Announce: New versions of erlands plugins

[PasTim]

Anything with stars comes from TrackStat (track_statistics.rating)
The standard SBS/LMS Rating item is displayed a bit down the on the Song Info page, probably as "Rating: 60" in this case.


Thanks for reporting, it could be something with the alpha version, I haven't tested the Rating Tag module much with the alpha version as I've mainly had the focus to get it to work with CustomTag/MixedTag scanning modules now in the beginning.

Thanks very much for the quick response (as usual).

This confirms what I saw when I was having problems analysing what was going on. I had **** (as it was before I changed the flac track rating tag) on the song info page, with a Rating: 60 below, even after a full (alpha) custom scan with the Rating Module. This got me very confused (apologies for some of my earlier ramblings).

I now have sufficient information to be able to work things out in future, and even patch them up in the tables if I really have to.

Unless my memory deceives me you've also recently updated the trackstat wiki, which is excellent.

[erland]

Just for information to anyone with issues with TrackStat and duplicated musicbrainz identities.

In the latest TrackStat version (3.1.3814) which I just released there is an option in the TrackStat settings page to disable the musicbrainz tag related logic.

If you haven't had any issues you are probably not affected, the issues are typically shown as startup performance issues or inability to set/view ratings. If you haven't seen any of these you can probably keep using TrackStat as usual and don't have to disable musicbrainz integration. Also, if you don't have musicbrainz tags in your music files you are definitely not affected as this issue only affects people with musicbrainz tags.

If you want to check for potential issues you can do as follows:
1. Install the free Database Query plugin
2. Got "Extras/Database Query" in the web interface and execute the "Squeezebox Server Inconsistency/Problems" query and look for the "Duplicate musicbrainz song tags" value. If it says "No" you are fine.
3. To further test it, you can also run the "TrackStat Inconsistency/Problems" query and look for the "Duplicate entries in TrackStat statistics" parameter. If it says "No" you are definitely fine, if it says "Yes" and have a high number you should either correct your musicbrainz tags (if they are incorrect) or disable the TrackStat Musicbrainz integration in the TrackStat settings page.

The process to get rid of any existing duplicates are as follows:
1. For extra safety, shutdown SBS/LMS and take a backup of the SBS/LMS cache folder which contains the database. This will make it easy to recover later if something goes wrong.
2. Disable the Musicbrainz integration in TrackStat settings page
3. Do a TrackStat backup and make sure the file is written properly and contain a lot of data
4. Use the "Remove all data" button in TrackStat settings page (Backup section) to delete all TrackStat data
5. Restore the TrackStat backup, wait until the server.log file indicates that the restore operation is finished.

Finally, note that duplicate musicbrainz identities is not necessarily a tagging error, because Musicbrainz changed principles a year or two ago:
- Previously each track had a unique identity
- Now two tracks have the same identity as long as they both represent the same recording of a song. Typically this happens if one owns a normal album and a compilation album which both contains the same song from the same recording.

So unfortunately this means that musicbrainz identities are no longer a unique identification of a music file and due to this there are some issues both in TrackStat and SBS/LMS related to this. Fortunately most people aren't affected much since it usually only affects a few tracks in a library.

If you select to disable musicbrainz integration will means that TrackStat will no longer be able to keep statistics when you move or rename music files.

[MillmoorRon]

Is there any way to create a dynamic playlist which works like the 'dynamic mixed tags' custom browse but creates a playlist based on the matching songs?

Or a mixer which does this from the custom browse menu?

[erland]

Is there any way to create a dynamic playlist which works like the 'dynamic mixed tags' custom browse but creates a playlist based on the matching songs?

Or a mixer which does this from the custom browse menu?

It's possible through the web interface, there you will on the parent item get a "SQL" button with a tooltip saying "Create mixed tag SQL Playlist" that does what you want. It's only available in the web interface since currently all playlists needs to have a name and I haven't implemented any text editing or other management functions through the IR or SqueezePlay based remote controls at the moment. So the current solution will probably work if you just want to create a few playlists and then use them, but it will probably not work that good if you like to launch different mixes every day.

[MillmoorRon]

Yeah, it was a 'truly dynamic' (where all the parameters are picked at runtime) dynamic playlist I was thinking of!

Currently, if the results of the custom browse are quite large it can create a playlist with MANY tracks in.

