Classical - Multi-Library, Custom Scan & Custom Browse Configuration

[NPendrigh]

I have been following these instructions almost verbatim
- Setup browse menu for classical music
- http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.ph...lassical_music

To avoid typing errors, I have copied and pasted from the wiki to the set up pages

Custom Scan set up
I presume that I did this correctly

Multi-Library set up two libraries
Classical - It shows that there are 15 songs
- Classical music is selected by belonging to two selected genres - 15 songs is the correct total
Non-Classical - It shows there are 127 songs
- Selected by ticking all other genres except for the two selected in Classical

Custom Browse Menus following the wiki
Structure looks good
All Classical menus do not list any contents - no Artists, Genres, Composers, etc.

Custom Browse Menus set up by me called Composers
This lists all of the Composers from both Libraries simultaneously whatever the Genre

So a couple of Questions
1. For what reason are the Classical Custom Browse not showing anything but the Composers Custom Browse is providing a full list?
2. If Classical is the selected Library, should only classical music be shown in all menus including the LMS standard ones?

The first question is the most important as this is why I followed the set up instructions in order to be able to browse Classical music more appropriately

Any suggestions or help gratefully received

[erland]

1. For what reason are the Classical Custom Browse not showing anything but the Composers Custom Browse is providing a full list?

Check how the "Library" parameter in the Custom Browse menu configuration is set, it should be set to the specific library.
Also make sure the "Limit to active library" option in the menu configuration is NOT checked. If it's checked it will limit the contents the currently selected library in the Extras/Multi Library menu.

However, it feels a bit strange that the menus that have been created automatically doesn't work, so the first thing I would do is to click the "Refresh" link at bottom of Extras/Multi Library page. If this doesn't help I would also try to restart Squeezebox Server/Logitech Media Server and see if that helps.

2. If Classical is the selected Library, should only classical music be shown in all menus including the LMS standard ones?

In the menu configuration the parameters that affects the contents are:
- "Library": This will limit the content to the library that has been selected in this paramter
- "Limit to active library": This will limit the content to the library that has currently been selected in Extras/Multi Library. The primary usage of this parameter is to have a single menu which shows different contents depending if "Dad's library" or "Moms library" has been selected in Extras/Multi Library. However, it only really works good on Classic/Boom/Transporter devices when using an IR remote for control, so unless this is the case I would always recommend to NOT check this option.

[NPendrigh]

Check how the "Library" parameter in the Custom Browse menu configuration is set, it should be set to the specific library.

Set to Classical Music

Also make sure the "Limit to active library" option in the menu configuration is NOT checked. If it's checked it will limit the contents the currently selected library in the Extras/Multi Library menu.

Not selected

However, it feels a bit strange that the menus that have been created automatically doesn't work, so the first thing I would do is to click the "Refresh" link at bottom of Extras/Multi Library page. If this doesn't help I would also try to restart Squeezebox Server/Logitech Media Server and see if that helps..

- I reverted to a backup that had never had any plug ins installed
- I then installed each of the Plug Ins and its update one by one
- I then started at the beginning of the instructions and followed them word for word as far as the end of Composers By Artist
- - I selected the two Classical Genres (the only two I have at the moment: Hindustani Classical Percussion and Chinese Classical
- I rebooted the machine
- Same result

The Composers By Artist menu is there and it is empty

Latest production versions of LMS, plug-ins and OS Windows7 64 bit
Programs are on C Drive
Plug-Ins are on F drive in a folder called F:\Playlists
Music in F:\WMA
Both set in Basic Settings
Music Format is WMA Lossless
Composers and Conductors show up when using standard menus and viewing tags

What would you recommend?

[erland]

What would you recommend?

Can you post or send me:
1. The *.ml.values.xml file that represent your libraries (You will find them in the directory configured in Multi Library settings page)
2. The *.cb.values.xml file that represent your menu that doesn't work (You will find them in the directory configured in Custom Browse settings page)
3. Your customscan.prefs file (you will find them in the "plugin" folder inside the "Preference Folder", you can find it's location in the SBS/LMS Settings/Information page in the web interface)

The problem could be related to using small/large letters inconsistently in the configuration, but it can also be something else, but I think the fastest way to solve it would be if you send/post the above files so I can take a look at them.

