Created attachment 3187 [details]
Image illustrating issue as seen in my music collection

Created attachment 3188 [details]
Image browsing artist list

resetting target.  new reports should leave targets undefined.  thanks.

Steven, can you have a look at this one, then target accordingly.

Steven thinks it's a duplicate bug?

Bruno, would you attach one of the tracks?  Perhaps 'Intro' since it is short.  I would like to take a look at the tags.

Attaching track "intro" to bug. 

This bug is a little more complicated as I originally suspected because it seems to also be affected by some additional settings in Slim Center.  Here's some additional information

When I first reported the issue I was using the "Use iTunes" setting in the iTunes tab. And the music folder location in the basic settings was therefore blank.

A few days ago I switched over to specifying the music folder location and unchecking the "use iTunes" option for an unrelated reason (which I will document soon).  I cleared the DB and did a complete rescan. This seems to have affected the behavior of the listing oddity I mention below. Now I only have Blondie, Yazoo and Yes showing up in the artist listing and not every track artist from this album. They now show up AFTER Armand Van Helden. Also, clicking on the album to see its detailed information now provides a different layout. It says "YES" for "Compilation" and therefore no longer lists a Track Artist field with a l long wrapping list of all the track artists. Gone too is the Band/Orchestra field and the Album Artist fields that were previously displayed.

Let me know if you need me to put up the whole album (I can host it in a private area for testing purposes).

Created attachment 3210 [details]
First track of offending album in my collection

Created attachment 3211 [details]
Artist List WITHOUT "Use iTunes" option set (manually specifying music folder)

This is the current state after I stopped letting Squeeze Center use iTunes library and instead set basic settings Music Folder to point to my music.  Tagging still done in iTunes.

Bruno, there's a preference 7.1 now to use TPE2 as Album Artist under Preferences -> Music Library -> Compilations.

When you get a chance, could you verify that works to fix your issue?  Thanks!

How safe is the latest beta? :)

I will give this a shot and rebuild the entire DB as soon as I can - hopefully sometime this week.  I'll follow up here with the results. I won't be able to enable the use of iTunes as mentioned in my first report, but since this happens even without that, I don't think that will be a big deal for an initial validation that things seem to be on the right track.

So far it appears the problem still exists.  Since this installation is on my Windows machine, I don't know how to manually delete the database, so I did the typical Clear and Rescan after setting the new TPE2 option.

It's more than half way done scanning right now and the problem can be seen with the same album I used in the example. Both Artist and Album lists are affected in the web interface as previously documented.

Can someone let me know how to manually delete the whole database so I can be sure every bit of old information is getting purged before I reopen this bug?

I'm sorry to report, but the issue persists.

Tested with Squeeze Center version 7.1 - 21030 @ Mon Jun 23 01:40:13 PDT 2008 - Windows XP - EN - cp1252

Tried 3 ways:

Install new version, set TPE2 option and press apply.
 - this forces a rescan - problem persists.

Clean and rescan option.
 - forced rebuild of DB - problem persists.

Uninstalled Squeeze Center, deleted all Application Support files except prefs (all caches gone) and reinstalled.
 - everything was rebuilt - problem persists.

maybe i'm being dense here...

but my understanding is that only things listed as compilations suppress track artists from the artist list.

is this not the case?

in other words, is SC by design supposed to suppress track artists from the artist list IF that album has an album artist set, and IF that album is set to NOT be a compilation?

if you are using itunes integration, i think that completely bypasses the SC DB.

i think you should link this bug to a thread in the forums.

I think this is essentially a duplicate of bug 5108.  The TPE2/AlbumArtist tags don't necessarily play a part in the underlying problem.

As Mike Walsh points out, the suppression of track artists is valid only for compilations.  Bug 5108 raises the question of whether or not that approach makes any sense and whether most users expect the same with track artists from non-compilations.  From this bug, and from discussions elsewhere, they obviously do expect these artists to be suppressed from artist listings.

Mike Walsh ->  This topic has been discussed to death in the forums, please don't link this to a new thread, it's only going to cause confusion.

