Bugzilla – Bug 1209
The "Multiple Items in Tags" feature doesn't show multiple artists.
Last modified: 2009-09-08 09:24:08 UTC
Overview Description: After setting the the "Multiple Items in Tags" option to "-" in the "Behavior" section of the "server settings" in the web interface, an artist tag with a "-" delimited list of artists shows just the first artist name in any subsequent reference. Steps to Reproduce: 1) Create a track with an artist tag of "a1 - a2" 2) In the "Behavior" option of the "Server Settings" in the web interface, set "Multiple Items in Tags" to "-". 3) In the "Title format" of the "Player Settings", set the format to "TITLE (ARTIST)". 4) Play the previously created track. Actual Results: When playing the track, the format displayed will be "track name (a1)". Expected Results: When playing the track, the format displayed will be "track name (a1 - a2)". Build Date & Platform: Slimserver 6.0b3 on Suse Linux 9.1
I have tried this under windows 2000, and it works as it should do (ie the artist appears correctly as "a1 - a2"). Under Linux, the "artist" tag seems to be mangled. For example, here is the output of song info from W2K: Title: I. Allegro ma non tanto Artist: Alfred Brendel - Adrian Brendel Composer: Beethoven Album: Cello Sonata No.3 in A major, op.69 (Disc 1) Genre: Chamber Disc: 1 Track: 6 File Format: FLAC Duration: 12:38 Year: 2004 Comment: Track 6 File Length: 53,563,647 Bytes Bitrate: 564kbps CBR Location: file:///F:/flac/Chamber/Beethoven/Cello Sonata No.3 in A major, op.69/0106 I. Allegro ma non tanto.flac (Download) Date Modified: Saturday, March 26, 2005, 6:27:58 PM But, under Linux, I get this: Title: I. Allegro ma non tanto Artist: Adrian Brendel Alfred Brendel Composer: Beethoven Album: Cello Sonata No.3 in A major, op.69 Genre: Chamber Track: 6 File Format: FLAC Duration: 12:38 Year: 2004 Comment: Track 6 File Length: 53,563,647 Bytes Bitrate: 564kbps CBR Location: file:///mediafiles/music/flac/Chamber/Beethoven/Cello Sonata No.3 in A major, op.69/0106 I. Allegro ma non tanto.flac (Download) Date Modified: Saturday 26. March 2005, 18:27:58
As a further update to this problem, I have tried using differnet delimiters (eg. ";" and ",")in the "multiple items in tags" field with the same result. I have also upgraded from the beta version to Slimserver 6.0.0. When I use 5.4.1 on the same platform (Suse Linux 9.1), the functionality works fine.
Roger - is this only happening with the right hand side "Now Playing" pane? Or with browse music as well?
Roger - it seems to me that Linux is doing the correct thing. There should be two links to two different artists there.
Hi Dan, Thanks for looking at this problem, I know you must be very busy! I don't agree with you that Linux is doing the right thing, I'm afraid. The behaviour I would expect with this feature works: 1) With Slimserver 6.0.0 on Windows XP 2) With Slimserver 5.4.1 on both Linux and Windows The problem is with 6.0.0 on Linux which displays a different behaviour. It successfully separates the delimited artists in the "artist" tag (ie. an artist tag of "a1 - a2" appears with separate entries a1 and a2 for artist when for example, browsing music by artist). However, what it doesn't do is to display the entire artist tag ("a1 - a2") in such things as "Now Playing". This is particularly irritating for those albums with multiple artists (almost the entire classical repertoire, for example) Windows (and Slimserver 5.4.x on either platform), manages this successfully. It is definitely a bug with 6.0.0 on (my installation of) Linux. Roger
Dan: what's your assessment of this?
I have this problem also in Windows XP Home Edition as described in this thread [url]http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=14978[/url] I use the nightly build of July 6, 2005. Dieter
multiple items in tag delimiters seem to be completely ignored in v6.0.2. I am running on Linux. Can someone give me an idea of where to look for the bug?
It seems to me that it is correct to have two separate artists "a1" and "a2" in the song info since you have in this way two different links, one to each of the two separated artists. However, in the browse display (not the song info) of the web interface of SlimServer the songs should be listed as "track name (a1 - a2) from album name" and not as "track name (a1) from album name" since the song is a song of both artists. Similarly on the Squeezebox the display should also be "track name (a1 - a2)" and not "track name (a1)". This presumes of course that you have set the display format to TITLE (ARTIST) in the server and the player settings.
Is there any progress for this bug? Will there be a fix in 6.1? I have amended all my tags that multiple artists which should be handeled separately are separated by "&" (like Duke Ellington & Ella Fitzgerald) and multiptle artists which I consider to be a unit are separated by "and" (like Simon and Garfunkel). It would be great to see "Duke Ellington & Ella Fitzgerald" after the song name and not only "Duke Ellington".
