Issue with Album artist [#11783]

[meljmartin]

MMA 1.0.4.0185 running Galaxy Note 10.1 running Android 4.1.2

The browser by Album Artist is not working. It is displaying artists that appear as track artists, not album artist.
Probably related, Browse by album is showing the Track artist for albums from the last track instead of album artist. For those of us that organize or libraries by track artist, this is unworkable, especially for compilations, of which I have quite a few... "Now That's What I Call Music" series, for example.
In the other media player I use there is an option whether to use album artist or not.

Thanks...

[rusty]

Hi,

I just tested this in build 189, and don't see a problem.

To make sure that we're talking about the same thing, by default, MMA is configured to display 'Artists & Album Artists', but you can configure it to display 'Album Artists' via the 'Personalize home screen' option. If you enable 'Album Artist' then that node only displays Album Artists. e.g. all compilation albums with Album Artist='various', appear under a single 'Album Artist' of 'various', and the track artists are not even listed in that view.

If I'm misunderstanding, please clarify.

Thanks.

-Rusty

[Marinra]

Hi,

I'm having the same problem, I configure it to display Album Artist, but I'm getting the Artists though. As far as I saw, when I sync my songs to my device all Artists tags are copied to Album Artists. For example, in MMW I have the song 'One More Round' tagged with 'Michael Mind Project Feat. TomE & Raghav' in the Artists and tagged with 'Michael Mind Project' in Album Artist, so its easier for me to look for all of his songs even with collaborators. But when I look at the tags from MMA, both Artist and Album Artist are the same.

Running MMA Build 204 on Samsung GALAXY Mini S5570. MMW 4.1.0.1681 on Windows 7 64-bits.

[meljmartin]

Seems OK so far in 204. Hard to tell yet as the initial sync OTA completely trashed my Music folder by removing 8500 tracks and putting about 1000 back. I think it's because I recreated the DB on the PC when I re-upgraded to 4.1. Will try again and start a new thread if I have further issues. Thanks...

[rusty]

It sounds like 2 items converged:
1) Some of your compilation tracks may have 'inferred' Album Artists (inferred based on path/file name) that isn't stored to the tag.
2) You may have done a USB sync operation with your device without an MMA database on the device. This means that the usb sync operation relied solely on MTP, and MMW didn't communicate directly with the MMA database, and the Android Media Scanner just adopted whatever information was in the track tags (which are in many cases missing Album Artist information).

You can verify this by examining the tracks in question in MMA using the My Computer node (which only shows metadata that's stored to tags).

-Rusty

[meljmartin]

Tracks are correct with album artist and album set for all. In the case of compilations, I invariably set the Album Artist to "Various Artists". I tend to buy complete albums as opposed to individual tracks so organizing by Album Artist works for me Anyway, I'll wait a while before testing again because re-syncing, even over USB, takes pretty much a full day.

[rusty]

Hi,

Can you confirm _how_ you verified that the Album/Album Artist tags have been set?

Can you tell me if there are any differences between ID3v1 and id3v2 tags? (you can use a tool like MP3tag).

-Rusty

[nickaelliott]

Hi all

I am also having this problem with MMA. I presumed initially that Album Artist wasn't implemented yet, but I guess there is some problem with my library.

My library on my computer (managed by MediaMonkey Gold of course) is all in WMA lossless. I used MM to make a copy of the whole lot in MP3, and viewing these in windows explorer I can see the tags have been preserved.

But when I copied them across to the SD card and scanned them in my phone, it doesn't work. Specifically the Album Artist view shows the albums that should be Various Artists under the name of the Contributing Artist of the final track instead.

I thought it might be a case of information getting lost during the transfer, but if I copy any of the tracks back to the pc from the SD card, I can see all the correct information, including the Various Artists entry for Album Artist. (I can't view the tags directly for the tracks on the SD card when the phone is attached via USB, but I presume that is due to the weird way the card gets mounted in Windows 7).

I would appreciate any help or suggestions, as Album Artist is the main reason I wanted to use MMA.

Many thanks in advance

Nick

[rusty]

Nick,

Because you _copied_ the tracks to your SD Card, rather than synced them from MMW to your Android device, certain metadata may not have been read by the Android Media Scanner (MMA relies on the Android Media Scanner for metadata that isn't transferred directly via sync).

Try syncing the content with MMW and let us know if that does the trick. Thanks!

-Rusty

[nickaelliott]

Hi Rusty, thanks for the reply.

So, that means I've got to import all 8000 tracks into my library a 2nd time (they are all there once as WMA), in order to sync them across. I guess I can delete them or filter them out of the view once I'm done..

I'll have a go when I get a moment and let you know how it works.

Just out of interest, do you know why the Android Media Scanner doesn't pick up the information from the files on the card?

Nick

[rusty]

Hi Nick,

Just out of interest, do you know why the Android Media Scanner doesn't pick up the information from the files on the card?

I'd assumed that it was just due to limitations in the scanner, but further testing shows that the scanner _is_ scanning in the Album Artist correctly (as evidenced by the fact that the content appears correctly in other players)--but MMA somehow doesn't take it. Tracking at: http://www.ventismedia.com/mantis/view.php?id=11783

Thanks!

-Rusty

[GoSoli]

Hi,
following the post of rusty of Dec 04, 2013, I see that the logic of the Android app is not the same as the Windows deskop version. It follows now the same way as Apple Itunes.
One of the main reason why I use Mediamonkey Pro on my desktop is the independant usage of album artist instead of only "various". E.g. I want to see all songs of an artist independant in which kind of album (artist album or various artist album) and independant of some small naming differences like "featuring ...", e.g. "Jennifer Lopez feat. Pitbull" together with other songs of Jennifer Lopez. I typically not rip and hear full albums and I don't fill album artist with "Various". As I have now approximately 5000 songs of 2000 artists I grouped them in 600 album artists what allows a fast overview.

What is now the sense of album artist? If it is not various then it is the same how I use it. If it is various then there is no additional information.
Why is not the desktop logic used? I would see only advantages.
I don't sync with MediaMonkey desktop because finding differences and syncing is too slow for me. I use Goodsync. But that should not be an issue.

Thanks
Gottfried

[Lowlander]

Actually it does matter, if you use anything other than MMW to sync MMA fully relies on Android Media to get the metadata of the files. If you use MMW to sync it also updates the MMA database and thus works better concerning metadata in MMA.

[nickaelliott]

Actually it does matter, if you use anything other than MMW to sync MMA fully relies on Android Media to get the metadata of the files. If you use MMW to sync it also updates the MMA database and thus works better concerning metadata in MMA.

In that case, a desirable feature for MMA would be for it to be able to do its own scan and update the database itself based on what it found on the SD card rather than rely on Android Media (if that is possible in the Android file system).

Nick

[Lowlander]

That has already been discussed and may get done in a future version of MMA, but it won't be in version 1.