[mezera]

I've come across a problem I can't explain and need yous help !

I run a german version of Kodi v16 on Ubuntu 16.04 (my test environment, before I move to RPi 3) and started to rip and tag my wifes CD collection. The used tools are ExactAudioCopy for ripping and musicbrainz picard or mp3tag depending on picard results. If the album is known on musicbrainz I take those tags, if not I try to tag manually with mp3tag. I have a compilation album (with 2 CDs) tagged with picard which shows up under "Various Artists" in Musik (=music) - Interpreten (=artists) and one tagged manually with mp3tag showen under Musik - Interpreten - Verschiedene Interpreten (= various artists).

How can I avoid this and have all of them in one categorie?

TIA and kr from Vienna, Austria,
Heinz

[DaveBlake]

I think you have tripped over an inconsistency in tag processing - between compilations with Musicbrainz id tags and those without - something I have raised a PR to fix in v17. But I have to admit I am a bit confused by the German too.

Just to be clear are you saying that the compilation with Musicbrainz ID tags is showing with album artist "Various Artists" (in English) and the other with "Verschiedene Interpreten" (in German)?

This is happening because in v16 when music files have mbid tags the album entry is created directly. Picard will have tagged the songs files from that album with
MUSICBRAINZ_ALBUMARTISTID = 89ad4ac3-39f7-470e-963a-56509c546377
The first music file you scan with that tag Kodi will create an artist record with that mbid and use the artist name in the matching ALBUMARTIST tag. In your case that was "Various Artists". The album is flagged as a compliation if the song files are tagged as COMPILATION = 1

But when there are no mbids Kodi applies the following logic to decide if an album is a compilation
1. album name is non-empty AND
2a. no tracks overlap OR
2b. all tracks are marked as part of compilation AND
3a. a unique primary artist is specified as "various" or "various artists" OR
3b. we have at least two primary artists and no album artist specified.

That satisfied it sets the album artist to the language specific setting for various artists. In your case "Verschiedene Interpreten". This is a little carzy, as if you had tagged it with ALBUMARTIST = "Verschiedene Interpreten" it would have ignored the compilation tags and not marked the album a compilation!!

I work around in v16, to get all albums under same artist is to ensure that all those with
MUSICBRAINZ_ALBUMARTISTID = 89ad4ac3-39f7-470e-963a-56509c546377
also have
ALBUMARTIST = "Verschiedene Interpreten"
You can edit the Picard Tags. Then the VA artist record will be created with the same name as your language setting, and all the albums will go together.

The language settings and VA handling can get a little knotted, but if you at least understand what Kodi is doing maybe you can think around it.

[mezera]

I think you have tripped over an inconsistency in tag processing - between compilations with Musicbrainz id tags and those without - something I have raised a PR to fix in v17. But I have to admit I am a bit confused by the German too.

Just to be clear are you saying that the compilation with Musicbrainz ID tags is showing with album artist "Various Artists" (in English) and the other with "Verschiedene Interpreten" (in German)?

Exactly!

This is happening because in v16 when music files have mbid tags the album entry is created directly. Picard will have tagged the songs files from that album with
MUSICBRAINZ_ALBUMARTISTID = 89ad4ac3-39f7-470e-963a-56509c546377
The first music file you scan with that tag Kodi will create an artist record with that mbid and use the artist name in the matching ALBUMARTIST tag. In your case that was "Various Artists". The album is flagged as a compliation if the song files are tagged as COMPILATION = 1

I haven't checked the database but assume you are 100% right.

But when there are no mbids Kodi applies the following logic to decide if an album is a compilation
1. album name is non-empty AND
2a. no tracks overlap OR
2b. all tracks are marked as part of compilation AND
3a. a unique primary artist is specified as "various" or "various artists" OR
3b. we have at least two primary artists and no album artist specified.

That satisfied it sets the album artist to the language specific setting for various artists. In your case "Verschiedene Interpreten". This is a little carzy, as if you had tagged it with ALBUMARTIST = "Verschiedene Interpreten" it would have ignored the compilation tags and not marked the album a compilation!!

