Bug 17370 - Songs with no album tag do not appear within "No Album" any more
: Songs with no album tag do not appear within "No Album" any more
Status: REOPENED
Product: Logitech Media Server
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Scanner
: 7.6.0
: PC Windows XP
: P3 normal with 5 votes (vote)
: 7.7.x
Assigned To: Andy Grundman
:
Depends on:
Blocks:
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Reported: 2011-07-29 14:03 UTC by Philip Meyer
Modified: 2012-02-12 15:47 UTC (History)
4 users (show)

See Also:
Category: ---


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Description Philip Meyer 2011-07-29 14:03:10 UTC
I am seeing significantly more artists in the Browse Artists list, all of my artists that only appear on singles.

Previously, all songs without an album tag got put into an album called "No Album".  This album was available within "Home > Artists > Various Artists > No Album" or "Home > Albums > No Album".

Additionally, navigating to a specific artist would also show a "No Album" entry, which only lists songs without an album for that artist.


This doesn't appear to be happening any more, and as a result there are additional artists appearing in the artist list, and when I navigate into one, there are no albums.

I can search for songs that are on "No Album", but cannot browse to them in any way.
Comment 1 Jim McAtee 2011-07-29 14:19:17 UTC
I can confirm all of the above. (How did *that* happen?)
Comment 2 Michael Herger 2011-07-29 22:24:33 UTC
*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 17364 ***
Comment 3 Philip Meyer 2011-08-16 14:23:47 UTC
Bug 17364 has been fixed, but does not include a fix for all faults.  That bug has gone into 7.6.1 Release Candidate, hence I'm re-opening this bug to record remaining faults that need fixing.

These faults have been confirmed by Jim.

In summary:

- The 'No Album' doesn't appear anywhere under Browse Albums. If the
  library stats on the home page indicate 100 albums, then there are
  only 99 albums listed when browsing albums.

- The album does not appear under 'Various Artists' when browsing
  artists. It should be listed there.

- The 'No Album' is not returned when searching for the string 'no
  album'.

- All artists appearing on 'No Album' are listed when browsing artists,
  even though 'Group compilation albums together' is set.
  Since these are artists that appear only on a compilation, they
  should not be in the artist list.

- Browsing to a specific artist's songs on 'No Album', shows all
  contributors that that appear across all songs on 'No Album', not
  just the contributors that are on the sub-set of songs where
  the chosen artist contributed (example screenshot attached to
  Bug 17364).

In 7.5.6 it works exactly as it should:

- The album appears when browsing albums and is contributed to
  'Various Artists'.

- It's listed as one of the albums of 'Various Artists'.

- You can find it by searching for 'no album'.

- The artists from the album do not appear in the artist list when
  'Group compilations' is set.

- Browsing to a specific artist's songs on 'No Album', shows only
  the contributors that are on the sub-set of songs where the
  chosen artist contributed (example screenshot attached to Bug 17364).

Database, 7.5.6 vs. 7.6.1:

- In 7.6.1 the album.contributor column for 'No Album' is NULL, while
  in 7.5.6 it's set to the VA artist.

- In both 7.6.1 and 7.5.6, album.compilation is '1' (True).

- In both 7.6.1 and 7.5.6, the contributor_album.role for all
  contributors on the album is '1' (Artist).
Comment 4 Mike Cappella 2011-08-16 15:35:28 UTC
An additional case/note, hopefully it is relevant.

A track with no artist/no album, but a genre: when selecting the genre from the web interface, an "empty" track is listed, and it is not click-able.

I tried this with a single track, and genre was unique (ie. no other tracks used the genre).
Comment 5 Mike Cappella 2011-08-17 21:17:23 UTC
The issue mentioned in comment #4 is resolves in RC3.
Comment 6 SVN Bot 2011-08-30 13:19:23 UTC
 == Auto-comment from SVN commit #33255 to the slim repo by agrundman ==
 == http://svn.slimdevices.com/slim?view=revision&revision=33255 ==

Bug 17370, fix albums.contributor value for the No Album item
Comment 7 Jim McAtee 2011-08-30 14:16:36 UTC
(In reply to comment #6)
> == Auto-comment from SVN commit #33255 to the slim repo by agrundman ==
>  == http://svn.slimdevices.com/slim?view=revision&revision=33255 ==
> 
> Bug 17370, fix albums.contributor value for the No Album item

This fixes one of problems listed above - the album now appears when browsing albums and is contributed to 'Various Artists'. The other problems remain.

