[Mbee]

Noticed that 13.2 b2 - is not showing tagged Album Artist (from Compilations) in the Artist list as before. What gives?

In Eden it "correctly" listed the tagged Album Artists (from Compilations) as "Various Artists" (or whatever tag they were given) amongst all other Artists in the Library list - But now they don't show up.

...and yes, "Include artists who only appear on compilations" is set to OFF.

just to add, Browsing:
- Library/Compilations: works fine i.e. includes all the compilation albums, with the artist names listed below as "Various Artists" (apparently XBMC is reading the tag).
- Library/Albums: same as above in Compilations
- Library/Genres/Soundtrack(or whatever label): DOES show the "Various Artists" in the list as the 'Artist' list normally should.

thanks.
-M

[Mbee]

Is nobody experiencing problems with Compilations in their Gotham Music Library ...is it just me?
As I mentioned, this worked just fine in Eden.

Edit: Sorry, I forgot to mention that I'm running XBMC on Mac OS X 10.8.5

Here are a few images for clarity:

watch gallery

cheers!

[Simon6785]

Hey,

same Problems here. There has been a Bug report for this. I suppose, you are too using Picard to tag your files? The Problem is that Gotham now uses the embedded Musicbrainz ID for sorting, and there is something wrong. That's why only so few people are having Problems...

Greets

[jjd-uk]

Have you tired turning "Override song tags with online information" off to see what happens? I think this should restore Frodo behaviour where MBID's are ignored going by MusicBrainz_metadata (wiki)

[Simon6785]

Thanks, I will try that! Do I have to delete the Database and scrape from scratch, or will yust ticking the box do it?

\\EDIT: The option was off all the time...

[scott967]

Is the problem simply that "Various Artists" doesn't appear as an artist? I can confirm that on 13.1 I have Various Artists with either "show artists on compilations" on or off, but don't have it in 13.2b2, though my music libraries aren't identical so it isn't a 100% good test.

scott s.
.

[revalex]

I have the exactly same problem.

"Various Artists" (as an album artist name that I gave in albums with compilations/soundtracks) does not show in an "Artists" view anymore.

I can see VARIOUS ARTISTS with all soundtrack/compilation albums only as a folder in a "File" view.

While I can see some compilation/soundtrack albums under other Artists (artists that participated on the soundtrack album), the only way to see all albums with a "Various Artists" album artist is through "Compilations" in a "Library" view (Music - Library). All other album artists are there.

Where did the album artist "Various Artists" disappear in Gotham (after rescanning or new scanning of files to the library)?

I use "Universal Album & Artist Scraper", and I unchecked [OFF] for "Override songs tags with online information", "Include artists who appear only on compilation", and "Download additional information during update". However, even with that setting, after scanning music to the library and exporting library, I noticed that nfo files (even ones I made using TagScanner) for music albums are all "infected" with:

<musicBrainzAlbumID></musicBrainzAlbumID>

<compilation>true</compilation>

<albumArtistCredits>
<artist>Various artists</artist>
<musicBrainzArtistID></musicBrainzArtistID>
<joinphrase></joinphrase>
<featuring>Various artists</featuring>
</albumArtistCredits>
<track>
<musicBrainzTrackID></musicBrainzTrackID>

or <compilation>false</compilation> for any other artist.

I use "Various Artists" as an album artist name (with an uppercase letters as shown), and I made my own "Various Artists" nfo file for this artist; however, XBMC (after scanning) renamed everything everywhere (after exporting library and asking to overwrite old files) to "Various artists". Only the name of the folder in a "File" view and a path to the folder in album nfo files keeps having "Various Artists" as I named it.

I also did some tests:

1. Using Gotham 13.1, I cleaned the library, removed a MyMusic32.db file from the userdata folder, even re-edited some nfo files (removing all those strange string about musicbrainz artist ID, ...) or made new nfo files using Tagscanner, ... After I rescanned all music to the library, .... there is no way to get "Various Artists" to be shown as an artist in an "Artists" view back.

2. Using Gotham 13.1, I copied a part of my compilation/soundtrack albums into a new folder "Compilation". In that folder, I renamed album artists from "Various Artists" to "Compilation" (using "TagScanner" as for any other albums in my library). When I scanned albums from that new folder to a music library, it created an artist "Compilation" and all my albums were there -- showing under an artist "Compilation" in an "Artists" view (exactly as it used to be in Frodo).

3. I made a fresh install of Frodo on a different PC, scanned all music to a music library (with the same nfo files), and an artist "Various Artists" showed in a "Artists" view (Music - Library - Artists).

So for some reason, in Gotham 13.1, only albums with "Various Artists" as an album artist are messed up. It seems that the problem is specific to the use of a name "Various Artists" as an album artist.

