Announce: Material Skin

[Mark153]

Hi Craig,

Firstly got to say a massive thank you for this skin and breathing a new lease of life into LMS.

Apologies if this has already been covered before, but searching didn't yield any obvious answers.

I've got a lot of Various Artists compilations and soundtracks albums in my library, a mixture of FLAC and MP3 format. If I directly browse into any these albums, I see the different artists next to each track and I can then tap an artist name and see every album that artist appears on in the library 👍🏻

However, if I navigate into the same album through search results or tapping into it through the playlist, only the tracks names appear:-



I've experimented with different tag combinations (ie. stripping ALBUMARTIST and COMPILATION tags) but it doesn't make any difference.

Also, as far as I can tell, it only seems to happen on the MP3 compilation albums, not those in FLAC.

Any idea what the problem might be? Thanks!

[slartibartfast]

Hi Craig,

Firstly got to say a massive thank you for this skin and breathing a new lease of life into LMS.

Apologies if this has already been covered before, but searching didn't yield any obvious answers.

I've got a lot of Various Artists compilations and soundtracks albums in my library, a mixture of FLAC and MP3 format. If I directly browse into any these albums, I see the different artists next to each track and I can then tap an artist name and see every album that artist appears on in the library 👍🏻

However, if I navigate into the same album through search results or tapping into it through the playlist, only the tracks names appear:-



I've experimented with different tag combinations (ie. stripping ALBUMARTIST and COMPILATION tags) but it doesn't make any difference.

Also, as far as I can tell, it only seems to happen on the MP3 compilation albums, not those in FLAC.

Any idea what the problem might be? Thanks!

I see the same with FLAC compilations. I do see the artist name next to the track title in the browse menu but I can't click on the artist name to get to a list of albums. Is there a setting for that?

[cpd73]

Hi Craig,

Firstly got to say a massive thank you for this skin and breathing a new lease of life into LMS.

Apologies if this has already been covered before, but searching didn't yield any obvious answers.

I've got a lot of Various Artists compilations and soundtracks albums in my library, a mixture of FLAC and MP3 format. If I directly browse into any these albums, I see the different artists next to each track and I can then tap an artist name and see every album that artist appears on in the library 👍🏻

However, if I navigate into the same album through search results or tapping into it through the playlist, only the tracks names appear:-

Sorry, I can't recreate this. The fileformat should make no difference to Material. If you use Material's JSONRCP debug (see my sig) then you can have a look at the REQ message sent when clicking on an album by browsing "My Music / Artists / <Artist> / Album", and then look at the same REQ sent when clicking on an album in search results. IF you look at the "tags:" parameter you will see what info Material is requesting. For me both scenarios send "tags:digkstuAACS" (For the meaning of each tag field look at http://SERVER:9000/material/html/doc....html#songinfo )

[cpd73]

I can't click on the artist name to get to a list of albums. Is there a setting for that?

Links are only clickable on a desktop browser.

[slartibartfast]

Sorry, I can't recreate this. The fileformat should make no difference to Material. If you use Material's JSONRCP debug (see my sig) then you can have a look at the REQ message sent when clicking on an album by browsing "My Music / Artists / <Artist> / Album", and then look at the same REQ sent when clicking on an album in search results. IF you look at the "tags:" parameter you will see what info Material is requesting. For me both scenarios send "tags:digkstuAACS" (For the meaning of each tag field look at http://SERVER:9000/material/html/doc....html#songinfo )

I see the same behaviour when accessing the album from the queue. The track artists aren't listed.

[Mark153]

Sorry, I can't recreate this. The fileformat should make no difference to Material. If you use Material's JSONRCP debug (see my sig) then you can have a look at the REQ message sent when clicking on an album by browsing "My Music / Artists / <Artist> / Album", and then look at the same REQ sent when clicking on an album in search results. IF you look at the "tags:" parameter you will see what info Material is requesting. For me both scenarios send "tags:digkstuAACS" (For the meaning of each tag field look at http://SERVER:9000/material/html/doc....html#songinfo )

Hi Craig - thanks for the speedy response.

I've extracted the JSON REQ under both a browse and search condition for the same album, and this what I get. Apologies if I'm sharing this info incorrectly...

BROWSED ALBUM
JSON REQ: ["cc:cc:09:f8:ea:02",["tracks",0,25000,"tags:digkstuAACSlorITE","sort:tracknum","album_id:25376","artist_id:31932","library_id:91b427f1"]]

SEARCHED ALBUM
JSON REQ: ["cc:cc:09:f8:ea:02",["tracks",0,25000,"tags:digkstuAACSlorITE","sort:tracknum","album_id:25376","library_id:91b427f1"]]​

So the tag request is clearly identical, but on the Browse REQ there is an "artist_id" which isn't present in the Search REQ. That artist ID is "Various Artists".