[NPendrigh]

Can you post or send me:
1. The *.ml.values.xml file that represent your libraries (You will find them in the directory configured in Multi Library settings page)

classical.ml.values.xml found in F:\Playlists set by the Playlists folder in Basic Settings of the LMS configuration contains

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<multilibrary>
<template>
<id>standard.xml</id>
<parameter type="text" id="libraryname"><value>Classical Music</value></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="libraryorder"><value>50</value></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="menugroup"></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="directory1"></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="directory2"></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="directory3"></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="directory4"></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="excludedirectory1"></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="excludedirectory2"></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="excludedirectory3"></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="excludedirectory4"></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="playlist"><value></value></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="containsincludedcomment"><value>0</value></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="includedcomment"></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="containsexcludedcomment"><value>0</value></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="excludedcomment"></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="includedgenres" quotevalue="1"><value>Chinese Classical</value><value>Hindustani Classical Percussion</value></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="excludedgenres" quotevalue="1"></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="includedartists" quotevalue="1"></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="excludedartists" quotevalue="1"></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="lossless"><value>0</value></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="lossy"><value>0</value></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="minbitrate"></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="maxbitrate"></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="onlyhighresolution"><value>0</value></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="includedcontenttypes" quotevalue="1"></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="includedclients"></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="excludedclients"></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="internalmenus"></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="custombrowsemenus"></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="enabledbrowse"><value>0</value></parameter>
</template>
</multilibrary>



standard.ml.values.xml also found in F:\Playlists set by the Playlists folder in Basic Settings of the LMS configuration contains

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<multilibrary>
<template>
<id>standard.xml</id>
<parameter type="text" id="libraryname"><value>Classical Music</value></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="libraryorder"><value>50</value></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="menugroup"></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="directory1"></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="directory2"></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="directory3"></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="directory4"></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="excludedirectory1"></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="excludedirectory2"></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="excludedirectory3"></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="excludedirectory4"></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="playlist"><value></value></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="containsincludedcomment"><value>0</value></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="includedcomment"></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="containsexcludedcomment"><value>0</value></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="excludedcomment"></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="includedgenres" quotevalue="1"><value>Chinese Classical</value><value>Hindustani Classical Percussion</value></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="excludedgenres" quotevalue="1"></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="includedartists" quotevalue="1"></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="excludedartists" quotevalue="1"></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="lossless"><value>0</value></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="lossy"><value>0</value></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="minbitrate"></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="maxbitrate"></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="onlyhighresolution"><value>0</value></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="includedcontenttypes" quotevalue="1"></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="includedclients"></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="excludedclients"></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="internalmenus"></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="custombrowsemenus"></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="enabledbrowse"><value>0</value></parameter>
</template>
</multilibrary>

[NPendrigh]

Can you post or send me:
2. The *.cb.values.xml file that represent your menu that doesn't work (You will find them in the directory configured in Custom Browse settings page)

composersbyartist.cb.values.xml found in F:\Playlists set by the Playlists folder in Basic Settings of the LMS configuration contains

