Bugzilla – Bug 4252
Artist in album but not listed in Artists
Last modified: 2008-12-18 11:12:53 UTC
I am running Slimserver 6.5.1 - 10078. I have two albums (which are Compilations) which display the correct Artist for each track. But the Artist does not appear in the Browse Artist list, and when I click on the artist in the album display nothing comes up ("0 albums with 0 songs by 0 artists"). These two albums are just like many others in my database. They are marked as Compilations in iTunes. I found this while attempting to match the Artist counts in SlimServer and iTunes. There was a comment in another bug report I read which said these numbers won't match, but the only differences I found were this bug (the Artists above aren't in the SlimServer count, of course) and differences due to the fact that iTunes differentiates characters with accents while SlimServer does not. I still have a difference of 2 (out of over 2,000) which I'm working on.
counts are not expected to match. slimserver does not count in the same way iTunes does. What is your setting for compilations under server settings->behavior and for composer,band,orchestra in artists? you may find help with sorting/counting issues of this nature by asking around the forum before filing a bug.
The settings for Compilations are "List Compilation Ablums under each Artist" and "List Albums by all Artists for that Album". Note that this bug isn't about the counts not matching - although I believe that I can get the Artist counts to match, that is a specific effort on my part. It also isn't about sorting. The bug is that for 2 out of 35 virtually identical Compilation albums I have created, the Artists don't show up in the Artist listing even though they do show up in the Album listing. This is clearly a problem, since the other 33 albums (and many other ripped Compilation albums) work correctly. This group of 35 albums contain tracks downloaded from MP3.com several years ago and assembled into Compilations, and have tended to have problems when SlimServer doesn't handle tags correctly (see bugs 4243 and 4244, which were fixed by some change you made in the Guesstags function). I sent you a copy of my iTunes library file as part of the debug activity for bug 4243, and I would be glad to send another copy or the song files if that would help in your debug.
I added approximately 30 new albums in iTunes and then performed a "Look for new music and rescan" (without clearing the library). After this operation, an additional 104 artists were lost from the Browse Artist display, in 5 or 6 additional Compilation albums. None of these albums were newly added - they had all been in the database previously. The 2 albums described in the previous entries still had the same "lost" Artists. I had changed the Genre for some (but not all) of the Compilations which were corrupted. I then did a "Clear library and rescan" operation, and all of the "new" errors went away, leaving me with the same "lost" albums as before.
I did three things: 1) "Organized" my iTunes music library 2) Removed SlimServer and deleted the directory in Program Files 3) Downloaded and installed the latest version of SlimServer (6.5.1 - 10122) After all three of these actions, the "lost artist" albums are now correct. Unfortunately, I didn't try them sequentially, so I can't be sure which one fixed the problem. Since there aren't any comments about anyone specifically fixing the bug I described, I suspect that it was the removal of all the files which really solved the problem, rather than the new version of SlimServer. Is there library data which is left around after a "Clear library and rescan everything" operation? Although this bug was not about the counts in SlimServer and iTunes not matching, I now do have both the Artist and Album counts the same in both environments. This took some careful analysis and modification of the iTunes data. I also had to work around Bug 4230 by forcing all Compilations to include a Disc #.
After making some chages in the iTunes database (primarily removing non-Roman characters from file names and song names), but not adding or removing any artists or even changing artist names, I performed a "Clear library and rescan everything" operation. After this was completed, one album had the "lost artist" problem. This album was NOT one of the two which had this problem before, but is in the same group of compilations assembled from old MP3.com tracks. As I had expected, the new version of SlimServer (6.5.1 - 10122) did not fix this problem.
More information on the "lost artist" album. I noticed that this album was in the Current Playlist when I performed the "Clear library and rescan" operation. Since I have ~1600 albums, this seemed like quite a coincidence. I performed the operation with a different album (out of this "problem" group), but that album remained OK, so perhaps it was just a coincidence. I have rescanned several times, and the single "lost artist" album remains a problem. However, I noticed that if I look at this album DURING the rescan, it is correct - the artists show up properly. When the rescan is complete, however, the artists are lost again.
