (auto)] = (varies) still. 

For those files, what's the value of the [Album Artist] field?

[macdonjh]

Blank

[macdonjh]

I tried something new today.  I've been rebuilding my video files "the hard way" so I decided to try that with these problem (Multiple Artist) [Albums].  Here's what I did:

Within Windows Explorer I opened a (Multiple Artist) [Album] and used <Copy>
Still within WE I then went to \NAS\Multimedia\Music\Multiple Artists and used <Paste> to place that copy of the [Album] folder where it belongs.  I told Windows to overwrite whatever it found current in the folder.
Then I went to MC28, and used the File Tree to open the album I'd just copied and played the first few seconds of each song.  I think I have MC28 configured to "import when played", so this should have re-established all the Library links.
Then I checked my Audio -> Albums View and there was a single Cover Art, just like there should be.  I also double checked the Tags, and every song shows [Album Artist (auto)] = (Multiple Artist).  Strangely, [Album Artist] = blank.

Now for the weird thing, three or four songs do not play from MC28, I get an error message.  But, if I double click the file within Windows Explorer, Windows uses MC28 to play the songs. 

Any ideas about that?

[macdonjh]

I made a clean install of MC28 and then created a new Library from scratch (I didn't try to restore an old Library).  Everything is now working the way I'm used to it working.