One odd thing I notice is that I can look at the data in the database and see that the compilation column for 'No Album' is TRUE, but on the album info page in the web UI there is no 'Compilation: Yes' shown.
Comment 8 Jim McAtee 2011-08-30 17:22:24 UTC
Also: It fixes the search for 'no album'.
Comment 9 Andy Grundman 2011-09-19 07:15:12 UTC
Can someone summarize what still needs to be fixed?
Comment 10 Philip Meyer 2011-09-19 17:29:33 UTC
Remaining problems in summary:

- The "No Album" album does not appear within Browse Artists > Various Artists.
  It should be listed there (if there are more than one song by different artist
  without an album tag), as the DB record for "No Album" should then have
  Compilation=1.  i.e. I can Search for "No Album", and it says it's by album
  artist "Various Artists", but I can't see it when I browse to Various Artist.

- All artists appearing on 'No Album' are listed when browsing artists,
  even though 'Group compilation albums together' is set.
  Since these are artists that appear only on a compilation, they
  should not be in the artist list.

- Browsing to a specific artist's songs on 'No Album', shows all
  contributors that that appear across all songs on 'No Album', not
  just the contributors that are on the sub-set of songs where
  the chosen artist contributed (example screenshot attached to
  Bug 17364).
Comment 11 Mike Walsh 2011-09-19 18:00:41 UTC
any relationship here to bug 15604 or bug 9523 ?

symptoms seem very similar.
Comment 12 SVN Bot 2011-09-21 09:37:37 UTC
 == Auto-comment from SVN commit #33496 to the slim repo by agrundman ==
 == http://svn.slimdevices.com/slim?view=revision&revision=33496 ==

Fixed bug 17370, properly detect if No Album should be marked a compilation, this broke because of changes to the mergeVA step
Comment 13 Andy Grundman 2011-09-21 09:38:06 UTC
This one fix should take care of all the remaining issues I hope. Let me know if you still have problems.
Comment 14 Jim McAtee 2011-09-21 10:06:37 UTC
I believe that's got it. Thanks.
Comment 15 Philip Meyer 2011-09-25 05:12:14 UTC
Yes, seems okay for me too.

Thanks Andy.
Comment 16 Philip Meyer 2011-09-25 05:42:40 UTC
Oh, I've found something that's still not quite working (tried in Web UI).

If I search for an artist that only has songs on "No Album", the search results correctly lists "No Album" by "<artist>".

However, if I click on the artist hyperlink associated with "No Album", it shows all compilation albums, i.e. equivalent to browsing to Home > Artists > Various Artists >, but the breadcrumb trail indicates "Home > Artist (<search artist name that I clicked on>)".
Comment 17 Andy Grundman 2011-09-25 21:06:11 UTC
OK, reopening.
Comment 18 tobias 2012-01-05 06:01:07 UTC
(In reply to comment #16)
> However, if I click on the artist hyperlink associated with "No Album", it
> shows all compilation albums, i.e. equivalent to browsing to Home > Artists >
> Various Artists >, but the breadcrumb trail indicates "Home > Artist (<search
> artist name that I clicked on>)".

I can confirm this. I have many tracks that are not part of an album and have trouble to find them.
Comment 19 Mike Walsh 2012-02-09 19:23:20 UTC
phil points out this is similar to bug 17473
Comment 20 Michael Herger 2012-02-09 21:41:32 UTC
*** Bug 17473 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 21 Michael Herger 2012-02-09 21:42:07 UTC
Here's Erland's desription from the other bug:

This has been tested in 7.6.1 r33110

The problem can be reproduced as follows:
1. In SBS web interface goto "Artists" menu and select an artist that
participates on at least one compilation album.
2. In the list of albums, click on the artist name beside one of the
compilation/multiple artists albums. (the artist link is not shown on albums
where the artist is album artist)

Result:
All compilation albums are shown, independent if the artist has contributed on
them or not.