I tried several "Clear library and rescan" operations, and also a normal rescan. Nothing fixed the lost artist problem. When I reinstalled SlimServer (without removing the SlimServer directory), everything was fine - the "lost artists" were restored. I wound up with a different version of SlimServer (6.1.5 - 10130) but I don't believe that is the difference.
I now can reproduce one version of this bug reliably. If I change something in a Compilation in iTunes (I have tried chaging the Album Title, the Year, the Genre and the Artwork, so I suspect almost any change will work), and then perform a "Look for new and changed music" rescan, virtually all of the artists in the modified Compilation will become "lost" (I have seen a couple of cases where the artist is reported to be in the affected Compilation, but only if they are also represented in another album). All of the changes I made were reflected in SlimServer, even though I would not have been surprised if changes in existing albums had required a library clear. Note that all of the Compilations I have been experimenting with are "normal" ones ripped from CDs with iTunes - they are not my assembled ones. Once there are "lost" artists, a "Clear library and rescan" operation always recovers them. This is a different behavior from lost artists in my assembled albums, where a reload of SlimServer was required for recovery. Thus I suspect that two different but related mechanisms may be at work. I made the same class of changes to a set of Compilations and then did a "Clear Library and rescan" operation first. None of the artists were "lost" after this operation, so the problem only occurs on a simple rescan.
One more input - I performed the same set of experiments with my "assembled" Compilations and got the same result. Any "Clear library and rescan" operation eliminates the "lost artists" caused by a normal rescan. Whatever happened earlier which produced the more permanent lost artist condition for these asembled Compilations has either been fixed in the later version of SlimServer, or creates a different state of the database than the one I can reproduce.
Okay so at least doing a full clear and rescan is now a workaround. Steve, after a clear and rescan if you do a 'look for new and changed tracks' do you still lose artists, then, it sounds like?
Since the removal of non-latin characters helped, it seems likely that part of this is due to Bug 2475.
I have realized the problems with non-Latin characters for some time, so it isn't related to this particular problem (cleaning these up is essential to get the counts to match, of course, and to see all the music in the library). I changed parameters on a few non-Compilations and did a "Look for new and changed music" operation. Everything is fine. It seems pretty consistent that: 1) only Compilations are affected 2) they are affected (i.e. lose artists) only if something in them is changed 3) they are affected only by "Look for new and changed music", not by "Clear library and rescan everything" 4) "Clear library and rescan" always cleans up the lost artists I hope this helps.
cc'ing Dan
I tried this using iTunes Apple AAC files and couldn't reproduce that way. What kind of files do you have your music ripped to? Since this seems to have to do with compilations, what are the 'Compiliations' menu options in the SlimServer -> Server settings -> behavior page set to?
The settings for Compilations are "List Compilation Albums under each Artist" and "List Albums by all Artists for that Album". All files are MP3s. Current version is 6.5.1 - 10130, although this problem has occurred for several previous versions.
The situation which I thought had gone away (see my Comment #9) has returned. After installing a new version of SlimServer (6.5.1 - 10479), one of my "assembled" compilations now has lost all of the artists which are not also in another album. I believe that this particular compilation also had the "lost artist" problem earlier, but it was not the only one. A "Clear library and rescan" operation does NOT correct this problem, so something is different from the lost artists caused by chaging a compilation.
Today I edited a few tracks in iTunes and did a Rescan (without a clear library). Now there are 53 lost artists (whereas there were 4 before this). The tracks with "lost artists" are all in several Compilation Albums as always (none of which I touched as part of the minor editing), and these Compilations are NOT my "special" ones as described in previous Comments - they are all ripped normally from CDs using iTunes. It appears that there is exactly ONE track in each Album which is OK, and the rest have all lost their artists. The single "OK" track does not seem to have any particular characteristic - it is not always the first or last track, nor the first/last in alphabetical order. They are just random. I have very recently upgraded to Version 6.5.1 - 10682.
There doesn't seem to have been any more comments on this bug for a while. However, I have version 6.5.1-11206 and I am seeing the same symptoms as described by Steve. I have 15 compilation albums and only one Artist from each album shows up when browsing by Artist. I've tried multiple rescans, editing the tags using tag&rename and alternating between using the itunes library and just directing SlimServer to a directory all without luck. All my compilation albums are "normal" albums not compilations I have constructed. As noted in previous emails on this thread I have selected "List compilation albums under each Artist" and "List albums by all Artists for that album" in Preferences. FYI, all my files are in Apple lossless format.
