Bugzilla – Bug 4230
iTunes Compilations Incorrect
Last modified: 2008-12-18 11:12:53 UTC
I have the latest version of SlimServer (6.5.1 - 10040 - I don't know which of the 6.5bx versions that is). Songs in my music library exist in two different structures in the main folder: 1) There is a folder with the Artist name, then a subfolder with the Album name which contains all the songs in that album. For Compilations (albums with more than one artist, marked as a Compilation in iTunes), there is a main folder "Compilations" which has subfolders with the Album name containing the songs. This is the structure iTunes creates when a CD is ripped. 2) There is a folder with the Artist name, and all songs are in that folder (even the ones from Compilations). This is the structure the shareware program ephPod creates when it reads files from an iPod, and can also happen if a Compilation is ripped without being marked as such. iTunes treats Compilations in both of these structures in the same way, producing a single entry in the Album display for each Compilation. SlimServer 6.3.1 also handles these correctly. However, both the original SlimServer 6.5.0 and the latest version erroneously split Compilation Albums stored in structure 2) into a single entry per Artist in the Album display.
After further checking, there is another requirement for this failure to occur. Albums which are stored in structure 2) as described in the bug display correctly if they have a Disc # in iTunes (Disc 1 of 1, for example) but fail as described if the Disc # field is blank. Albums stored in structure 1) always display correctly, even if they don't have a Disc #. Changing the Disc # and rescanning confirmed this behavior.
I changed every track in the failing Compilations by adding a Disc #, and I also made sure that all songs were the same Genre. This cleared up most of the replicated albums, but there are still nine albums (out of 1618) which have multiple entries. Some entries do contain multiple artists. I have carefully checked all of the things which can be displayed in iTunes, and these albums are no different than many others. All songs in an album have the same ID3 tag (V2.3 in 8 of the cases, V2.2 in the 9th). They do have different "Encoded with:" values in iTunes, but these differences do not correlate with the album splits.
The latest version of SlimServer (6.5.1 - 10078) fixed all of the problems except one - if a Compilation does not have a Disc #, the individual tracks are still listed separately in the Album display.
Ross, could you try to reproduce this issue Steve notes in his last comment?
I tried with iTunes 7.0.1.8, SlimServer 6.5.1 10354 XP. I was not able to reproduce what Steve described. When I change the tags to 'part of compilation' in iTunes, nothing new. Then I experimented with adding and removing 'disc number' in various ways but I was unable to see tracks when I go to 'browse albums' Steve maybe you should clear out your database and try it again? If nobody disagrees with this suggestion... Please stop your SlimServer and delete C:\program files\SlimServer\server\cache. Then restart SlimServer and it'll get to scanning again.
Subject: RE: iTunes Compilations Incorrect I will first set up the situation I described which causes the bug, and make sure I can reproduce it - I have added disc #'s everywhere to work around this bug and get the counts to match. Is performing a "Clear library and rescan everything" operation different from deleting the cache? -----Original Message----- From: Slim Devices Bugzilla [mailto:bugs@bugs.slimdevices.com] Sent: Monday, October 16, 2006 6:12 PM To: steve.sheafor@alumni.rice.edu Subject: [Bug 4230] iTunes Compilations Incorrect https://bugs-archive.lyrion.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4230 ross@slimdevices.com changed: What |Removed |Added ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- CC| |ross@slimdevices.com ------- Comment #5 from ross@slimdevices.com 2006-10-16 17:12 ------- I tried with iTunes 7.0.1.8, SlimServer 6.5.1 10354 XP. I was not able to reproduce what Steve described. When I change the tags to 'part of compilation' in iTunes, nothing new. Then I experimented with adding and removing 'disc number' in various ways but I was unable to see tracks when I go to 'browse albums' Steve maybe you should clear out your database and try it again? If nobody disagrees with this suggestion... Please stop your SlimServer and delete C:\program files\SlimServer\server\cache. Then restart SlimServer and it'll get to scanning again. ------- You are receiving this mail because: ------- You reported the bug, or are watching the reporter.
I was able to reproduce this, using the following steps. 1) There must be a compilation album with several artists. The music library must have a folder for each artist, and the tracks by that artist must be in that folder, and NOT in a subfolder which is the album. Note that this is not the structure iTunes produces when you rip an album, but it is the structure you get if you download data from an iPod using a program like ephpod. 2) Enter this album into iTunes, making sure iTunes is NOT set up to "Keep iTunes Music Folder Organized". I cannot have this set in my environment, because I have tracks with non-Latin character names and iTunes will turn them into filenames which SlimServer can't see. You have to do the addition one artist at a time if the library already exists ("Add Folder to Library" for each artist), although in my original case I just added the whole database as a folder to an empty library. 3) In iTunes, make sure there is no disc # for this album. It turns out it doesn't matter whether the album is marked as a Compilation or not, but to reproduce the bug it should be a Compilation. 4) Do "Clear library and rescan everything". In the browse album display, you should see a separate listing of this album for each artist, and they are all in the album count. If you then add a disc # and do another "Clear library and rescan everything", there will only be one copy of the album in the browse album display.
cc'ing Dan as well. Ross, if you don't have time to continue looking at this, please let me know or just assign it back to me. Thanks!
Sorry Steve and Chris for the delay... acquisition has led to additional support inquiries. Anyhow I have managed to reproduce this with Steve's very clear steps (thanks!). The reason I was not able to reproduce this earlier is because I didn't have seperate directories for each artist on the compilation, I just put the whole compilation in one directory. This issue occurs only with a compilation with multiple artists, and a directory for each artist, and no disc numbers.
This is not a bug. SlimServer requires that all tracks from a compilation album be in the same directory. Anything else is just madness.
A few comments. 1) It is not madness to have Compilation tracks scattered. If iTunes/SlimServer is used to manage a music library, it is reasonable to rip songs from individual albums and then assemble them into Compilation albums. iTunes handles this correctly. Having SlimServer require you to manually restructure your library to do this is silly. 2) SlimServer doesn't require the tracks to be in a common folder. In my specific example, if there is a folder under each artist which is the album name, and this folder contains a single track of the album, everything works fine. 3) I would argue that the only rational way to manage a track data base is that the organization of tracks and albums is a function ONLY of the information within the track file, and not the structure of how the data is stored. 4) Since iTunes does not provide a mechanism to retrieve data, other programs (ephpod in my case) must be used to recover data, and at least this program creates a data structure which does not always work in SlimServer. 5) Since I can work around my particular problem by adding disc #s, and this is easy and doesn't create any other problems, I don't care if you ignore this issue. I do think it implies a fundamental error in data base handling.
Steve, if I can trouble you with a question: So you (and apparently others) are assembling 'albums' from tracks from different physical 'albums'? How do you consider this different than using playlists? Is this to facilitate perhaps burning CDs of this mixed content later? I'm just trying to understand this scenario. Thanks for any info!
This bug is being closed since it was resolved for a version which is now released! Please download the new version of SqueezeCenter (formerly SlimServer) at http://www.slimdevices.com/su_downloads.html If you are still seeing this bug, please re-open it and we will consider it for a future release.