[NeoCortex]

Is there a particular reason you want to avoid using tags?  Just adding the same "Various Artists" value for the Album Artist field for all compilation albums would solve the problem and it would also likely carry over to any other music library software you use in the future.  No matter how good the guessing system is in Kodi, even if you can modify the rules a bit, you'd still likely end up hunting down stuff that didn't get parsed correctly.

[DaveBlake]

But I can assure you the files I am talking about are not inconsistently tagged. They do have correct Album, Artist and Title tags; no Album Artist or MusicBrainz tags; they are in separate folders and both the files and the folders have sensible names.
Looking at them again, the ones that are scraped incorrectly (of course I am using a sample of limited size, 4-5 albums) do not have track numbers - considering that one of the criteria for the heuristics, I guess that might be the dealbreaker.

As a bare minimum tag music files with ARTIST, ALBUM, TITLE, and TRACK.

YEAR, ALBUMARTIST, and COMPILATION tags are probably the next useful ones to have when scanning music into the music library, and having complete Musicbrainz Id tags (as added when using Picard) makes scraping from online sources of additional artist and album information both accurate and efficient.  The more tag data provided the better the user experience for browsing and filtering their music collection.

Music file and folder names are not used by the music library processesing at all, call them whatever you want to.

As I suggested your tagging is the reason that you experienced the music being split into multiple albums. Fix your tagging and all will be well.

[azido]

You might also disable "Show song and album artists" in library -> music settings to get rid of getting 20 different artists with the same album name. Might be your problem, too.

Anyway, as advised more than once: the usage of ALBUMARTIST tag set to "Various Artists" will improve your overall experience a lot when it comes to compilations. Tracks have still their assigned artists. Plus that is way faster (i.e. with mp3tag) done than writing nfo files for all your compilations.

[nevernow]

Is there a particular reason you want to avoid using tags?  Just adding the same "Various Artists" value for the Album Artist field for all compilation albums would solve the problem and it would also likely carry over to any other music library software you use in the future.  No matter how good the guessing system is in Kodi, even if you can modify the rules a bit, you'd still likely end up hunting down stuff that didn't get parsed correctly.

Yes, there is a reason. It's not that I don't want to use tags, I don't want to edit them. And yes, I do understand that editing them would fix the problem I'm having.

[nevernow]

As a bare minimum tag music files with ARTIST, ALBUM, TITLE, and TRACK.

[...]

Music file and folder names are not used by the music library processesing at all, call them whatever you want to.

As I suggested your tagging is the reason that you experienced the music being split into multiple albums. Fix your tagging and all will be well.

Ok, so TRACK is the dealbreaker.
Using file and folder names wouldn't seem to be a bad idea, but I understand it goes against the tag-centered approach again.
And again, I understand that editing the tags would fix things.

[nevernow]

You might also disable "Show song and album artists" in library -> music settings to get rid of getting 20 different artists with the same album name. Might be your problem, too.

Anyway, as advised more than once: the usage of ALBUMARTIST tag set to "Various Artists" will improve your overall experience a lot when it comes to compilations. Tracks have still their assigned artists. Plus that is way faster (i.e. with mp3tag) done than writing nfo files for all your compilations.

Thanks for your reply. Changing visualization options would hide the problem, but wouldn't fix it. I would still be unable to play a compilation as such.
Also, my goal is to preserve the files as they are (names and tags) and have them correctly scanned into the library. I wouldn't mind the burden of creating nfo files when necessary.

[azido]

I would still be unable to play a compilation as such.
Also, my goal is to preserve the files as they are (names and tags) and have them correctly scanned into the library.

 Sorry, i'm not getting your resistance against editing tags, but you might have your reasons. Thing is: obviously the given tags don't lead to correct scanning. Depending on the source of the music files, there are a LOT of different decisions made on how to tag a music file. I found even very inconsistent tags inside one album on spotify/amazon music/you name it. Btw: writing nfos would also just hide the fact your files are not tagged consistent or specific enough to be realized as compilations.

