Problem with tracks that have no 'album' data

[AaronS]

Hello

First up, apologies. I posted this in the beginners section as well, but got no response.

I upgraded to 6.2.1. Since then, I'm having trouble with songs that have no 'album' data included in the ID3 tag.

Most of my library has album data, but about 600 songs don't. I think it's perfectly sensible not to use the album field when you don't have all the songs on the album.

When I navigate to an artist that has a song with no album data, I see a list of all the albums, and an option for 'no album'. As before.

When I select it, I don't get the 'no album' songs from that artist.. but from all the artists. Not only that, the only ones that I can actually play are from the artist I was navigating too. The songs by the other artists won't go into the playlist.

Another post on this forum indicates that this isn't a bug, rather it's a change in functionality to meet a different need. Sadly, this has really messed up by system.

What can I do to get around this? Or is this a bug, after all?

[Jim]

I think you're relying on a software solution too much, when it's pretty easy to fix. The catergory "No Album" or "No Artist" is a bit of a get-out only to be used when you want to see what you've screwed up or what Slim didn't understand.

What I do with all my files is the following:

If I don't know the artist, it's blank or I cannot be bothered to fill it in I set the artist to "ZZZZZZUnknown Artist". This is a good reference to keep it at the bottom of any list, and also to quickly find what I need to fix.

The same if it is an unknown album and I have all the tracks.

If it's just one song I ripped then I give it the album "Jim's Singles" by AlbumArtist "Various Artists".

If it's something else such as a old Napster MP3 or whatever then I give it the album "Jim's 128kbps MP3s", again with AlbumArtist "Various Artists".

I don't bother with track numbers, but you could further catergorise this random stuff into your favourite order keeping < 100 tracks per "Album" obviously..... e.g. "Jim's Reggae Downloads"....."Jim's Funny Stuff"....

From then on if you still find listings of "No Album" or "No Artist" it's an easier indication of problems.

[AaronS]

I think you're relying on a software solution too much, when it's pretty easy to fix. The catergory "No Album" or "No Artist" is a bit of a get-out only to be used when you want to see what you've screwed up or what Slim didn't understand.

Hmm. With all due respect, I don't agree with that. I don't accept that all the available ID3 tags have to be filled in. Some tracks don't have albums at all.

All my other MP3 playing software/hardware deals with this material perfectly fine. And Slimserver used to. It's strange to suggest that I should have to add inaccurate metadata just to deal with a software limitation - especially when that limitation has just been introduced.

[Jim]

Your metadata is inaccurate, but yes there is an underlying problem with SlimServer which is why it doesn't work.

But IMHO it makes far more sense to have "ZZZZZZUnknown Artist" than the artist field blank. Both are crappy, but at least I can jump to my unknown artist quickly, and my WinAmp listings of all my artists tie up exactly with ones on my web interface.

It's all down to control and consistency - this is not a critical issue with the Server as you are relying on it to get you out of trouble because you have not fully completed your music organisation - that track appeared on an album somewhere, or a CD single, or a bootleg or radioshow or something that had a title so for completeness you should find it.

I only have a few tracks/albums that really have no titles and that's usually stuff by Aphex Twin or whatever name you're used to calling him. But if you look around any music store rather than list it as nothing they refer to it as "(Untitled)" which I do too.

Yes the Slimserver should be expected to deal with blank artists but much better for control to set to your specifics because maybe WinAmp shows '' as Artist, iTunes 'Unknown' and Slim 'No Artist'.

[Mark Lanctot]

Aaron:

I have the exact same problem as you. I went with
this suggestion:

"Try the following

Server Settings:Behaviour:Common Album Titles
Check the box.
Add the appropriate name(s) in.

You may think that this doesn't help. You may need
to tag all you mp3s with "noalbumdata" then add
that to the list in the server settings. This may
not be the answer that you are looking for but it
works well for me.

I believe the behaviour you are referring to was
changed to reflect the efforts of the Compliations
section."

Unfortunately it turned out this only worked for
one artist. That particular artist has 3 links
when I click on the artist's name - All Songs and
two noalbumdata links.

All Songs works fine, both noalbumdata links bring
up several hundred mismatched files.

Unfortunately it seems this is the only artist I
can get an "All Songs" link for.

What I'm doing now is going to the Artist link and
adding that to the playlist, which adds all songs
from that artist, then removing the songs from the
artist I don't want. Kind of a pain and it's a
real problem with >10 songs.

The good news is that Dan Sully at Slim Devices
has asked to take a look at one of the tracks from
the Artist that makes the "All Songs" link, so at
least someone is looking into it.

Hang in there, I am...