This bug while similar to Jim's differs in that the guest artists being listed appear sorted out of order. They get stuffed into the space that the ALBUM ARTIST would occupy, as illustrated in my examples.

Also, in 2007, all 6.5.x nightlies that I used treated this case correctly.

The correct behavior used to be that guest artists on NON-Compilation albums would be suppressed even if the compilation tag was unset. Because those albums are not compilations. This is the behavior that is indicated by the prefs options.

In Bug 5108 I made some suggestions about rewording and splitting the prefs up because they really should not be lumped together. They're constructed in a confusing manner such that many people don't even know what to expect from the resulting changes in settings.

Even the latest addition l inked to this bug (treat TPE2 as ALBUMARTIST) is worded in a non-consumer-friendly manner. It should avoid using "TPE2" as the main visual descriptor because most people won't even know what that is. Instead writing something like "Use iTunes and WinAmp ALBUM ARTIST tags for MP3 files" - then basically a bool, yes or no. The detailed description can mention what this does along with "TPE2" - it should also be moved out from under the compilation heading along with the option directly preceding it. Both should be under a "Single-Artist albums with Guest artists" or similar heading.

Anyway, this issue was attempted to be fixed with the "use TPE2" option, so it was accepted as a valid bug. It's just still broken. ;)

One more note...  As mentioned multiple times, this issue is not caused by iTunes integration (I stopped using that a long time ago). And no, iTunes integration has not historically by-passed the use of Slim's own DB (it just used the iTunes data to find the music and build some playlists).

just trying to help.

i still don't know what the exact issue is this bug is trying to address.

i understand the sorting out of order part, i saw your screenshots.  but i think that before you can address that, it needs to be stated by SC exactly what expected behavior is intended to be.  it can be frustrating trying to get them to say exactly what intended behavior is given a certain set of criteria, (in part b/c i don't think they document it).

in any case, why do you think track artists should be suppressed on non-compilations?  in other words, what indicates that to SC?  do you have an album artist tag set, and have it set as a non-comp, and then you expect it to suppress multiple artists?

btw, i couldn't agree more with you on the whole wording thing.  but i think users who need it will figure out the treat tpe2 option.  its the other two that are just totally awful.

Mainly for Mike:

The second option under the Compilation heading is what defined the behavior this bug is about. If you read its description it pretty much defines what should happen when using the ALBUM ARTIST tag. That the album will be listed only under the Album Artist and not the individual track artists.

This is a complimentary pref to the one above it, but for albums that are not marked with the compilation tag. Otherwise they would be mutually exclusive because all albums marked with the compilation tag will be listed under "Various Artists" if the second option for the setting above is selected.

Again, this worked beautifully in all versions of 6.5 that I tested with running on Mac OS and Windows and was only broken as far as I can tell, in 7.x

It was broken as far as I understand, because the tag that many (and I) often refer to as ALBUM ARTIST in MP3s is actually the Band Tag, TPE2.  In 7.x this tag is not treated the same as the Album Artist which has caused albums tagged as such to not display or sort according to the preference. Hence the brand new option to let SC use the TPE2 (Band) tag in MP3s as a proper ALBUM ARTIST.

This bug is to get back the working display and sorting that we had in 6.5. Tackling the description of the settings can be done once the functionality is repaired.

ok, i need to clarify something to you...

i have used slim stuff for ~4 years, and NEVER before did slim stuff ever treat TPE2 as album artist.  it has only started to do that since bug 8001 via the new treat tpe2 as AA option.  so you have that all wrong, i assure you.  (i know this b/c this has been my number one gripe until it was addressed all that time)

as to the second comp option, as you know its worded poorly.  when it says "list" all it means is "denote" or how it should be labelled.  i wasn't clear if you knew that or not?  but its definitely not a sorting option, and never has been.

i agree this whole deal is a mess, and i don't understand why your stuff sorts out of order.  maybe you should post more mp3s so the rest of us can see them, dissect them, and replicate the issue.

allow me to clarify that the second comp option has always used TPE2 (if nothing else was available) but again, that was only for denoting, not sorting.