This problem will clear up after some (unpredictable and unrepeatable, as far as I can tell) combination of normal rescans and "clear and rescan" operations. It then returns, but only for compilations where I change something. Lately these have all been normal compilations and not my special ones, but I think that's because they are the only ones I've changed.
I have tried doing a number of rescans and clear and rescans and it actually seems pretty consistent. I started with it claiming I had 117 albums with 1616 songs by 110 artists in the SlimServer home page. However, when I browse by Albums, it changes to "117 albums with 1616 songs by 208 artists" when displaying that page. When I browse by Artist I get the same description as the home page - ``7 albums with 1616 songs by 110 artists. I did a scan for new music and got the same result. Then I did a clear and rescan - still the same result. So I did a rescan for new music, again with no change before finally doing another full clear and rescan, once again for the same result. So it seems to me to be very consistent, even down to the different result in the browse by Album page. I find it strange that it sees all the artists when I search by album just not when searching by artist.
What you describe is the problem of Bug #4231, not this bug. The Artist count in the Album display is always wrong by a big number. The Artist count when displaying individual albums is also usually wrong, typically showing several "artists" for an album with only one. I think this individual issue is the real problem, and the erroneous total number of artists in the Album display is the sum of all the individual errors. I notice bug #4252 typically when I compare the artist count from iTunes to the artist count in SlimServer. If they are off, I can find an artist which is not listed in SlimServer but is in iTunes. That artist is always in a compilation, and if I display the compilation album it lists the artist. However, if I select that artist I get "0 tracks by 0 artists in 0 albums".
Steve, Thanks for the comments, you are right about it counting multiple artists for some albums that only really have one artist. I wasn't aware of this separate bug. However, this still doesn't change the fact that only one artist off my compilation albums shows up when browsing by Artist. I guess that means the true number of artists is somewhere between the two! Thanks Jeff
My hope is that I can get one of my new guys to test for this bug as part of his test automation system, and we will be able to try different combinations of events to narrow down the steps to reproduce.
To reproduce this, enter a Compilation which should look right (click on each artist and make sure this album is in their list of tracks). Note the total number of Artists in the Home or Artist listing (this will probably be wrong in the Album display - see Bug 4231). Then change some parameter (Album title, Year, Artwork, Genre, Disc # all seem to work) in iTunes, then do a "Look for new and changed music" rescan. Once this is complete, select the changed album (which should still appear correctly, with all the artists), and then select one of the artists. Unless that artist also has tracks in other albums, the display will say "0 albums with 0 songs by 0 artists", this artist will no longer be in the Artist list, and the overall artist count will be lower. It seems that there is usually one artist in the Compilation which still exists, although it doesn't seem to be consistent. I just reproduced this again to make sure. I am running SlimServer version: 6.5.1 - 10682 - Windows Server 2003 - EN - cp1252
I downloaded the newest suggested version of SlimServer, which is: 6.5.2 - 12047 - Windows Server 2003 - EN - cp1252 This problem has become MUCH WORSE. In previous versions, I would only occasionaly lose an Artist from one of my special Compilations. After installing the new version, I now have approximately 50 lost Artists (out of a total of about 3200). The lost Artists are not restricted to Compilations, but are randomly scattered through all of the albums. In every case I have explored, I can always find the album in the Albums list. If I select it, it shows the Artist correctly. If I then select the Artist, I get the display "0 albums with 0 songs by 0 artists." I have performed a couple of "Clear Library and Rescan Everything" commands which appear to have no effect on this problem. I then removed two such Albums from my target folder, and performed a "Look for new and changed music". As expected, the two albums were gone. I then put them back into the folder and did another rescan. In one case, the Artist was present, and in the other the Artist was still lost.
The problem is even worse than I thought. In addition to the 40+ Artists which don't show up at all, there are a large number (unknown, but seems like ~5% of all Artists) for which I have another Album by the same Artist. One of the Albums does not show up in the Artist listing, although it is in the Album list. This is clearly the same problem. I deleted the SlimServer folder and reinstalled SlimServer 6.5.2 (thinking perhaps some leftover in the library from an old version was causing a problem) but this had no effect. I then deleted the SlimServer folder again and installed version 6.5.1 - 10682 (my previous version). With that, everything is fine!! The new version obviously misinterprets some tags in the files which 6.5.1 handled correctly. All song files are MP3s. The vast majority were ripped using various versions of iTunes.
