[1466] Wrong Media Server node structure

[zottel]

I have unwanted effects when streaming a collection that is a subset of the entire library. The effect can be reproduced within MediaMonkey itself by using the UPnP Port 4000. I use Media Monkey Gold 4.0.3.1466 on a PC with Windows 7 (64 bit). Language is English, as German was not installed in 4.0.3 RC1 (1466)?!?.

For test purposes I defined a new collection "Musik2" that only contains one album (Album Artist="Mike Oldfield" and Album="Tubular Bells II"). This album contains 14 songs. In addition I deleted some tag fields from two songs: Now one song (Title="The Bell") has no genre (Genre="") and another song (Title="Tattoo") has no year (Year=""). All other songs have Year="1992" and Genre="Instrumental Pop".

This unwanted effects happen in the Media Servers tree:

1) The songlist of "All" shows all 14 songs, but the Genre column of the song "The Bell" shows "Unknown" and not "" (empty). This leads to the effect that the node "Genre/Unknown" shows an empty songlist. (Remark: Even with language set to German (in build 1462) the genre in the songlist was shown as "Unknown" and not "Unbekannt" nor ""). I think the media server interprets "Unknown" as a real value (string) for a genre and not as a special placeholder for an empty genre tag.

2) The songlist of "All" shows all 14 songs, and the Year column of the song "Tattoo" shows the empty value Year="" correctly. But the node "Year/Unknown" doesn't show this song. Instead there are additional subnodes "Unknown" and "1990's". And the node "Year/Unknown/Unknown" shows not only the one song of the streamed collection "Musik2", but all songs (>100) from the entire library with Year="". And the node "Year/Unknown/1990's" shows all 13 songs of the collection "Musik2" with Year="1992", but without an additional subnode "1992". All in all I would expect the following nodes for my collection "Musik2": "Year/Unknown" and "Year/1990's/1992". In the first one there should be only one song (Title="Tattoo") and in the second one there should be the other 13 songs with Year="1992". (Remark: The collection tree of the library is correct.)

3) If the rating of a song is explicitly set to zero (0.0 stars / bomb symbol) the symbol (bomb) is not seen in the rating column of the Media Server tree. Instead the field is empty. Other ratings are shown correctly.

4) Question and request for feature: Is there a special reason why the nodes "Rating" and "Classification" always show all possible (=predefined) values, independent from the specified values in the file properties? For better navigation it would be helpful to hide all classification nodes that are not set (=unknown) and show an addional node "Unknown" in each branch. This would be analog to nodes like Artist or Album.

[zottel]

Can anybody reproduce my effects?
In addition I can provide a screenshot, but I have no rights to upload pictures. Can an administrator grant me the rights?
And how is the process that a reported bug is added to Mantis?
Thank you for some help! I am new here :-;

[Lowlander]

Have you tried build 1470?

You can upload to http://imageshack.us and post forum code here to add screenshots. As for adding bugs this happens when it can be confirmed that a bug exists. A good way to help is to create a Debug log as some bugs just aren't reproducible due to unique user environment: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=341

[zottel]

I tested with the latest build (1470) again, but the effects are the same:

ad 1) An emtpy genre is treated as Genre="Unknown" and not as Genre="".
ad 2) Subnodes for unknown "Year" are correctly shown in the collection tree, but not in the MediaServer tree.
ad 3) Symbol "Bomb" is shown in songlist of the collection, but not in the songlist of the MediaServer.
ad 4) Additional node "Unknown" for nodes "Rating" and "Classification" would be still valuable.

new 5) In the collection tree you can e.g. select "Genre" on top level, and you will see all songs of the collection in the songlist. Or you select a subnode like "Unknown" or "Instrumental Pop", and you will see only the respective songs (1 reg 13 in my example collection). In the MediaServer tree only the nodes on the lowest level (leaves) show songs in the songlist. This is quite fine. Elsewise a streaming client would imediately show all songs on the top level, what is not desired and will slow down the streaming client. But it would be helpful to optionally add a node "All" to each branch in the node tree of the MediaServer as it is already provided on the root node. So (with simultaneous consideration of my point 4) "Unknown" and "All" nodes for all branches and levels in the MediaServer tree would be very valuable.

ad 1+3) Comparison of Collection and MediaServer songlists:


ad 2) Correct and wrong tree structures:




ad 4+5) Additional nodes in MediaServer tree:

[Lowlander]

All is just a node shown under Location/My Computer nodes and not under tag nodes like Album, Artist, etc.

Year issue I can reproduce: http://www.ventismedia.com/mantis/view.php?id=9092

Setting values as unknown might be by design to have files shown on clients for the value unknown: http://www.ventismedia.com/mantis/view.php?id=9095

Rating Bomb seems to only be shown for some files: http://www.ventismedia.com/mantis/view.php?id=9093

Classification node behavior is consistent with MediaMonkey's Collection node behavior and I assume it was done to allow user to modify sort of values for Classification nodes. You can remove empty values by deleting them if you don't need them so they don't show in either the Collections or Media Servers Classification nodes. Added: http://www.ventismedia.com/mantis/view.php?id=9091

PS. Do you see the files with unknown Genre in the Genre > Unknown node in Media Servers? It doesn't seem to work here.