This is still a bug in 6.1.1.
This bug is currently targetted for future investigation (watch the 'Target' field for any changes in this. As such, it is known not to be fixed in 6.1.1, also not fixed in 6.1.2, 6.2 or any other nightly build. Please add your email addresses to the cc list if you wish to be copied on any status updates to this bug report.
Want to consider for 6.2. Dan: what's your assessment?
I strongly second that.
Wouldn't it be sufficient to set the data element ARTIST described in "server settings, formatting" (which is used for the title format) always to the not-splitted original artist value?
Which of the split artists would links in the track listings point to then if that were the case?
Sorry, I don't understand your question. The behavior is at the moment as follows: I have an album "Porgy and Bess" on which all tracks are tagged with artists "Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong". I use "&" as separator for multiple items. When I select Browse Albums and then click on the album name "Porgy and Bess" the list of tracks is shown in a format depending on the title format chosen in formatting of the the server settings. If the title format contains ARTIST (e.g. "TITLE (ARTIST)") then the track "Summertime" is e.g. shown as "Summertime (Louis Armstrong) from Porgy and Bess". The text "Summerime (Louis Armstrong)" is one single hyperlink and the "Porgy and Bess" is another link. In my opinion the correct listing should read "Summertime (Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong) from Porgy and Bess". Since the displaye artist is no (separate) link it would be no problem that the artists are not splitted in this display. When I then click on "Summertime (Louis Armstrong)" the song info page is shown. In this page the artists are correctly shown as two different entries which are separate clickable links. So it seems to me that only in the list of tracks not the splitted artists but the original value of the data element ARTIST described in "server settings, formatting" should be used. The same is true for the display on the Squeezebox. Does that answer your question? Another point I just recognized is that in the present nightly the above album is now classified as VA album. This is not correct since all songs have the same artists, namly "Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong" (always as couple). It seems that by the artist splitting operation slimserver detects two different artists for the tracks and classifies the album as VA album. If I do not set the "multiple items" option the album is not classified as VA album (since "Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong" is then in fact only one artist).
I have an album "Mermaid Avenue" by "Billy Bragg;Wilco". I use ';' as my separator. When I browse to the album's tracks, each track has three distinct links. 1. The track name, which takes me to the track details. 2. An artist link, which takes me to other albums by the same artist and 3. another link back to the mermaid avenue album. The problem I see currently is that only the first artist (Billy Bragg) is shown in the list -- there is no listing or link to 'Wilco'. So I see this (using fake xml markup: <link to=track>1. Walt Whitman's Niece</link> by <link to=artist name="Billy Bragg">Billy Bragg</link> from <link to=album>Mermaid Avenue</link> And I would want to see this: <link to=track>1. Walt Whitman's Niece</link> by <link to=artist name="Billy Bragg">Billy Bragg</link> <link to=artist name=Wilco>Wilco</link> from <link to=album>Mermaid Avenue</link> Does this behavior maybe depend on the web skin you are using?
It seems that it is depending on the title format you have used. If you use for example the format TITLE (without anything further) then in the track list the songs are shown in the format "Summertime from Porgy and Bess by Louis Armstrong". "Summertime" is a link to track info, "Porgy and Bess" is a link to the album and "Louis Armstrong" is a link to other tracks of this artist (which does however not work if you set the option "not to include compilation artists in artist list" since the artists are erroneously classified as track artists of a VA album, but this is another story). As soon as I select a title format which explicitely comprises ARTIST (e.g. "TITLE (ARTIST)") the separate artist link is no longer shown in the track list but there is shown a "combined" title "Summertime (Louis Armstrong" followed be the text "from Porgy and Bess". Clicking on the artist to see further tracks of this artist is only possible from within the song info page (through the separate links for each artist). So my proposed solution would only work if the title format is set to a value explicitely including ARTIST (but that's what I want). I have to admit that I mainly use the squeezebox and not the web interface and on the squeezebox the proposed behavior would always lead to a correct display (since selecting TITLE as title format for the PLAYER shows indeed ONLY the title).
also, not all skins are iterating through the contributors. Some will only show the "artist"
What does this mean? What is the difference between contributor and artist?
contributor is the superset of artist, meaning there is more than one contributor to a track. Contributors may include band, composer, albumartist, trackartist, and conductor. Multiple artists is, i think, stored as an array of artists. The skin would stil have to skip through each item in the array. Not every skin will do this, and may opt for just artist[0]
Does that mean that the unsplitted version of the artist ("Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong") is no longer available when using the "multiple items" option or is the array of (splitted) artists ("Ella Fitzgerald", "Louis Armstrong") stored /in addition/ to the original unsplitted version?
I as really answering ben's question. It CAN be skin dependant.
*** Bug 2058 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Large Various Artists / Multiple Artists in Tags update checked in as subversion change 4258.