Not sure if this is related but I am having issues with my large music library (~8,000 artists, ~75K tunes, etc) and the universal scraper (I think). Sorry for the long post, skip to the bottom where I list the specific steps I am taking and my issues with Artist BIO info and frodo/universal scraper
I am fairly new to XBMC (although I have had an original XBOX with XBMC on it for ages that I use specifically for watching guitar learning DVDs). I installed Frodo Beta 1 on a new Win 8 machine and also on a Mac Pro 1,1 and have upgraded along the way, so both are on Frodo RC2. Both have a RAID attached where I keep my music library and my art for my media (mostly separated from the music media, with the exceptions for cdART.pngs and folder.jpgs for albums - although I have backups as well in the art folder.) Both music libraries are identical - I used File sync utilities to copy from the Win 8 machine, up to my ReadyNAS NV+ and then I pulled it down to my mac via File Sync. I am sure there is a better way to do this, but as of now, the forums and all the reading about XBMC is making me dizzy... My music library is large and thoroughly tagged using Tag & Rename - all files have an associative Album Artist, embedded folder.jpg, album review embedded in comments field as well as an album review.txt file in each album folder. XBMC sees my library fine, my issues arise when the universal scraper gets involvedand I try and make my library look "pretty" in the skins. Somewhere along the way, I was able to get my mac to grab ~7,000-ish Artist thumbs, either via the Universal Scraper, cdART add-on, artwork organizer add-on, etc., not completely sure, but I manually copied this single folder with ARTIST.jpg files over to my PC. Both clients are using Transparency! skin and I have both Transparency skins pointing at a file structure for my art for my music library that are the same:
[localRAIDvolume]\XBMC Media\XBMC-ART\cdART Manager\Music Library Art
Music is located for both at:
[localRAIDVolume]\XBMC Media\Music\
Backup cdART png files arelocated: [localRAIDVolume]\XBMC Media\cdART Manager\cdART\
Both also have a folder structure for fanarts etc that I am pretty sure the Artwork Organizer Add-On created but didn't like it when I added cdART stuff inside this folder structure as it wiped-out all cdART folders and art on a subsequent run. This stuff is located at: [localRAIDVolume\XBMC Media\XBMC Art\
So, one of many issues I am having as I am getting better-acquainted with XBMC, is that the info in my library is either missing or it becomes a MANUAL process that is easily replicated, but should be something that is automatic. Specifically, ARTIST BIOs!!!!!!!!! It seems that the Universal scraper gets "disconnected" from the library. In the MUSIC settings on both the MAC & the PC, the Universal Scraper is selected for both album and artist info. The settings in the Universal scraper are mostly lastFM with AudioDB as the fallback, where applicable. Both XBMC music libraries registers about the same # of artists (~8,000). When I browse the libraries via ARTIST and scroll-through, the ArtistThumbs for almost all artists appear on my mac and I am still trying to get the same thumbs that I copied from my mac to my PC to show on my PC. I wrote a script to create folders and rename the JPGs from ARTISTNAME.jpg to ARTISTNAME\folder.jpg so I can merge them into my [localRAIDVolume]\XBMC Media\cdART Manager\Music Library Art folder. So far, it has been hit-or-miss as I see the JPGs in the folders, my skin is pointed to the folder (cdART Manager\Music Library Art), but no artist thumb showing in library. But as I said before the one that is really getting me is the ARTIST BIO!!! This happens on both the mac & PC and all skins, so its something with either Universal Scraper or Frodo:
While browsing music library by ARTIST, no bios are showing initially. Even subsequent scans don't grab an artist bio, changing the scraper from Universal to lastFM doesnt work. I AM able to get bios, but only when I do a very very very kludgy workaround and this process can be replicated on both my mac and PC and has been the only way I am able to get the scraper to grab the bio info:
1. Context-button --->> Artist Information. When I do this to an artist with no bio info or thumb, XBMC does this quick artist search and goes immediately into the manual keyboard with the name of the artist in the entry field. When I click DONE, it pops back up in a loop over and over until I escape out of that. This happens EVERY time.
2. Context-button --->> Change Scraper. When I get into this, no scraper is highlighted as the default scraper. This is where I think either XBMC, Universal Scraper, or the skin is goin batso. So, I navigate over to Universal scraper, select it, click OK and say YES to the impending dialog box asking if I want to set this action to all files, etc. Ok, cool.
3. Context-button --->> Artist Information. NOW, when I do this, I am able to get to a dialog box that has a suggestive list of ARTIST NAMES with the one I am searching for at the top 99.8% of the time. I click the first ARTIST in the list and it searches and brings me to a populated screen with bio info, discography, thumb, fanart, etc.
Not sure what's going on, sorry again for the lengthy post, but like I said above, I am dizzy from reading the forums, the wiki, LifeHacker, etc. I have been scanning my music library for 3 weeks now while getting more familiar with XBMC, the add-ons, etc. I do not know anyone using XBMC personally, so I am not able to discuss this stuff with people I know, etc. It seems the scraper should be able to recognize my artist and grab the bio info without any manual interference. As I have almost 8,000 artists, this is NOT what I want to be doing for the next year or so. Hopefully this is something that is easily-remedied.
-- D
EDIT: Some of my latest logs (CAUTION: the middle one is HUGE because of cdART Manager add-on doing lots of stuff to my library)
Your debug xbmc.log:
http://xbmclogs.com/show.php?id=24931
Your debug xbmc.old.log:
http://xbmclogs.com/show.php?id=24932
Your XBMC crashlog:
http://xbmclogs.com/show.php?id=24933
)and Universal scraper works like a charm. So definitely there is something mysterious with Frodo Beta.