I don't know if it helps further, but here's the first portion of the JSON RESP for both situations, up to the end of the first track on the album:

BROWSED ALBUM
JSON RESP: {"method":"slim.request","result":{"titles_loop":[{"id":422040,"title":"You Can't Hurry Love","duration":172.586,"disc":"1","genre":"Pop","comment":"2008 25th Anniversary Re-Rel / 2008 25th Anniversary Re-Release","artist_id":"34346","tracknum":"1","url":"file:///volume1/Music/MP3%20PopRock/V/Various%20Artists/NOW%20Albums%20001-099/Now%20That%27s%20What%20I%20Call%20Music%2001/01-01%20-%20You%20Can%27t%20Hurry%20Love.mp3","artist":"Phil Collins","band":"Various Artists","compilation":"1","artist_ids":"34346","band_ids":"31932","album":"Now That's What I Call Music","type":"mp3","bitrate":"243kbps VBR","samplerate":"44100"}

SEARCHED ALBUM
JSON RESP: {"method":"slim.request","result":{"count":30,"titles_loop":[{"id":422040,"title":"You Can't Hurry Love","duration":172.586,"disc":"1","genre":"Pop","comment":"2008 25th Anniversary Re-Rel / 2008 25th Anniversary Re-Release","artist_id":"34346","tracknum":"1","url":"file:///volume1/Music/MP3%20PopRock/V/Various%20Artists/NOW%20Albums%20001-099/Now%20That%27s%20What%20I%20Call%20Music%2001/01-01%20-%20You%20Can%27t%20Hurry%20Love.mp3","artist":"Phil Collins","band":"Various Artists","compilation":"1","artist_ids":"34346","band_ids":"31932","album":"Now That's What I Call Music","type":"mp3","bitrate":"243kbps VBR","samplerate":"44100"}

The only difference I can spot here seems to be "count":30 at the start of the RESP string?

I did the same test with a VA FLAC album and both the Browse and Search REQ strings are identical.

Please let me know if you need any more info from me.

[cpd73]

BROWSED ALBUM
JSON RESP: {"method":"slim.request","result":{"titles_loop":[{"id":422040,"title":"You Can't Hurry Love","duration":172.586,"disc":"1","genre":"Pop","comment":"2008 25th Anniversary Re-Rel / 2008 25th Anniversary Re-Release","artist_id":"34346","tracknum":"1","url":"file:///volume1/Music/MP3%20PopRock/V/Various%20Artists/NOW%20Albums%20001-099/Now%20That%27s%20What%20I%20Call%20Music%2001/01-01%20-%20You%20Can%27t%20Hurry%20Love.mp3","artist":"Phil Collins","band":"Various Artists","compilation":"1","artist_ids":"34346","band_ids":"31932","album":"Now That's What I Call Music","type":"mp3","bitrate":"243kbps VBR","samplerate":"44100"}

SEARCHED ALBUM
JSON RESP: {"method":"slim.request","result":{"count":30,"titles_loop":[{"id":422040,"title":"You Can't Hurry Love","duration":172.586,"disc":"1","genre":"Pop","comment":"2008 25th Anniversary Re-Rel / 2008 25th Anniversary Re-Release","artist_id":"34346","tracknum":"1","url":"file:///volume1/Music/MP3%20PopRock/V/Various%20Artists/NOW%20Albums%20001-099/Now%20That%27s%20What%20I%20Call%20Music%2001/01-01%20-%20You%20Can%27t%20Hurry%20Love.mp3","artist":"Phil Collins","band":"Various Artists","compilation":"1","artist_ids":"34346","band_ids":"31932","album":"Now That's What I Call Music","type":"mp3","bitrate":"243kbps VBR","samplerate":"44100"}

OK, the issue appears to be because you have LMS configured to use TPE2 as Band, whereas I use this for Album Artist. Now why that should make a difference here, I'm not sure.

[slartibartfast]

OK, the issue appears to be because you have LMS configured to use TPE2 as Band, whereas I use this for Album Artist. Now why that should make a difference here, I'm not sure.

I have TPE2 as Album Artist but still see the same behaviour. In my case though I only have FLAC compilations.

[cpd73]

I have TPE2 as Album Artist but still see the same behaviour. In my case though I only have FLAC compilations.