I work around in v16, to get all albums under same artist is to ensure that all those with
MUSICBRAINZ_ALBUMARTISTID = 89ad4ac3-39f7-470e-963a-56509c546377
also have
ALBUMARTIST = "Verschiedene Interpreten"
You can edit the Picard Tags. Then the VA artist record will be created with the same name as your language setting, and all the albums will go together.

OK, I can/could do that. But what will change happen after I'll move to v17? I believe OSMC will use v17 shortly after it's available. I'd like to be on the safe side and keep future versions and their tag handling in mind. What would you do? What's best practice?

The language settings and VA handling can get a little knotted, but if you at least understand what Kodi is doing maybe you can think around it.

As mentioned above, a solution should last for a while and version changes should not influence the results. So I'll repeat my questions from above: Wich way would you go to avoid changes on tag level?

kr from Vienna, Austria,
Heinz

[DaveBlake]

OK, I can/could do that. But what will change happen after I'll move to v17? I believe OSMC will use v17 shortly after it's available. I'd like to be on the safe side and keep future versions and their tag handling in mind.

I understand that desire. Assuming that my PR does get approved (it may be rejected as we are in Beta) then albums with all the songs marked as part of a compilation will be taken as compilations regardless of what the album artist is (not just those with mbid tags too), and tagging with "Verschiedene Interpreten" (and no mbids) will be seen as a compilation. This will only partly help the inconsistent behavior you see in v16.

What would you do? What's best practice?

To be honest I would use Kodi in English not German. :p
I know that does not help you, and Kodi should be multi-lingual, but there are long standing well known issues with how various artists are handled and the language settings. It is something that needs more of a redesign than I have been able to do for v17. I hope to fix that sometime in the future, but part of the difficulty is finding an implementation that will cope with how people have tagged their music previously. I really can't give you a definative answer, but I will try.

The real issues occur when users have multiple profiles with different language settings, or switch language: items get the album artist name in the language at the time they were scanned. So best practice is pick a language setting and stick to it.

Assuming that you would rather the one VA artist in your collection was called "Verschiedene Interpreten" then I see my work around suggestion as best practice too that will minimise the chance of needing future tag changes.

[mezera]

Dave,

I've tried your suggestion, removed the album from the "input directory", cleaned the database, switsched to Emglish, added the album back and scraped, It now was within VA. Then I switched the language back to German, the album was still in VA. But !, I did an update for all artists and "Verschiedene Interpreten" was back again. Since the database will always change over time and I don't want to make my wife angry (she doesn't like foreign languages), I will keep German and two different VA groups.

I close this thread and will open an new one for Fanart, Discorg questions.

[DaveBlake]

No wonder you have tow different groups of VA, you don't seem to have done what I suggested at all

For anyone wanting to avoid various artists issues:

1) Pick a language to use and stick to it, don't switch (or create profiles with different languages).

2) For any various artist compilations tagged with Picard and having Musicbrainz id tags with
MUSICBRAINZ_ALBUMARTISTID = 89ad4ac3-39f7-470e-963a-56509c546377,
ensure that the ALBUMARTIST tag is set to the same value used by your language settings e.g. "Verschiedene Interpreten". Edit the tag values that Picard gives to achieve this.

3) For various artist compilations that do not have Musicbrainz id tags ensure that ALBUMARTIST tag is either blank, "various" or "various artists" (in v17 you can also have this set to the value used by your language settings). Kodi will use the local language setting for VA as album artist (not the tag value).

[malvinas2]

German forums are full of this kind of discussion....

Just to make sure, I understood everything correctly:
If I added to all compilations the two tags
MUSICBRAINZ_ALBUMARTISTID = 89ad4ac3-39f7-470e-963a-56509c546377
ALBUMARTIST = "Verschiedene Interpreten"
everything would run smoothly ?

Should one add the COMPILATION tag just to be on the safe side ?
This tag seems to be rarely used nowadays (?).

[mezera]

No wonder you have tow different groups of VA, you don't seem to have done what I suggested at all

For anyone wanting to avoid various artists issues:

1) Pick a language to use and stick to it, don't switch (or create profiles with different languages).