[scott967]

I can confirm that I have an album of FLAC files with Album Artist set to Various Artists in each file. In 13.1 database the artist is shown as Various Artists and the scraper has inserted the MBID for it (89ad4ac3-39f7-470e-963a-56509c546377) and also scraped thumb and fanart. In 13.2b2 the artist is shown as Various artists (lower case a) and there is no MBID and didn't scrape any art.

Not sure what that's telling me, but obviously there is a change here. I tried to see if there is something on trac or a PR on GitHub but my search skill couldn't turn up what changed.

scott s.
.

[revalex]

I also have mostly FLAC files, and I was able to do more tests.

I did some more tests on my second (testing) PC with 13.1 version. I deleted MyMusic46.db file from the userdata folder in Gotham 13.1, and I copied there my saved MyMusic32.db file from Frodo 12.3 version. After that I renamed the file to "MyMusic46.db".

I launched the XBMC 13.1 and scanned all music files into the library. Then, I imported library from the last saved (today's) musicdb.xml file (created while that deleted original MyMusic46.db file was still there), and I was able to get "Various artists" as an artist in an "Artists" view. However, there were not fanart or thumb. I expected it would load info from my custom made file artist.nfo stored in "Various Artists" folder or musicdb.xml file, but it did not do anything. When I clicked to refresh artists info, I got it scanned with info and all pics for "Britney Spears" but titled Various artists. There is no way to get Britney's info away. Changing a scraper to "Local Information Only" and cleaning the library does not get info and pics of Britney away either.

So more testing, more mess up in the database and my music library.

I noticed that new MyMusic46.db file (as created in 13.1) has a strange command at the beginning about all those musicbrainz IDs and instructions to put albums into a "Compilation". Maybe, if there would be a way to edit MyMusic46.db (I do not have any experience with editing *.db files) and remove all those commands about a musicbrainz intergration and sorting to compilations, it can solve the problem.

That's how one command at the beginning of MyMusic46.db file looks:
CREATE INDEX idxAlbum_1 ON album(bCompilation)A
I do not understand it, but it seems that it is one of things that is responsible for disappearance of my "Various Artists" as an album artist in a "Artists" view.

The thing is that I upgraded to 13.1 almost a month ago, and I did many changes in my music tags and library before realizing that "Various Artists" as an artist suddenly disappeared. So using MyMusic32.db for a heavily changed and updated music library would be a tedious job to do. A new clean install, especially when using outdated MyMusic32.db file, would take me days verifying all changes to nfo files, .... Not what I expected from this upgrade.
I use scrapped *.nfo files as the source of basic information (if my album exists in the scrapping database), and I modify file names, album titles, artists to my liking. I especially do not like having "featuring xyz" as a part of a song title as some scrappers do). I also add or do many changes in a "review" part, etc., so after all, I mostly had custom *.nfo files that cannot be scrapped again the way I have them now in my music library.
I would definetely not want some [i][i]musicbrainz[/i][/i] overwrites my editings and modifications to keep something "up-to-date" in its update effort.

So, it looks that I will have to live without "Various Artists" in a "Artists" view and only with "Compilations" option in a "Library" view.

I actually customized my home menu by adding couple new windows (Kids Movies, Music DVDs, Music Videos, ....) with their own sub-menu windows and even by adding a sub-menu "Compilations" under the main MUSIC home menu window. That way, I redirected all albums that ended in "Compilations" (as currently being accesible only in a "Files" or "Library" view) to the main home menu, right next to a "Artists" sub-menu.

[Mbee]

I don't have any FLAC files in my library they're all either .m4a (Apple Lossless) or .mp3. But seeing that others are experiencing the same issue I don't think the problem is file type based.

@ Simon6785:
I've been using various tagging programs through the years mostly iTunes though, but never Picard - so I don't think that's the problem.

...and to be honest I really don't care about XBMC (Kodi) using MBIDs. First and foremost it should just read STANDARDIZED tags correctly like other programs do - It used to work just perfect before, why screw with that?

@jjd-uk
Yes "Override song tags with online information" is also set to OFF.

@ revalex:
Excellent breakdown - saved me the trouble of trying all the excact same things out myself ...but yeah you obviously have the same library problems

@scott967:
are you sure that FLAC album you tested is also tagged as a "compilation" album, not just a normal album with the artist name set to "Various Artists"?
This problem seems to be with tracks/files, that are tagged as "compilations", not being filtered (by tags) correctly.

cheers.

[revalex]

@scott967 & Mbee:

I am using TagScanner for my all my files (FLAC, mp3, m4a) and I never checked "a part of compilation" during my "tagging" even that option was available in TagScanner. I was happy to see all soundtrack and compilation albums under an album artist "Various Artists" in order to have my music library organized my way.