I have downloaded the latest version of slimserver and must say it has been a vast improvement for me, finding almost 200 artists that were previously missing (primarily from a couple of 5 and 10 disc compilation box sets I had). However, I am seeing some of the same issues as Steve in that some Artists (from single Artist albums) have now mysteriously disappeared when they were previously there. As always, Browse by Artst reveals all Albums it is only missing Artists. Although I haven't done a thorough search I'm aware of two Artists that have disappeared. I haven't tried doing a complete rescan yet but I'll hopefully have a play around over the weekend and report back the findings. So basically an improvement but still not quite there. Jeff
I have installed the latest version of Slimserver and must say that for me it has been a vast improvement finding about 200 Artists from a couple of 5 and 10 disc compilation box sets I had that were previously missing. However, I am seeing some of the same issues as Steve in that I have now lost a few Artists that were previously there that are from standard, single Artist albums. I haven't done a thorough check through but I only seem to have lost a small number of Artists. As always, all albums show up when Browsing by Album it is only a problem when Browsing by Artist. I haven't tried doing a few rescans to see what happens yet but hopefully I'll get a chance to play around over the weekend. So basically an improvement but still not there. Jeff
Although I did not check this specifically, it did seem to me that with version 6.5.2 I was not losing Artists from Compilations, but only from single Artist Albums. My original problem was always with Compilations, although if I did enough library clears and rescans I could eventually get all the Artists back (until I changed something else). Note that I could determine this because the Artist counts in SlimServer and iTunes would match. With 6.5.2, at least one time I noticed that a "Clear Library and Rescan" operation "found" a formerly lost Artist, so the behavior is not completely consistent. For the time being I will stick with 6.5.1 until something is done in this area. I would be glad to send song files for Albums which lose Artists if that would help.
Steve, are you still seeing this issue? Some changes have been made to the scanner which might result in improved scanning. If you are still seeing it, we'd love to have a look at an example file which demonstrates this symptom. Tagging issues and tag priority can be thorny issues. I have an automation specialist now who can add a test for this problem to our automated test suite.
Chris, I haven't downloaded any versions beyond 6.5.1 because the first version of 6.5.2 I got was dramatically worse in this area, and I was waiting to see if any update was released which was expected to improve the situation. Since it sounds like there have been some changes which may affect this, I will try the latest version and let you know what happens. This won't be for a couple of days since I am not at home now. With 6.5.1, this bug always seemed to occur when I changed something in one of my special Compilations. Thus I could typically make it happen with a small amount of effort (although the results were never consistent). The problem in 6.5.2 was so pervasive that I did not do any analysis to see if I could "make" it happen. If it is still occurring in the latest version, I can at least give you the track files for some "lost" artists, and determine if the failing behavior is consistent or random.
Hi Steve, I should note we feel like we're getting close enough to the 7.0 release that we probably won't have any more releases from the 6.5.x branch. I don't want to push you beyond your comfort zone as a twisted reward for helping us out by filing bugs :). If you want to just upload a sample file, we will try to find time to test it in the 7.0 branch.
Chris, Without downloading a version beyond 6.5.1, I can't identify a failing file. If I do get a new version and identify an Album whose Artist is lost, what files would you like to see? I would guess that any one of the track files would be enough. If you are close enough to 7.0, it seems like I should just wait for that and then see if the bug still exists, and if it does get you files at that point. When do you expect to see 7.0?
There's a fairly reliable beta on the web site currently. It'll probably be released in less than a month.
I downloaded the Beta version of 7.0 - 14001. The severe problems with 6.5.2 are definitely gone, and after a little experimentation I have not yet seen this problem appear. In previous versions it has occasionally taken some time to notice this failure, so I will continue to observe the system, but so far it looks promising (I have been able to change variables for my Compilation albums without causing any Artists to be lost).
I'm very glad to hear it! We'll try and put some automated tests of this functionality in so it doesn't re-occur without us noticing. Please re-open the bug if you see anything else.
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.