[couch potatoe]

Hi, First of all, apologies if this the wrong forum for this post ...

I've been a happy Kodi for video user for a number of years now (back to about release 12!), but have finally decided to test the water with my music collection and the library.

Generally everything is as expected, I was particularly impressed with the Artist information pulled in by the universal scraper. But now I have a small problem...

I'm creating and artist.nfo file for "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" audio cd's" and have the title, genre, biography etc all working with thumbs and fanart.

I also have a list of the 5 "cd's" that make up the series complete with titles and years, however I'm missing the thumbnails for the cd's.

If I look in the album view I can see the cd's complete with with folder artwork, but in artist view I just see the generic cd symbol.

Can some kind soul tell me what I'm missing please!

Couch

[jjd-uk]

I'm going to move this post over to our Music section where it's more likely you'll get help for this issue.

[Klojum]

Who do you have in the metadata as the actual (album) artist, Mr. Adams himself? Or the various artists that participate?

[Karellen]

Can you check your file naming with this guide... http://kodi.wiki/view/Music_artwork

[DaveBlake]

I would need to know more about the folder layout etc. , but I would guess this may be hitting the limitations for artwork and disc sets.

[couch potatoe]

Wow - Its been a while since I posted here on the forums, I'd forgotten how quick you guys are!

Here's a bit more detail...

First the folder and file layout.

Code:

/BBC Radio Collection -  [directory]
    |
    /The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy  [directory]
        |
        /The Hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy - Primary Phase  [directory]
             Fit the First.mp3
             Fit the Second.mp3
             .
             Fit the Sixth.mp3
             folder.jpg  [album art]
        |
        /The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy - Secondary Phase  [directory]
             Fit the Seventh.mp3
             Fit the Eighth.mp3
             .
             Fit the Twelth.mp3
             folder.jpg  [album art]
        |
         artist.nfo  [my artist.info file]
         fanart.jpg
         thumb.jpg  [artist thumbnail]

And my diy artist.nfo

Code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes" ?>
<artist>
    <name>The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy</name>
    <genre>Comedy</genre>
    <born>11/03/1952</born>
    <biography>Douglas Adams....an advocate for environmentalism and conservation, as a lover of fast cars, cameras, technological innovation and the Apple Macintosh, and as a &quot;devout atheist&quot;.</biography>
    <died>11/05/2001</died>
    <path>nfs://192.168.123.20/c/media/Music/BBC Radio Collection/The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy/</path>
    <album>
        <title>The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy - Primary Phase</title>
        <year>1978</year>
    </album>
    <album>
        <title>The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy - Secondary Phase</title>
        <year>1980</year>
    </album>
    <album>
        <title>The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy - Tertiary Phase</title>
        <year>2004</year>
    </album>
    <album>
        <title>The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy - Quandary Phase</title>
        <year>2005</year>
    </album>
    <album>
        <title>The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy - Quintessential Phase</title>
        <year>2005</year>
    </album>
</artist>

I've obviously screwed up somewhere but I can't for the life of me spot where!

Cheers!

Couch

[Klojum]

<artist>
<name>The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy</name>

Shouldn't that be:

<name>Douglas Adams</name>

[DaveBlake]

Humm....

So you want "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" as an artist rather than say "Douglas Adams" or "Various Artists", have you tagged all the mp3 files with
Album Artist (TPE2) = "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" and
Artist (TPE1) = "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" ?

I suspect that Kodi simply isn't finding the artist folder, hence the artist.NFO file. Inspection of the music db would reveal what the algorithm used is returning. But confirm your tagging first please.

[couch potatoe]

<artist>
<name>The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy</name>

Shouldn't that be:

<name>Douglas Adams</name>

Possibly, but "Various Artists" would probably be more accurate as Douglas Adams was actually the author though I believe he did take one or two bit parts.

Humm....

So you want "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" as an artist rather than say "Douglas Adams" or "Various Artists", have you tagged all the mp3 files with
Album Artist (TPE2) = "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" and
Artist (TPE1) = "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" ?

I suspect that Kodi simply isn't finding the artist folder, hence the artist.NFO file. Inspection of the music db would reveal what the algorithm used is returning. But confirm your tagging first please.

MP3Tag confirms that both Album Artist and Artist are set to "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy", my artist.nfo file is working in that I can view the details I've setup for the artist "The Hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy" under Artists the five "phases" are also shown there complete with years, the only thing I'm trying to get my head around is why I'm not seeing thumbnails of the "phases" icons when they are present as expected in "Albums"

I'm more than happy to poke about in the music database if it will help - I've already been nossing about with Heidi...

forgot to mention I'm using an external MySQL database to synchronize all my systems - but I don't think its an issue as everything else is working ok including one or two homemade .nfo's for my movie collection.

Out of interest does Kodi have any size limitations my 800ish Movies and 75 TV Series are fine but 1600 Albums with 550 Artists seems a bit sluggy?

[couch potatoe]

Well, I don't know what I've done but... it's now working.

Been through everything with a fine tooth comb and suddenly. Woosh - thumbnails...

Many thanks to all for the help and advice, great as ever!

Wish me luck doing similar with The Goon Show Companion

Thanks again,

Couch

[Karellen]

Good to hear it is working. For your question on large sluggish libraries, the following may help.


https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=313962

[DaveBlake]

Out of interest does Kodi have any size limitations my 800ish Movies and 75 TV Series are fine but 1600 Albums with 550 Artists seems a bit sluggy?

That is not big at all, but obviously processor power and network speeds will contribute. But MySQL is slower than SQLite, that's for sure. For comparison some users have 30k of albums

[couch potatoe]

Again, many thanks for the information...

Couch

[Klojum]

800ish Movies and 75 TV Series are fine but 1600 Albums with 550 Artists seems a bit sluggy?

Databases should start to show their first drop of sweat, and only then, when records start to exceed a 1-2 million entries... The database schema complexity is another factor. In XBMC/Kodi, lots of functionality is still done by Kodi, while the database engine is at least just as capable of doing that, for example sorting numeric or date fields. Kodi can use more optimization there.

SQLite faster than MySQL? Mmm... I have my MySQL database running on a SSD and gigabit eithernet, I don't notice much difference. MySQL will likely have more overhead.

Possibly, but "Various Artists" would probably be more accurate as Douglas Adams was actually the author Big Grin though I believe he did take one or two bit parts.

Yes, but you'll have to have something to base your tuhmbnail on. Personally, D. Adams would be my choice.

[DaveBlake]

Databases should start to show their first drop of sweat, and only then, when records start to exceed a 1-2 million entries... The database schema complexity is another factor. In XBMC/Kodi, lots of functionality is still done by Kodi, while the database engine is at least just as capable of doing that, for example sorting numeric or date fields. Kodi can use more optimization there.

Indeed. The slowness of large nodes e.g. 130k of songs, is mostly down to sorting in memory, issuing separate queries for every thumbnail and needing all of it done before anything is shown. Nextwork speed has an impact if you are setup as client server. But the often blamed RDBMS and schema is innocent.

@Couch your library is not big enough to really show this issue, so not sue what is sluggish for you.

SQLite faster than MySQL? Mmm... I have my MySQL database running on a SSD and gigabit eithernet, I don't notice much difference. MySQL will likely have more overhead.

Interesting to know. I based my comment on comparing query speeds with both running locally on a NUC with Win10 and a large db. But MySQL version, verses MariaDB etc. may also make a differece, my testing was not to any great depth.

RDBMS used can make a difference too, but how Kodi uses it (or doesn't) is the biggest factor