On a related issue, is it possible to get all the possible values of a Custom Scan custom tag as a PlaylistParameter in a SQL?

Also, is it possible to have a PlaylistParameter which has an 'all' entry?

For example:

-- PlaylistParameter2:year:Select year:

might result in a list of 'All, 1970, 1972, 1973, ...'

so that an optional narrowing down of results could be achieved.

[erland]

Yeah, it was a 'truly dynamic' (where all the parameters are picked at runtime) dynamic playlist I was thinking of!

Currently, if the results of the custom browse are quite large it can create a playlist with MANY tracks in.

On a related issue, is it possible to get all the possible values of a Custom Scan custom tag as a PlaylistParameter in a SQL?

Yes, take a look at the "Random for custom tag" template which should be available if you have Custom Scan installed.
The template file name is in CustomScan/PlaylistTemplates/randomforcustomtag.* but you can probably just create a playlist of this type through the SQL Playlist user interface if you want to see how it looks like.

Also, is it possible to have a PlaylistParameter which has an 'all' entry?

For example:

-- PlaylistParameter2:year:Select year:

might result in a list of 'All, 1970, 1972, 1973, ...'

so that an optional narrowing down of results could be achieved.

Not easily, possibly it might be possible to combine it with some logic in the SQL which treats a certain value as not selected.
What kind of scenario/type of playlist are you thinking of ?

[MillmoorRon]

Yes, take a look at the "Random for custom tag" template which should be available if you have Custom Scan installed.
The template file name is in CustomScan/PlaylistTemplates/randomforcustomtag.* but you can probably just create a playlist of this type through the SQL Playlist user interface if you want to see how it looks like.

Thanks, that looks like what I'm after!

Not easily, possibly it might be possible to combine it with some logic in the SQL which treats a certain value as not selected.
What kind of scenario/type of playlist are you thinking of ?

I was just thinking of a generic playlist which could replace a lot of my more specific ones.

For example, 4 parameters (genre, year, 'customtag', artist)

If 'all' was an option in the drop-down lists you could create a varying degree of customisation to suit the mood without needing lots of different SQL files.

I might one day want to listen specifically to tracks which are tagged as metal from 1994 by Finnish bands (country of origin is one of my custom tags) but the next day I might fancy pop music from any year by Belgian artists - though that could be a very short playlist - or all genres from a year, or all from a year by a specific artist, etc.

Similar to how the dynamic mixed tags Custom Browse menu works but in a more structured way.

[onimod]

Hi Erland

I'm having trouble making the web UI artwork choice stick for custom browse menus.
Are these things managed by cookies? I recently reinstalled Firefox and I think that caused the issue.

The web UI view always reverts to "Small Artwork" when the page is refreshed despite my repeated choice for "Large Artwork".
It is working for the non-CB menus.

I have tried disabling the CB menus to see if that creates a new cookie but I haven't solved it yet.
Can you suggest what I need to do to fix the problem?

EDIT: I've tried installing and reinstalling the CB plug-in but that didn't seem to work.

[erland]

Hi Erland

I'm having trouble making the web UI artwork choice stick for custom browse menus.
Are these things managed by cookies? I recently reinstalled Firefox and I think that caused the issue.

The web UI view always reverts to "Small Artwork" when the page is refreshed despite my repeated choice for "Large Artwork".
It is working for the non-CB menus.

I have tried disabling the CB menus to see if that creates a new cookie but I haven't solved it yet.
Can you suggest what I need to do to fix the problem?

EDIT: I've tried installing and reinstalling the CB plug-in but that didn't seem to work.

They are managed by cookies but I think it's a bug because I see similar things in my own setup, the difference is that mine reverts to large artwork instead of small as yours does. I'll put it on the list of things to investigate, let me know if you find something.

[onimod]

Erland - aren't you supposed to know everything?!

I think I've solved the problem by editing a cookie.
There are 2 cookies named "Squeezebox-albumView"
One of them has the path as simply "/". I presume this is the default one.
The other one has the path "/plugins/CustomBrowse/". I presume this one is specific to CB.
There was no "Content" in the CB one so I edited it to match the default one with a content value of "1".
The web UI then displyed the desired "Large Artwork" view.

Interestingly there is also a third cookie named "SqueezeCentre-albumView".
I don't know enough about how and when cookies are created to guess why the CB cookie had no content or even why there are three very similarly named cookies, so that's probably then limit of my help for now.