I for myself will never use the most recommended tool picard as it includes very strict rules to match music in their database leading to too much stress, frustration and time consuming for my needs, but why not give mp3tag a chance? It's free, it's easy and it can retag a complete album in less than 10 seconds if you know what to type in.

Kodi, as every other computer program, does not get your logical conclusions. It simply takes what you serve and work with that in a strict given way. The result depends on what you serve, not on what you "think" about it

Anyway (i guess i write toooooo much): gimme an example of a compilation in doubt and i give you a screenshot on how to tag it correctly to be recognized as such in kodi. You'll find out it's WAY easier than writing an xml or cue sheet.

[nevernow]

@azido , thanks, but I would know how to edit my tags if I wanted to. And yes, I do have my reasons for not wanting to.

I understand your point about Kodi (well, its scraper) and how it's just a software tool that works with input and produces output. The thing is I think software tools should conform to reality and not expect reality to conform to them.
In this specific case, work with folder and file names, nfo files and, sure, tags. Which is precisely what Kodi does for movies and TV shows. I just don't understand why they refuse to do it for music.

Finally, if the matching in Picard is the same as the one that shows from the Generic Music Scraper, yes it's very strict and picky. "Very Unique Artist Name" - "Very Very Unique Album Name CD" won't be a match, for example.

[NeoCortex]

@azido , thanks, but I would know how to edit my tags if I wanted to. And yes, I do have my reasons for not wanting to.

I understand your point about Kodi (well, its scraper) and how it's just a software tool that works with input and produces output. The thing is I think software tools should conform to reality and not expect reality to conform to them.
In this specific case, work with folder and file names, nfo files and, sure, tags. Which is precisely what Kodi does for movies and TV shows. I just don't understand why they refuse to do it for music.

Finally, if the matching in Picard is the same as the one that shows from the Generic Music Scraper, yes it's very strict and picky. "Very Unique Artist Name" - "Very Very Unique Album Name CD" won't be a match, for example.

Tagging in music files is much more ubiquitous than tagging in video files.  The point of tagging is to remove ambiguity instead of guessing.  It also allows people to organize their files in whatever way they want instead of worrying about conforming to a particular folder structure, making it much more flexible.  The way Kodi handles music files is to be as flexible as possible with how most people index their music.  If they try to cover all possible ways people want to parse the files, it just leads to increased chances of things breaking or not being read right.

Adding tags doesn't affect the files at all, aside from making them easier for Kodi to parse.  And it's very simple to do, even for a larger library.

[nevernow]

@NeoCortex It's absolutely true that tagging music files is standard since forever and video files tagging is not (and not even possible with older formats). It was never my intention to deny or hide that.

However  I can't say "The way Kodi handles music files is to be as flexible as possible with how most people index their music." when it forces people to use tags and tags only, not offering the other mechanisms that already exist for video files (and I don't want to give false info but my impression is that music files were handled differently in the past, too).

[azido]

when it forces people to use tags and tags only, not offering the other mechanisms that already exist for video files (and I don't want to give false info but my impression is that music files were handled differently in the past, too).

Kodi does not force you to do anything

You can still play your music from file mode, if you want to. Even such stuff that is not added to the library, as long as it resides inside a source you've added so it's accessible.

In my opinion the decisions made in the beginning of xbmc are based on the following:

1. Video
Nearly nobody in the whole world invest time in filling out video tags, except maybe some hobby filmers who want to categorize their shots in some way (maybe never made for htpcs though). That means all information for movies & tv shows must use directories, filenames & a fixed structure as a basis to get all needed information & more.

2. Music
Oh look - nearly EVERY user has already tagged music files in some way or the other, at least we can read artist, album, track number and track name from the majority of files, so we don't need to program something based on file names & directory structures, instead we can read those tags to get the basic infos and put more effort on handling additional informations for artists, albums, graphics and so on. Plus there is a huge music database (musicbrainz) that we are allowed to verify correct tagging, so let's use it.