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<custombrowse>
<template>
<id>customscan_mixedtags</id>
<parameter type="text" id="menuname"><value>Composers by Artist</value></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="menugroup"><value>Classical Music</value></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="menuorder"><value>50</value></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="limituppertags"><value>1</value></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="customtag1"><value>ARTIST</value></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="customtagtype1"><value></value></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="customsorttag1"></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="customtag1artistsort"><value>0</value></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="customtag1numbersort"><value>0</value></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="customtag2"><value>COMPOSER</value></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="customtagtype2"><value></value></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="level2name"><value>Composers</value></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="customsorttag2"></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="customtag2artistsort"><value>0</value></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="customtag2numbersort"><value>0</value></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="customtag3"><value>WORK</value></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="customtagtype3"><value></value></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="level3name"><value>Works</value></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="customsorttag3"></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="customtag3artistsort"><value>0</value></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="customtag3numbersort"><value>0</value></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="customtag4"></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="customtagtype4"><value></value></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="level4name"></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="customsorttag4"></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="customtag4artistsort"><value>0</value></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="customtag4numbersort"><value>0</value></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="customtag5"></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="customtagtype5"><value></value></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="level5name"></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="customsorttag5"></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="customtag5artistsort"><value>0</value></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="customtag5numbersort"><value>0</value></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="customtracktag"></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="playalltracks"><value>1</value></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="library"><value>1</value></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="activelibrary"><value>0</value></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="includedclients"></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="excludedclients"></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="includedlibraries"><value></value></parameter>
<parameter type="text" id="excludedlibraries"><value></value></parameter>
</template>
</custombrowse>

[NPendrigh]

Can you post or send me:
3. Your customscan.prefs file (you will find them in the "plugin" folder inside the "Preference Folder", you can find it's location in the SBS/LMS Settings/Information page in the web interface)

The problem could be related to using small/large letters inconsistently in the configuration, but it can also be something else, but I think the fastest way to solve it would be if you send/post the above files so I can take a look at them.

customscan.prefs found in C:\ProgramData\Squeezebox\prefs\plugin (a hidden folder) contains

---
_ts_auto_rescan: 1335317163
_ts_long_urls: 1335317163
_ts_module_customtag_active: 1335593888
_ts_module_customtag_enabled: 1335593888
_ts_module_mixedtag_active: 1335594068
_ts_module_mixedtag_enabled: 1335594068
_ts_module_mixedtag_order: 1335594068
_ts_properties: 1335594068
_ts_refresh_rescan: 1335317164
_ts_refresh_startup: 1335317164
_ts_rescan_refresh: 1335317163
_ts_showmessages: 1335317164
_ts_startup_refresh: 1335317163
_ts_titleformats: 1335317163
_version: 1
auto_rescan: 1
long_urls: 1
module_customtag_active: 1
module_customtag_enabled: 1
module_mixedtag_active: 1
module_mixedtag_enabled: 1
module_mixedtag_order: '60'
properties:
customsorttags: 'WORK=WORKSORT '
customtagrawmp3tags: 0
customtags: OWNER,ORIGIN, WORK,WORKSORT,MOVEMENT
customtagsmapping: ''
lastfmpicturedir: ''
lastfmsimilarartistpercent: 80
lastfmtagspercent: 10
lastfmtimeout: 15
mixedtagalbumartisttags: ARTIST,ALBUMARTIST
mixedtagalbumtags: ALBUM
mixedtagartisttags: ARTIST
mixedtagbandtags: BAND,ARTIST
mixedtagcomposertags: COMPOSER
mixedtagconductortags: CONDUCTOR,ARTIST
mixedtagcustomtags: '1'
mixedtagexcludedcustomtags: ''
mixedtagfriendlynames: 'ALBUM(Album:Albums),ARTIST(Artist:Artists),GENRE( Genre:Genres),YEAR(Year:Years),CONDUCTOR(Conductor :Conductors),COMPOSER(Composer:Composers),BAND(Ban d:Bands),TRACKARTIST(Track
Artist:Track Artists),ALBUMARTIST(Album Artist:Album Artists) '
mixedtaggenretags: GENRE
mixedtagtrackartisttags: TRACKARTIST
mixedtagyeartags: YEAR
ratingtag: RATING
ratingtagmax: 100
singlecustomtags: ORIGIN
writeratingtag: 1
refresh_rescan: 1
refresh_startup: 1
rescan_refresh: 1
showmessages: 0
startup_refresh: 1
titleformats: []



How can this file location be re-directed to elsewhere for easy finding and backup?

[erland]

Ok, some ideas:
1.
There seems to be a space before WORK in the "Tags to scan" parameter in Custom Tag scanning module settings page inside Custom Scan settings. I don't think this should be an issue if you are using a recent version, but I know there were a bug related to extra spaces before/after the tag name in this field in a previous version.