Expected result:
Show all albums, normal and compilation, that the artist has contributed on.

Just for information, the artist link that doesn't work looks like this:
http://localhost:9000/clixmlbrowser/clicmd=browselibrary+items&mode=albums&linktitle=Artist%20(The%20Corrs)&artist_id=1530&artwork=0&player=00%3A01%3A02%3A03%3A04%3A05/

While the one that does work, in the album header shown after clicking one of
the normal albums where the artist is album artist, looks like this:
http://localhost:9000/clixmlbrowser/clicmd=browselibrary+items&artist_id=1578&mode=albums&linktitle=Artist%20(The%20Corrs)/&player=00%3A01%3A02%3A03%3A04%3A05

As you can see, the artist_id is incorrect in the first link, it refers to the
"Various Artists" artist instead of the artist the link name indicates.
Comment 22 Jim McAtee 2012-02-10 18:10:15 UTC
(In reply to comment #16)
> Oh, I've found something that's still not quite working (tried in Web UI).
> 
> If I search for an artist that only has songs on "No Album", the search results
> correctly lists "No Album" by "<artist>".
> 
> However, if I click on the artist hyperlink associated with "No Album", it
> shows all compilation albums, i.e. equivalent to browsing to Home > Artists >
> Various Artists >, but the breadcrumb trail indicates "Home > Artist (<search
> artist name that I clicked on>)".

Actually, that's incorrect. Your "No Album" has more than one artist, which makes it a compilation, so it should be shown as "by Various Artists", not credited to the one artist that was searched. The link itself is correct, it _should_ be linking to all compilation albums.

What is being described is actually bug 17542.
Comment 23 Philip Meyer 2012-02-12 00:40:49 UTC
(In reply to comment #22)
> Actually, that's incorrect. Your "No Album" has more than one artist, which
> makes it a compilation, so it should be shown as "by Various Artists", not
> credited to the one artist that was searched. The link itself is correct, it
> _should_ be linking to all compilation albums.

In 7.5.6, if I search for artist=Semisonic, it only lists one album "No Album" because that artist only has songs on "No Album".  If I click this "No Album", it will only show songs by Semisonic that are on "No Album".

This shows breadcrumb trail: "Home  > Artists  > Semisonic  > No Album".  The album is shown with:
  Album: No Album
  Compilation: Yes
there is no reported album artist.  Perhaps because I don't enter an Album Artist tag for these songs (they don't have an album tag, or album artist, but song title and artist).

If I click on a song by Semisonic on No Album, it reports:
  Album:  No Album
  Artist: Semisonic
There is no reported album artist or compilation, which is correct in this case, because the song itself is not tagged as a compilation and doesn't have an album artist.
Comment 24 Jim McAtee 2012-02-12 01:53:21 UTC
If your "No Album" is a compilation, and none of the tracks have an ALBUMARTIST tag, then the _album_ is by "Various Artists". There is no other correct answer.

In 7.5, when the album is displayed as a search result, does it not say that the  _album_ is "by Various Artists" rather than the searched-for artist? That is the correct behavior. Clicking on that artist name should lead you to a list of all albums by "Various Artists". Clicking on the album itself should take you to a filtered list of tracks that shows only tracks by the searched-for artist.
Comment 25 Philip Meyer 2012-02-12 04:04:37 UTC
(In reply to comment #24)

I think the difference here, is that I have albums sorted by album name only, in which case it only shows album names (in 7.5).  I assume you have sorted by "artist, album", in which case you do see "Various Artists" as the artist name, which is clickable.

In 7.6 onwards however, even when I have sorted by Album name only (and Settings > Interface > Show Artist with Albums is "Disabled"), I still see the artist name.  In this case, it doesn't show "Various Artists", it does actually show the artist that I clicked on.

e.g. in 7.5 Web UI, I search for Chicago, and click the matching artist name, shows "No Album" entry (no artist name is displayed).

in 7.6 Web UI and later, I search for Chicago, and click the matching artist name, which shows "No album" by "Chicago".  Clicking Chicago, shows all various artist albums.
Comment 26 Philip Meyer 2012-02-12 04:31:23 UTC
Some other differences related to display and navigation of artists have been logged on bug 17887.
Comment 27 Jim McAtee 2012-02-12 12:40:43 UTC
(In reply to comment #25)
> 
> e.g. in 7.5 Web UI, I search for Chicago, and click the matching artist name,
> shows "No Album" entry (no artist name is displayed).
> 
> in 7.6 Web UI and later, I search for Chicago, and click the matching artist
> name, which shows "No album" by "Chicago".  Clicking Chicago, shows all various
> artist albums.