I can't speak to the inner workings of SC, but I know what SS 6.5 did and I know what SC 7.x does with the music I have.  ;)

When first setting up SS 6.5 all tags were cleaned up with iTunes 7 - this was both to have iTunes display everything properly as well as make sure SS did.

The option to group by Band does affect lists and therefore the contents of sorted lists. I didn't mean to imply that it would change sort orders.  Anyway, this is because it affects the way the tracks are grouped. In other words it causes the track artists to be suppressed, which means they don't show up, and instead the tracks are included together as an album listed under the ALBUM ARTIST.

Currently I have a few albums that are by an artist and include mostly tracks by other artists or collaborations, such that the track artist tag is different than the Band/TPE2 (what I want the ALBUM ARTIST) to be. Using iTunes I had set its ALBUM ARTIST tag (Band/TPE2) to the correct content.

The example posted in this bug is "Armand van Helden" but I also have a similar album from "Groove Armada" and in fact am also using the Band/TPE2 in iTunes with albums that feature tracks by guest artists, so that I can include the guest artists within the track artist tag. An example of this might be an album by INXS where most tracks have the artist set as INXS while one is "INXS & Ray Charles." In this case I also have Band/TPE2 set as INXS. The compilation tag is cleared for all these because it causes both iTunes and Slim Server (conceivably SC as well) to display the tracks in their compilations VARIOUS ARTISTS sections.

Without the Band/TPE2 set, iTunes will not properly group the tracks into an album. Slim Server 6.5 would also not properly group nor display them, though I can't remember exactly what would happen right now.

I only started using the Band/TPE2 tag once I started using Slim Server (fall 2006) - in fact I only started using iTunes to manage my music at the same time with the release of iTunes 7 (it was useless before that time for my collection).

With the (then) two options set in Slim Server under the Compilations heading everything worked beautifully in this respect. I could have proper compilations listed under Various Artists and could have all manner of guest-track laden albums or mix albums listed under their Band/TPE2 (the folks who are considered the ALBUM ARTIST).

Since I was using only iTunes for tagging, and using only MP3 files, there was never any FLAC/OGG "ALBUMARTIST" tag and making the tag edits I mentioned above in iTunes worked perfectly with Slim Server's options to achieve the behavior described.

This broke in 7.x

But this bug, unlike the OTHER bug, is not simply about getting TPE2 back to substituting for ALBUM ARTIST.  The current issue causes albums by other artists who are featured within one of these gust-artist or mix albums to also be listed along side the mix album in question.

In fact it seems to currently only affect tracks/albums by artists for which other releases exist in my collection.  For instance with the Armand van Helden example, I'm only seeing it affect Blondie, Yes and Yazoo at the moment. It doesn't cause the names of other artists on that album such as Heavy Rock to appear in my artists list.  This behavior has not always been consistent however as at least one version of 7.x would show all the artists misplaced.

By the same token, none of the artists on that Groove Armada album I mentioned show up - likely because I don't have any other releases by them in my collection.

So I think I've gone full circle now, because I just realized/remembered that this whole Band/TPE2/ALBUM ARTIST thing is at least partially working because it's not causing problems with most of my other releases that are tagged in the exact same way (again, they feature artists that I don't have full length releases for elsewhere).  This may be the most important factor in this specific permutation.

As a quick test, I have temporarily moved out all albums from Blondie, Yes and Yazoo and have just started a Clean and Rescan on the DB.

This should, in theory, cause the offending misplaced artists to disappear, leaving only the correctly placed Armand van Helden album.

With regards to putting up more tracks, I can upload the entire album, but if this test proves successful, you will need additional albums by the track artists to see everything I'm seeing.

I've verified my hypothesis.  Without iTunes integration, the track artists of a mix or guest-artist album containing an ALBUM ARTIST and non-compilation, will appear out of order in Artist and Album lists. They 're lumped with the Album Artist of the album causing the problem.