2) For any various artist compilations tagged with Picard and having Musicbrainz id tags with
MUSICBRAINZ_ALBUMARTISTID = 89ad4ac3-39f7-470e-963a-56509c546377,
ensure that the ALBUMARTIST tag is set to the same value used by your language settings e.g. "Verschiedene Interpreten". Edit the tag values that Picard gives to achieve this.

3) For various artist compilations that do not have Musicbrainz id tags ensure that ALBUMARTIST tag is either blank, "various" or "various artists" (in v17 you can also have this set to the value used by your language settings). Kodi will use the local language setting for VA as album artist (not the tag value).

Sorry Dave if I misunderstood you. Pls. keep in mind 1) not a native speaker and old (72 y).

Did the following:
- removed all directory entries with compilations
- cleared database
- changed the VA compilation tagged with Picard: ALBUMARTIST to Verschiedene Interpreten
- moved the changed directory back to Kodi input directory
- scraped
Result: again Various Artists instead of Verschiedene Interpreten - did /not/ work as expected or described

- rechacked the tags and found a tag sortname Albumartist still Various Artists

- removed VA again from Kodi input
- changed sortname to Verschieden Interpreten as well
- moved directory back
- scraped again
Result again Various Artists and not Verschiedene Interpreten

Can I send you something to clarify the problem?

Rgds. from Vienna, Austria,
Heinz

[DaveBlake]

Just to make sure, I understood everything correctly:
If I added to all compilations the two tags
MUSICBRAINZ_ALBUMARTISTID = 89ad4ac3-39f7-470e-963a-56509c546377
ALBUMARTIST = "Verschiedene Interpreten"
everything would run smoothly ?

Sorry no you have misunderstood, but I'm not sure how to be clearer.

And first a general point I must make: Kodi expects music files to be either tagged fully with all the different kinds of Musicbrainz id tags or to not have these tags at all. A part mix will not work, so no do not add those 2 tags to all compilations.

For each album you either do 2) if you have all the Musicbrainz id tags or 3) if you do not.

Should one add the COMPILATION tag just to be on the safe side ?
This tag seems to be rarely used nowadays (?).

Yes, use the COMPILATION tag. If you have Musicbrainz id tags then it is the COMPILATION tag that tells Kodi it is a copilation album.

If you do not have Musicbrainz id tags in your song files then Kodi will deduce it is a complaition if the rules I list in post #2 are satisfied, but IMO it is best to set this tag too.

I hope that is clear now.

[DaveBlake]

Sorry guys I'm not multi-lingual, so we will need someone with language skills to translate if that is the issue.

@mezera you need to be sure that you catch all the ALBUMARTIST tags, but also that the "various artist" entry in the artist table has been deleted. So not only moving the music files (input as you called them), but then clean the database (from settings). A lurking artist entry will result in what you experience.

More from me tomorrow if you need, it has been a long day.

But the Kodi team is aware that "various artists" and language settings causes uses problems, we just haven't implemented a fix.

[mezera]

Dave,

I think I found why "Verschiedene Interpreten" didn't work with an album tagged with Picard. I had Settings - Music - Library - Prefer online information on. I've switched it off and tried again. Now things changed and "Verschiedene Interpreten" is now in the Music - Artists list. The

The different settings need, at least for me (probably for any one new to Kodi), a better explanation and what they do.

I'll try the manually tagged album a bit later on and report back the result.

Rgds. from Vienna, Austria,
Heinz

[mezera]

Dave,

perfect advice! Now both albums are shown under "Verschiedene Interpreten" in Library Artist view.

Rgds. Heinz

[DaveBlake]

The different settings need, at least for me (probably for any one new to Kodi), a better explanation and what they do.

Yes I agree they do, not just for new people.

Unfortunately I have always hated writing user guides (done it professionally, but swore I would avoid it whenever I could). I am better at criticising and correctly inaccuracies, so if anyone can put up with that and would like to volunteer to be author that would be great for all of us.