I even have a similar album artist for all soundtrack/compilation albums of foreign artists, and luckily MBIDs does not understand that phrase (a translation of "Various Artists" to a foreign language, the language that even use special characters/marks), so *.nfo files of albums of foreign artists (non-English) remained untouched -- not being "infected" with all those musicbrainz AlbumIDs, musicbrainz ArtistsIDs as albums of English singing artists.

The same (about remained untouched) applies to some albums of English singing artists if I did not scrapped them and created my own *.nfo from the scratch before scanning them to the library.

At least, one part of my music library stayed as it was during the "Frodo" time.

I have a feeling that Gotham 13.1 has embedded somewhere in its code for scanning/scrapping that anything with an album artist "Various Artist" should be treated as a compilation and it should ends in a "Compilation" folder in a Music Library view.

[scott967]

I don't use any "compilation" tags. XBMC will use album artist = Various Artists to set compilation TRUE.

I don't see any change of behavior from 13.0-13.1-13.2

I don't see that the SQL indexes have anything to do with it.

I seems that when album artist = Various Artists, XBMC will use the local language settings strings.po 340 to enter the artist name string info (for English (US) that gives Various artists). It won't show "Various artists" in the artist view but I found I could hack the database and rename the Artist to "Various Artists" and that fools XBMC into showing Various Artists in the artist view.

Once I did that, I could bring up the artist info page for Various Artists and run the Uni Artist Scraper and the first item in the list brought down the VA thumb and fanart.

scott s.
.

[revalex]

I went from 12.3 to 13.1 observing what was described.

A week ago, I tried to "hack" MyMusic46.db by renaming Various artists to Various Artists, but I think I was not successful. I used Notepad++, and that's probably not the editor to use (I am not an expert).

A week ago, I even tried the same attempt for renaming (as a previous member mentioned and did), but I was not successful.

I changed a lowercase "a" in Various artists to "A" in every *.nfo file for each album in my Various Artists folder (luckily there are only 30 albums). I rescanned the whole folder with updated *.xml files to the library again. After that, I exported the music library to an external file -- musicdb.xml file. I edited it with Notepad++ changing every lowercase "a" in Various artists to "A" in that file to "fool" XBMC. I imported the edited musicdb.xml file, but there was no luck to get an album artist "Various Artists" back. These albums were always scanned to the library with mixed album artists "Various Artists" and "Various artists", but they all ended up in a "Compilation" music node in my Music Library (the place I can see all soundtrack/compilation albums now).

Moreover, I move the whole "Various Artists" folder to a different hard drive and cleaned the library, exited. After moving it back, I launched XBMC, rescanned the folder from a "File" view. Again, no success.

It seems there are people that have a problem and those that do not have this problem.

Maybe I'm doing something wrong (I tried various steps on 2 different computers) or the database is messed up after so many tests. I already gave up. I will live with it for now, and maybe, little by little, I will check and edit all *.nfo files later. With my database of over 600 music albums, I do not see it happen so soon. I do not even think about a fresh install on our main HTPC, being scared what might happen to our extensive movies, tv shows, home made movies, and pictures libraries after another rescan.There are more important things in my life than "playing" with files.

As for now, when I want to play one of soundtrack albums, I just click on a custom-made tab under MUSIC on my home menu, and I can see all those soundtrack albums and choose.

Even there is a bug, at the end of the day, I am thankful for having XBMC with all amazing features, improvements, and an ability to customize a default skin.

[Mbee]

just updated to Gotham 13.2 RC1 ...still the same problem.

...Artists not visible for compilation tagged albums, under the "artist" library menu.

[scott967]

To hack the database, it depends on if you use the default Kodi "SQLite" or an external "MySQL" database. I only use the default SQLite one. In Firefox browser there is an extension SQLite Manager 0.8.1 I use that works well for this. In Windows OS there is a freeware SQLite Database Browser Ver 2.0b1 that also works. Don't know about other OS. I prefer the Firefox extension because you can sort any table by any column, making it easy to find specific records of interest. For this purpose, what you need to do is to browse the "artists" table and edit the strArtist cell that contains the string "Various artists" to read "Various Artists". Or maybe use a SQL command like

Code:

UPDATE "main"."artists" SET "strArtist"="Various Artists" WHERE "strArtist"="Various artists"

Again, the specific text string that is in the database depends on what language settings you are using. For example if using French you have to look for "Artistes divers".

I suppose it's a good idea to copy/backup your MyMusic46.db first, then if something goes wrong you can just restore it.

Just to repeat, for some reason on my production system I didn't have to do this hack, it was like that already. But when I installed different Gotham builds for test I always had to hack the db. I haven't yet figured out why the difference. I tried looking at the code but didn't have success figuring out exactly how the album artist is getting inserted into the database, and then read for displaying in the artists view.

scott s.
.