I also re-read the whole bug thread and realized again why I had originally filed it. Because it was different enough from 5801. That is to say, with 6.5 and newer I did not experience the fault Jim documented in the other bug.

In fact, the only time symptoms even remotely similar manifested themselves was when I first opened this bug and was using iTunes integration. As soon as iTunes integration was turned off, only artists for which there were other full-length releases showed up as problems due to the offending ALBUM ARTIST album.

I will gladly put up the entire offending album tomorrow. The only requisites for verifying the problem will then be to have at least one other album by at least one of the artists on this album.

Here's what I tested since last time (re: offending album: Armand van Helden's NY Mix Odyssey with different track artists). When I mention Artist List, I am sorting artists alphabetically, the default. When I mention Albums list, I am viewing albums with the ARTIST->YEAR->ALBUM setting. This makes the albums show up sorted first by Artist, then the year of release for each artist.

Test: Removed all albums by Blondie, Yazoo and Yes and did Clean & Rescan
Result: Artist and Album lists looked fine - no extra entries for the track artists of the offending album and everything appears as expected. Single entry for the album in the correct place

Test: Created new music path with only Armand van Helden albums and two other "A" artists around him (one above and one below, in alphabetical order. Clean & Rescan.
Result: Lists appear correctly with 3 artists, albums all come up and in correct order.

Test: Added Blondie, Yazoo and Yes albums to this test path. Rescan/Update.
Result: Blondie, Yazoo and Yes appear after Armand van Helden, but before the next "A" artist in both Artist and Album lists. The three were also not in order with themselves in Artists and Albums were even more disorganized.

Test: Reverted back to normal music path, clean and rescan (still without Blondie, Yazoo and Yes).
Result: Everything again appeared properly.

Test: Created a fake album by "The Romantics" and added it to the music path (this is another artist that appears on the offending album), Rescan/Update
Result: "The Romantics" was listed after Armand can Helden in Artist list and Albums and not with the other artists starting with "R" - this is the same thing that happens with the other three artists.

Test: Added back Blondie, Yazoo and Yes, Rescan/Update
Result: Along with "The Romantics" these three again appeared next to Armand  in artist and album lists.

I don't expect any issue for anyone else to replicate this given the instructions I just provided. One can also make a fake mix album to simulate the one I have, but again, I will post the whole thing to make this easier.  Tags can be verified with MP3Tag (which I've done).

Created attachment 3483 [details]
The album that I've been using as an example throughout the discussion

All the tracks for the "offending" album. All tracks feature a TPE2 tag and artist tags with different artist names. The compilation tag is not set.

Small followup.  I have found another album that further proves the hypothesis. I have a mix album by "Chicane" which is also causing other artists to appear in the "C" alphabetical artist list (and album list mentioned previously).  Next to Chicane I can now also see "Aphex Twin," "Simple Minds," "Dubstar," and a few others that don't belong there. 

This only happens to artists for which I have other full-length releases from.

The main problem with the attached files in SqueezeCenter is that the TSOP tag, aka performer sort order or sort artist, has been set incorrectly.

Here is an example of one of the attached files:
"02 - Call Me.mp3"
ID3v2.3.0, 520381 bytes in tag
APIC - "[image/jpeg]"
TSOP - "Armand Van Helden"
COMM - " 0000125B 0000125B 00000000 00000000 0001A6EA 0001A6EA 000064E2 00006967 00004A45 00006F89"
TIT2 - "Call Me"
TPE1 - "Blondie"
TPE2 - "Armand Van Helden"
TALB - "New York: A Mix Odyssey"
TRCK - "2/17"
TDRC - "2004"
TCON - "35"
COMM - "Adjusted by iVolume 06/15/2007 14:54:51"

Notice that TPE1, aka lead performer or artist, is "Blondie" while TSOP is set to "Armand Van Helden".  TSOP should be "Blondie" in this instance since TSOP refers to the sort order of TPE1 which is "Blondie" not "Armand Van Helden".

SqueezeCenter currently stores unique contributors internally using id, name, namesort, namesearch, customsearch, musicbrainz_id and musicmagic_mixable.