Why is it so difficult to understand what is happening, and what should be happening?

If an artist name is shown for albums, even though 'Show Artist with Albums' is disabled, it's unrelated, It has nothing to do with bug 17542.

Sort order of albums also has nothing to do with this bug.

The artist name displayed for an album should always be the main album artist (which may or may not come from an ALBUMARTIST tag, doesn't matter), never one of the track artists. Ever. Not even for searches. And for a compilation, that name should always be 'Various Artists'. It's displaying the wrong name, but linking to the correct place.

And yes, when you get to the 'Various Artists' albums, the breadcrumbs are also screwed up. Breadcrumbs are screwed up in the web interface in many places now. Usually they make sense, but often they do not.

Onebrowser introduced a lot of bugs like this that have never been fixed.
Comment 28 Mike Walsh 2012-02-12 13:18:17 UTC
i would suggest the following would solve all these problems:

implement bug 15604

then change LMS so that it does NOT use a "single master list" but rather, two distinct lists, that a user can switch between:

Home > Album Artists
Home > Artists

this should not be a problem, b/c whether or not a file/album has AA tags or not, server gives everything an AA value.  (don't get lost in the weeds on that, i can't describe exactly whats happening under the hood, but what i am saying is that AA tag or no, the end result is server will assign an AA value even if that value is for all intents and purposes the artist value per track[s])

"home > album artists" should be only album artists, while home > artists should be all album artists and artists together, and composers or that other stuff if its ticked.

not the full solution i envision, but certainly better than whats happening now.
Comment 29 Jim McAtee 2012-02-12 13:20:56 UTC
^^^

Has nothing to do with, and would not fix bug 17542.
Comment 30 Mike Walsh 2012-02-12 13:38:58 UTC
thats why i posted in this bug, not that one.  i think my solution would solve the no album issue, b/c it would eliminate comp checks, and just focus on artist / aa linking.

and personally, i believe the fix for bug 17542 is to simply ALWAYS in every case make albums by server's AA value.  there should be no other option.  if someone wants "all artists" listed for the album when it says "album by" then they should tag that way, or use a comp=0 tag.  (and i think doing either of those is stupid, and obviously server isn't up to doing it anyway)
Comment 31 Philip Meyer 2012-02-12 15:47:42 UTC
7.6 onwards has made browsing worse than 7.5.6, that's a fact.  We should not be able to see an artist name that when clicked doesn't display that artists' albums.

I liked that "No Artist" for a specific artist would not show the album artist "Various Artists".  Really in this case, "No Album" has been stored because there is no album tag, and thus also there was no album artist.

I know that because there are multiple artists with "No Album", the "No Album" is considered a compilation, and thus will appear under "Various Artists".

But in 7.5, navigating to the Album Info, or Song Info does not show any album artist value.

If it shows an artist name, clicking the artist name should show that artists' work.

Either way, it's certainly not right that "No Album" by "Chicago" should show all Various Artists albums when "Chicago" is clicked.

I'd prefer if the artist name was not displayed, like 7.5, but otherwise showing "Various Artists" would at least match the behaviour of clicking the link.

> Sort order of albums also has nothing to do with this bug.
> 
It did use to change whether you see an artist name or not against the album, whereas now it appears you always do, so it is kind of related.

> The artist name displayed for an album should always be the main album artist
> (which may or may not come from an ALBUMARTIST tag, doesn't matter), never one
> of the track artists.
Except where no artist name should be displayed, because the user has selected not to show artist names.

> Ever. Not even for searches. And for a compilation, that
> name should always be 'Various Artists'.
Or an alternative album artist name if tagged - doesn't have to be "Various Artists".