These decisions for me are absolutely logical and efficent.

There is simply no need to switch to file/directory based music handling, and with the introduction of Artist Information Folder we don't even need any given directory structure for additional scripts for artworks any more. Win/Win/Win, if you ask me.

[NeoCortex]

I'm just curious, what is your issue with tagging?  Not being judgmental, just trying to understand so that maybe we can suggest a way to make it easier or less cumbersome, or to alleviate any concerns you might have about doing it.

[nevernow]

when it forces people to use tags and tags only, not offering the other mechanisms that already exist for video files (and I don't want to give false info but my impression is that music files were handled differently in the past, too).

Kodi does not force you to do anything

You can still play your music from file mode, if you want to. Even such stuff that is not added to the library, as long as it resides inside a source you've added so it's accessible.

In my opinion the decisions made in the beginning of xbmc are based on the following:

1. Video
Nearly nobody in the whole world invest time in filling out video tags, except maybe some hobby filmers who want to categorize their shots in some way (maybe never made for htpcs though). That means all information for movies & tv shows must use directories, filenames & a fixed structure as a basis to get all needed information & more.

2. Music
Oh look - nearly EVERY user has already tagged music files in some way or the other, at least we can read artist, album, track number and track name from the majority of files, so we don't need to program something based on file names & directory structures, instead we can read those tags to get the basic infos and put more effort on handling additional informations for artists, albums, graphics and so on. Plus there is a huge music database (musicbrainz) that we are allowed to verify correct tagging, so let's use it.

These decisions for me are absolutely logical and efficent.

There is simply no need to switch to file/directory based music handling, and with the introduction of Artist Information Folder we don't even need any given directory structure for additional scripts for artworks any more. Win/Win/Win, if you ask me.

"Kodi doesn't force you to use tags, you can play music in file mode" is like saying "Cars don't need fuel, you can easily push them by hand". Come on.

I'm the first to say that tagging music is standard and tagging video is not, although it might have more to do with the fact that MP3 was born with tags and AVI wasn't. Video tagging might become common in the future, you never know. But it's not right now, for sure.

I'm not saying Kodi should switch away from tags, not at all. What I'm saying is that I think tags should one of the tools, not the tool. I repeat myself, but the wiki itself says that Kodi uses methods other than tags to identify music files, I would just like them to be expanded and more controllable by the user. Even information coming from MusicBrainz is discarded in favor of information contained in the file tags. I think there should at least be an option for that. Options and and nfo overrides, that's all I'd ask.

All this said, I think we can agree to disagree.

[nevernow]

I'm just curious, what is your issue with tagging?  Not being judgmental, just trying to understand so that maybe we can suggest a way to make it easier or less cumbersome, or to alleviate any concerns you might have about doing it.

I want to preserve the integrity of files (SFV checks and such) and editing the tags would alter that.

It's not that I don't know how to do it, it's not that I can't be bothered or am too lazy.

I do however think that this scanning model unnecessarily shifts a burden from the scraper to the users in requiring them to add or edit tags. It's like Kodi knows the answer, but wants me to ask the right way.

Here's a screenshot of Picard looking up one of the compilation albums I started the thread about (opened Picard in the folder, pressed "Lookup", nothing else). I guess it's fair to say that Picard correctly identified the compilation album, although the songs didn't each match 100%. Why can't Kodi do that or offer those results from Picard (MusicBrainz) as options?

[azido]

I want to preserve the integrity of files (SFV checks and such) and editing the tags would alter that.

Forgive me for my ignorance, but: SFV checks are a good way to ensure stuff you downloaded from the internet is untouched/unmodified before you unpack/start/use it, no doubt. But as YOU are the one who modify those files locally, what do you expect to happen?

In the end nobody stops you from using an SFV-creator afterwards to create a new valid checksum.. Don't get me wrong, just a suggestion to get a fast solution that covers both needs.