Since the above track has "Blondie" for TPE1 and "Armand Van Helden" for TSOP SqueezeCenter creates a unique contributer with a name of "Blondie" and a namesort of "Armand Van Helden".

The above unique contributor would be separate from other "Blondie" contributers in SqueezeCenter because of the incorrect TSOP tag.  If there was no TSOP tag SqueezeCenter uses TPE1 for both name and namesort.

So my recommendation is to go through and either remove or correct the TSOP tags from the files in question.

Considering marking this bug as a dupe, invalid or works for me.

See bug 4584, bug 5177 and bug 6490.

Waiting for DB to rebuild so I can verify the effect of removing TSOP on the offending tracks.

I looked at those tracks a few times I missed the fact TSOP was set. It was originally set to overcome a missorting issue in either SS or iTunes, can't recall which but I thought I'd cleared it from all the tracks while verifying this issue.

What Steven mentioned about the multiple Blondie contributors can't be seen in the browse lists in SC however:
"The above unique contributor would be separate from other "Blondie" contributers in SqueezeCenter because of the incorrect TSOP tag."

Only the single entry for Blondie comes up in Artist list (sorted with Armand) and all Blondie albums are displayed and sorted in the same/similar location when browsing by albums. Is this expected behavior when there should be two contributor entries with the same name?

Thanks Bruno, your are right about SqueezeCenter not creating a unique contributer when the sort order tag is different.  This may actually be the core issue of this bug.  Investigating further.

Looks like Jim pointed out the namesort behavior of SqueezeCenter in bug 3069.

So it looks like currently SqueezeCenter will use the last explicit TSOP value it finds for a given TPE1 value.

I don't know what I was thinking when I said SqueezeCenter would create another unique artist if the explicit TSOP values were different for a given TPE1.  I wonder if that would be better then just using the last one SqueezeCenter finds.

Bruno, I am going to close this bug for now.  If once your TSOP tags are fixed you still see odd behavior in SqueezeCenter that is not covered in the other bugs mentioned here feel free to reopen this bug.

Clearing TSOP for the two offending albums' tracks mentioned in this bug has solved the issue causing the misplaced artists in both Artist and Album lists.

Now I have to do other testing on the sorting of the Album Artist (or BAND/TPE2 if that option is set in SC).  5177 seems to be the one most appropriate for that.

Anyone know if there's a report files about the individual track artist names not appearing in mix-type albums like the one that has been discussed here?  Track names appear without artist names when clicking to view the album details. Then there's an entry titles "Track Artists" under the 'Album Artist" next to the album thumbnail that just lists the track artist names.

(In reply to comment #31)
> Clearing TSOP for the two offending albums' tracks mentioned in this bug has
> solved the issue causing the misplaced artists in both Artist and Album lists.
> 
> Now I have to do other testing on the sorting of the Album Artist (or BAND/TPE2
> if that option is set in SC).  5177 seems to be the one most appropriate for
> that.
> 
> Anyone know if there's a report files about the individual track artist names
> not appearing in mix-type albums like the one that has been discussed here? 
> Track names appear without artist names when clicking to view the album
> details. Then there's an entry titles "Track Artists" under the 'Album Artist"
> next to the album thumbnail that just lists the track artist names.
> 

Marking bug as Verified per Bruno

As far as I'm concerned, this can be marked closed. The issue as described doesn't happen unless the sorting tags are applied with the different artist.  I'd prefer the issue not to happen regardless, but cleaning out those tags is proper form nonetheless for the collection of tracks.

We do need support now for Band/TPE2 sort modifiers though. ;)

what do you mean?

if tpe2 is treated as ALBUMARTIST inside SC, doesn't SC sort in that way?

Mike, sort tags are to override the display tags.  Like the ARTIST SORT (TSOP) tag overrides the ARTIST tag for sorting, we need support for an ALBUM ARTIST SORT for the exact same purpose. This is already requested in bug 5177 (a request for all the sort tags iTunes supports) and 4584 (a request specifically for ALBUM ARTIST SORT).

Reduce number of active targets for SC