Bugzilla – Bug 2562
Blank album names appearing at the top of the Browse Albums list
Last modified: 2008-09-15 14:39:24 UTC
I have four blank album names at the top of my Browse Albums list (just under "All Songs"). If I attempt to play these albums, I can see that the tracks do correctly have no album tag. Therefore these entries should not appear within the Browse Albums list. The first blank album entry has over 4000 tracks associated with it. The other three blank album entries have only a couple. If I clear the current playlist and then add the second album to the current playlist, it adds two tracks with entry numbers 0 and 1. If I add it again, I get playlist numbers -1, 0, 1, 2! I believe my library was fine after an initial scan when I moved to 6.2.1 last week, and I've only noticed a problem this morning, so I think whatever has gone wrong has happened due to a timed scan which occurs overnight.
Created attachment 1009 [details] screenshot Screenshot of Browse Artists with blank entries, and current playlist with corrupted playlist entry numbers.
we could frame browsedbitems.html with [% IF item.text %] so that any items without a value in the list will be skipped. This would mean it would wait until 6.5, however, but it is simple.
Tracks that have no album name should appear under an entry called "No Album", so they should just be skipped. It would be better if the underlying problem were fixed. When I initially did a full scan, those blank entries were not there. Why after a few days of scanning do I then see several blank entries?
sorry? are you saying you think they should be listed or not listed? currently albums that are not tagged, get set with "no album" the skins all skip showing album if album equals "noAlbum" but this doesn't also cover the case where the albums are listed. Now that in 6.5 we use the skins to do the list, it means we can skip in the skin or skip in the server. skipping in the skin allows skin authors to choose. some may want to list "no album" items.
What I was trying to say was that initially songs that have a blank album tag are displayed under "No Album". Over time, I see blank entries appearing in the album list that seem to be collecting the "No Album" entries instead. I am currently using 6.2.1. I currently have some songs with no album tag listed under "No Album", and some under four different blank entries.
oh...now that IS odd. right, we'll still need to do the skipping I proposed, in order to have those lines not show but there is a need to fix the migration from "No Album" to blanks. well-spotted.
I am starting to see these blank albums in the web interface as well (where it used to be "No Album"). These are for tracks without album tags. I am running: SlimServer Version: 6.5b1 - 5442 - Linux - EN - utf8
Note that doing a "Clear library and rescan everything" seems to fix it (back to "No Album".
I haven't noticed the blank album names for some time. I have recently discovered something similar that I think may be related to this bug, though: I had a album by "Dweller at the Threshold", but one track I had accidentally put a typo in the artist name ("Dweller at the treshold"), so I had two artists contributing to the album. When I browsed by artist, it was obvious that I had entered a tag mistake, so I corrected the name and browsed to the album and played it. SlimServer then started to report the correct artist name in the Song Info. The incorrect artist was not listed in the browse artist list. However, I had two "Dweller at the Threshold" items in the Browse Artists list (the corrected tag caused a new artist entry to be created rather than combining with the artist that already existed).
Philip - is this still an issue with the 6.2.2 official release? Thanks.
I don't know about the official 6.2.2 - I am on 6.5. I am seeing blank album names in 6.5 through the player interface - I think thise are just instead of "No Album", as I can't see No Album anymore.
Phil - is this still an issue in 6.5 in our new split-scanner world? Thanks
I haven't seen any blank album names at the top of browse albums list yet in 6.5b1 split scanner. However, i don't think this release is either scanning all of my music or displaying it. Eg. there isn't a "No Artist" link in Browse Artist, and I can't see any "No Album" links when browsing artists. Therefore, the blank album name issue may not be displaying itself due to the above. Also, the blank album name entries used to appear after doing filesystem edits and update scans, which I haven't done as much recently.
I just fixed an issue relating to the display of No Artist / No Album that could cause a crash/hang. Can you see if that fixes your issue?
Okay, I now see No Artist / No Album items in browse trees, and no sign of blank entries. I think I used to see these blank entries after doing scans to update/add new music though, and having just done a complete rescan I can't yet test this partial update scan. Do you want to close the bug, and I'll reopen if the bug comes back?
Yes - sounds good.
I am now seeing blank album items when I browse by album. To be honest, I may have missed this earlier when viewing through web interface (fishbone skin), as blank items are not as visible there now (there is a grey line between each item - blank items ocupy no space, so you get two thin grey lines). I just noticed when browsing albums on a SqueezeBox UI. My first three album names are displayed blank. Then I have two properly displayed album names, followed by two blank entries. Then one properly displayed album name, followed by one blank entry. I haven't noticed any others: No. Album Title 1. [drilling into list of songs indicates that this album should be "A Valid Path"] 2. [drilling into list of songs indicates that this album should be "A Natural Disaster"] 3. [drilling into list of songs indicates that this album should be "Blackfield"] 4. Analog Overdose 3 5. The Heavens 6. [drilling into list of songs indicates that this album should be "Black Cherry"] 7. [drilling into list of songs indicates that this album should be "Get Behind Me Satan"] 8. Cafe Del Mar Vol. 7 9. [drilling into list of songs indicates that this is from a podcast where album should be "Coverville"] 10. The White Stripes Live 2002-06-09 <the rest of my albums appear to be in alphabetical order...> 11. 10,000 Hz 12. 10 Years Remixed 13. 10 Years 14. 12 Memories I haven't done any partial rescans (only full clean and scan). I am currently on SVN 8007.
Phil - can you upload one of the tracks from the blank albums to this bug? Thanks
Created attachment 1268 [details] A track from an album that is displayed without a title
Unfortunately, the sample track doesn't exhibit the problem. Is this still happening in the latest nightly? I just made some changes to MP3 tag reading today, so tonights build may help. Thanks.
I just did a "Clear library and rescan everything" and still see the blank album names. Looking in the albums table, I can see 9 rows that have NULL titlesort and titlesearch - 6 of these also have NULL title. I am seeing quite a few errors/warnings in the log due to scanning, but none appear to be for urls relating to the albums that are coming up NULL (mainly related to scanning wma files - see bug 3643).
Phil - I made some changes today (2006-07-13) which may help this issue.. please svn up and do a wipe & rescan. Thanks
I've updated and done a full rescan. No sign of the blank album names yet. I'll report back in a few days, after doing a few partial rescans...
Phil? How does it stand?
No problems have occurred yet, although I have only done one partial scan which didn't find any new music, so I've been doing full rescans.
Ok.. I'm going to close this one then, and work on the rescan bug. :) Please reopen if you see it.