Well, then I have no idea. I can only show what LMS returns. Sorry, but this works on my system, if it does not on yours then you need to find out why. I'm willing to accept this being a Material issue, but as I can't recreate I cannot investigate. If I send LMS a track list request asking for the same info to be returned, and LMS returns a different set then not sure what to do. It's probably due to the lack of artist_id, but why that should affect the results I'm not sure.

[slartibartfast]

Well, then I have no idea. I can only show what LMS returns. Sorry, but this works on my system, if it does not on yours then you need to find out why. I'm willing to accept this being a Material issue, but as I can't recreate I cannot investigate. If I send LMS a track list request asking for the same info to be returned, and LMS returns a different set then not sure what to do. It's probably due to the lack of artist_id, but why that should affect the results I'm not sure.

Are you clicking on the context menu for a track in the queue, then "more" then Album:xxxxxxxxxx ?

[cpd73]

Are you clicking on the context menu for a track in the queue, then "more" then Album:xxxxxxxxxx ?

Yes. And in that scenario I originally ask LMS for the "trackinfo" for a playlist index - so no track_id, album_id, artist_id, etc, are used. So, when you click on "Album: xxxxx" no artist_id is sent, as its not known.

But, its still LMS that is (I'm assuming) returning a reduced set of meta-data.

In Mark153's case I'm 99.9% sure its the TPE2 case. For TPE2==AlbumArtist Material will see AlbumArtist as "Various" artists and an artist of "X", know that they are different so show "Track Title . X". When TPE2==Band Material has no AlbumArtist, so uses Artist, they are the same so not shown. I guess I could update to say "if no AlbumArtist but track is compilation then show artist"

[Mark153]

Well, then I have no idea. I can only show what LMS returns. Sorry, but this works on my system, if it does not on yours then you need to find out why. I'm willing to accept this being a Material issue, but as I can't recreate I cannot investigate. If I send LMS a track list request asking for the same info to be returned, and LMS returns a different set then not sure what to do. It's probably due to the lack of artist_id, but why that should affect the results I'm not sure.

I did consider it being one of those settings, so have been playing with a separate LMS under Docker these past few days to experiment on a tiny duplicate library instead of the whole enchilada.

The TPE2 setting being on either Band or Album Artist didn't seem to affect anything, but having seen the difference between those two JSON strings today (thanks for the pointer!) I concur the lack of artist_id must be the issue, so I am starting to think it must be down to the way my MP3 files are tagged.

Out of curiosity, do your compilations have an ALBUMARTIST tag set as Various Artists? What about the COMPILATION tag?

I'll fiddle some more and update here if I come up with an answer. Thanks again!

[slartibartfast]

Yes. And in that scenario I originally ask LMS for the "trackinfo" for a playlist index - so no track_id, album_id, artist_id, etc, are used. So, when you click on "Album: xxxxx" no artist_id is sent, as its not known.

But, its still LMS that is (I'm assuming) returning a reduced set of meta-data.

In Mark153's case I'm 99.9% sure its the TPE2 case. For TPE2==AlbumArtist Material will see AlbumArtist as "Various" artists and an artist of "X", know that they are different so show "Track Title . X". When TPE2==Band Material has no AlbumArtist, so uses Artist, they are the same so not shown. I guess I could update to say "if no AlbumArtist but track is compilation then show artist"

Unless I am looking in the wrong place LMS returns the same info in both cases.

[Mark153]

Very quick follow-up to confirm that I think you are right Craig...

I just retagged four out of the five albums I am testing with as follows:-

No COMPILATION tag enabled
ALBUMARTIST set to Various Artists

Also have the TPE2 option set to ALBUMARTIST in Behaviour > Browse Artists

I cleared and rescanned my test library and now the individual artists show up when searching and then navigating into the compilation.

The one album I purposely left alone has no ALBUMARTIST tag set, and this one doesn't show artists via the search route.

[slartibartfast]

I did consider it being one of those settings, so have been playing with a separate LMS under Docker these past few days to experiment on a tiny duplicate library instead of the whole enchilada.

The TPE2 setting being on either Band or Album Artist didn't seem to affect anything, but having seen the difference between those two JSON strings today (thanks for the pointer!) I concur the lack of artist_id must be the issue, so I am starting to think it must be down to the way my MP3 files are tagged.

Out of curiosity, do your compilations have an ALBUMARTIST tag set as Various Artists? What about the COMPILATION tag?

I'll fiddle some more and update here if I come up with an answer. Thanks again!

Like I said I see the same for FLAC compilations so I doubt it is related to you MP3 tagging. Also in my case the metadata returned by LMS is the same regardless of the slightly different requests.