AaronS wrote:
> Jim Wrote:
>
>>I think you're relying on a software solution too
much, when it's pretty
>>easy to fix. The catergory "No Album" or "No
Artist" is a bit of a
>>get-out only to be used when you want to see what
you've screwed up or
>>what Slim didn't understand.
>>
>
>
> Hmm. With all due respect, I don't agree with that.
I don't accept that
> all the available ID3 tags have to be filled in.
Some tracks don't have
> albums at all.
>
> All my other MP3 playing software/hardware deals
with this material
> perfectly fine. And Slimserver used to. It's strange
to suggest that I
> should have to add inaccurate metadata just to deal
with a software
> limitation - especially when that limitation has
just been introduced.
>
>

--
___________________________________


Mark Lanctot, marklanctot (AT) yahoo (DOT) ca
___________________________________

[mikeb]

When you say you "navigate to an artist", what do you mean? By what
means are you navigating?

I just upgraded to 6.2.1 to test this for you and I don't see that
behavior in the Fishbone skin, or via the infrared remote. When
selecting the No Album option, only songs by that artist show up.

and for Jim, "ZZZZZZUnknown Artist" is not more accurate than leaving
it blank in any situation ;-).

Not a single one of my MP3s has an album listed and they all play,
sort, and sound wonderful just like billions of other MP3s around the
world.

-- Mike


AaronS wrote:
> Hello
>
> First up, apologies. I posted this in the beginners section as well,
> but got no response.
>
> I upgraded to 6.2.1. Since then, I'm having trouble with songs that
> have no 'album' data included in the ID3 tag.
>
> Most of my library has album data, but about 600 songs don't. I think
> it's perfectly sensible not to use the album field when you don't have
> all the songs on the album.
>
> When I navigate to an artist that has a song with no album data, I see
> a list of all the albums, and an option for 'no album'. As before.
>
> When I select it, I don't get the 'no album' songs from that artist..
> but from all the artists. Not only that, the only ones that I can
> actually play are from the artist I was navigating too. The songs by
> the other artists won't go into the playlist.
>
> Another post on this forum indicates that this isn't a bug, rather it's
> a change in functionality to meet a different need. Sadly, this has
> really messed up by system.
>
> What can I do to get around this? Or is this a bug, after all?
>
>

[Steve Baumgarten]

> I only have a few tracks/albums that really have no titles and that's
> usually stuff by Aphex Twin or whatever name you're used to calling
> him. But if you look around any music store rather than list it as
> nothing they refer to it as "(Untitled)" which I do too.

Sigur Ros is the ultimate tagging nightmare in this regard. Check out
this album:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg.../-/B00006LLNU/

The album has no name and the tracks have no titles. So it's referred to
as "()" and each track is "Untitled 1", "Untitled 2", etc. Fun!

Peter Gabriel also had some fun with this early in his solo career; a
number of his albums have no title and so are referred to by the picture
in the cover art (e.g., "Car", "Melt") and by the order in which they
were released. But those aren't the "official" names -- there are no
official names for those albums.

SBB





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[AaronS]

When you say you "navigate to an artist", what do you mean? By what
means are you navigating?

I just upgraded to 6.2.1 to test this for you and I don't see that
behavior in the Fishbone skin, or via the infrared remote. When
selecting the No Album option, only songs by that artist show up.

and for Jim, "ZZZZZZUnknown Artist" is not more accurate than leaving
it blank in any situation ;-).

-- Mike

This applies both when using the (standard) web interface and the Squeezebox interface.

When I find an artist, either by selecting 'browse artist' or searching for them, I see a list of albums, as you'd expect. If there are any MP3s associated with that artist that have no album entered in the ID3 tag, then I get an option 'no album'. When I click on that, I get all the files in my library that have no album attached - rather than just the ones relevant to that artist.

[Craig, James (IT)]

I get the same problem as Aaron. It's very annoying.

I've been ignoring it for a while, hoping it would go away, as I
generally use playlists.

James
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[Ben Sandee]

On 11/23/05, AaronS <AaronS.1yyf4n (AT) no-mx (DOT) forums.slimdevices.com> wrote:
>
> When I find an artist, either by selecting 'browse artist' or searching
> for them, I see a list of albums, as you'd expect. If there are any MP3s
> associated with that artist that have no album entered in the ID3 tag,
> then I get an option 'no album'. When I click on that, I get all the
> files in my library that have no album attached - rather than just the
> ones relevant to that artist.
>
> I said it was 6.2.1 - it may be 6.2.2. Everything reports 6.2.1, but i
> saw another forum post which implied that 6.2.2 doesn't say it's 6.2.2.
> Or something.
>

You really should file a bug on this if you want it to be fixed -- I'm sure
it's unintentional behavior. It doesn't make sense to list all artist
tracks underneath a specific artist.

Ben