2.
I assume you have WORK tags in your music files ? If you don't I would suggest that you replace WORK with ALBUM in the Custom Browse menu configuration, it's not the same thing but it might work fairly good temporarily if you don't have WORK tags in your music files.

3.
I suspect that the tags aren't scanned by Custom Scan properly for some reason, the easiest way to see what kind of tags that have been scanned is to use the "Custom Scan Statistics" query in Database Query plugin, this will give you information about the number of each tag that have been scanned into the database, both by Custom Tag(customtag) scanning module and by Mixed Tag(mixedtag) scanning module.

In the report you will get lines like:
Number of songs with customtag attributes of type WORK 441
Number of songs with mixedtag attributes of type WORK 441

It's the second line which refers to "mixedtag" that is of interest in the Custom Browse menu template that you are using.

If there is no mixedtag line for either ARTIST, COMPOSER or WORK, this is the reason why you get empty menus.
The cause for tags not appearing could be:
- That the tags don't exist in the music files
- That the Custom Tag + Mixed Tag scanning modules haven't been executed. If you have followed the tutorial on the wiki they will be executed automatically after a SBS/LMS rescan, but you can also run them manually from the Custom Scan settings page. If you run them manually it's important to either use the "Scan all" link or run "Custom Tag" first, let it finish and run "Mixed Tag" as a second step. The "Scan all" option will run them in the correct order automatically as long as you haven't reconfigured the scanning order parameter for them.

If you have done the above and it still doesn't work, I would suggest that you send me a small file which you think should have all the tags and I'll try it in my own setup. It's possible to enable debug logging of Custom Scan in SBS Settings/Advanced/Logging but it can be pretty hard to interpret it, so unless the above ideas solves the problem I would suggest that you just send me a small music file so I can look at my own environment instead.

[erland]

customscan.prefs found in C:\ProgramData\Squeezebox\prefs\plugin (a hidden folder) contains

How can this file location be re-directed to elsewhere for easy finding and backup?

I'm not sure how it works on Windows, there might be some option to re-configure the preference folder in the Control Panel icon for SBS/LMS.

On Linux I can specify a command line argument when I start SBS/LMS, like:
slimserver.pl --prefsdir /home/erland/Configurations/SBSPrefs

But I don't think that works good on Windows where you probably are running SBS/LMS as service. It's probably better that you ask about how to reconfigure the Preference Folder on Windows in a separate thread in the "Logitech Media Server" section of the forum as it's a general setting and not related to third party plugins.

I think the reason it's stored under C:\ProgramData and not under your user profile directory is that SBS/LMS needs to be possible to run as a service where it can be used even if you haven't logged into the the computer. If you are using some backup software you can probably just configure it to backup the C:\ProgramData\Squeezebox\prefs directory.

[NPendrigh]

Ok, some ideas:
1.
There seems to be a space before WORK in the "Tags to scan" parameter in Custom Tag scanning module settings page inside Custom Scan settings. I don't think this should be an issue if you are using a recent version, but I know there were a bug related to extra spaces before/after the tag name in this field in a previous version.

2.
I assume you have WORK tags in your music files ? If you don't I would suggest that you replace WORK with ALBUM in the Custom Browse menu configuration, it's not the same thing but it might work fairly good temporarily if you don't have WORK tags in your music files.

3.
I suspect that the tags aren't scanned by Custom Scan properly for some reason, the easiest way to see what kind of tags that have been scanned is to use the "Custom Scan Statistics" query in Database Query plugin, this will give you information about the number of each tag that have been scanned into the database, both by Custom Tag(customtag) scanning module and by Mixed Tag(mixedtag) scanning module.

1. Well spotted! I changed this and it made no difference

2. No WORK tags
Changing WORK to ALBUM populated the menu each time I did this - well done!
When I did not make this switch, the menu was blank

3. Not used


Unless Work is the top level of a menu, for what reason do WORK tags have to be present in the music file for the Menu to be populated?

For instance, with Artists by Composer, I would still expect all Classical Composers to be listed at the top level