[zottel]

Regard the "All" node I would like to see it in the Media Servers tree, NOT in the collections tree. In the collections tree I already see all songs if I select a node on a higher level, so there is no need for that. But in the Media Servers tree when selecting a node on a higher level the song list is empty. Here an additional "All" node would be helpful, as showing all songs on the selected higher node itself would slow down the streaming client if there are too many songs in that node. Can you follow me?

Regard empty genres I renamed the genre of another song to "Unknown". This leads to two folders with the same name in language English:



One folder seems to be for the songs with an empty genre and the other one seems to be for the songs with genre "Unknown". Both folders are empty. MediaMonkey can't distinguish between them.

With language German it works as the first node for the empty genres is translated to "Unbekannt" and the other node remains "Unknown", so MediaMonkey now can distinguish and shows songs with genre "Unknown" in the second folder. The first folder remains empty, even there should be one song with an empty genre.



In the collections tree the two "Unknown" nodes in language English make no trouble. In each node the respective song is shown: One with the empty genre and one with the genre "Unknown".

[Lowlander]

In the collections tree I already see all songs if I select a node on a higher level,

That's not true, it won't show files in subfolders.

Unknown issue has been fixed in 4.1 according to Mantis entry.

[zottel]

In the collections tree I already see all songs if I select a node on a higher level,

That's not true, it won't show files in subfolders.

Hmm?! I checked the behaviour of the collection tree again with build 1470. Selecting an inner node lists all songs within this branch, i.e. including all subnodes, so selecting a root node like Genre or Year will list all songs of the collection. Selecting a node on a lower level lists all songs which belong to that subtree. For a better understanding what I mean, I added the respective number of listed songs behind each node.

I tested with only 14 songs in my collection - three songs have modified tags (Year empty, Genre empty, Genre "Unknown"):



Here is an overview of the number of songs I see on each level in the collections tree:



So in the collection tree it is possible to list all songs without an explicit "All" node by only selecting a root node.


And here is an overview of the number of songs I see on each level in the Media Servers tree:



Here in the Media Servers tree the root nodes don't list any songs. Only some inner nodes like "Instrumental Pop" do list songs, but other inner nodes like "1990's" don't. Leave nodes always list songs if songs are encompassed. So in Media Servers tree it would be valuable to have "All" nodes on each branch like in the Location branch of the collection:



Another difference between Media Servers tree and Collection tree is that there is no Album node in the Gerne tree. I would also expect a "Tubular Bells II" node under "Mike Oldfield".

Unknown issue has been fixed in 4.1 according to Mantis entry.

Is it possible to test release 4.1? When will it be available for beta testing? In addition I would suggest to mark the special nodes "All" and "Unknown" with some additional brackets like "<Unknown>" or "[Unknown]" to distinguish between these special ones and the other normal ones.

[Lowlander]

Yes, selecting Location will show all files, but selecting a folder in Location will only show the files in that folder and not the files in the subfolders. That's when you can use the All node as it will show all files in the folder and all files in all subfolders.

Unknown is already obvious as it is the first node listed (ie not sorted) and users may use brackets and stuff for genre's anyway.

Beta versions are posted in the Beta forum when they become available. 4.1 is further down the road at this moment.

[zottel]

Sorry for being so insistent, but I think we don't talk about the same things The Location node in the collection tree works fine for me. And I also understand the function and necessity of the "All" nodes there.

My issue has to do with the behaviour of the other nodes (e.g. Genre or Year, but NOT Location), that differentiates between the Collection tree and the Media Servers tree. Compare my screenshots above with the added numbers of songs. In the Collection the inner nodes list songs, in the Media Servers tree inner nodes doesn't list songs. So my suggestion is to add "All" nodes in any folder of the Media Servers tree (analog to Collection/Location).

Another difference between the Collection tree and Media Servers tree is that in the Genre tree of Media Servers no Albums are shown below Artists. Also compare the screenshots above.

And last but not least only some inner nodes of Media Servers tree like "Instrumental Pop" DO list songs, but other inner nodes like "1990's" DON'T. Compare screenshot above.

Maybe I can post the bracket issue for <Unknown> and <All> nodes to the "MediaMonkey Wishlist" forum. I still think this is helpful for better orientation as those special nodes belong more to the product itself (like menu items that may also be translated) than to the archive content.

[zottel]

I installed 4.0.3.1476 and tested the Media Server node structure again:

1) Now the "Unknown" node for empty tags is missing at all. I don't see "Unknown" nodes in any branch. Only the genre explicitly set to "Unknown" is shown as a node.

2) Clicking on "Title" shows no songs - as there exist some subfolders for the initial letters of the titles. Clicking on a "initial letter" folder (which is a leave node) songs are shown. This behaviour differs from the behaviour of e.g. "Genre/Instrumental Pop" which has also subfolders (the album interprets). But in this case also the inner node "Instrumental Pop" shows songs, not only the leave node "Mike Oldfield". See also my screenshot above with the red numbers next to the songs.

[Lowlander]

1) http://www.ventismedia.com/mantis/view.php?id=9103

2) It's consistent with other nodes like Album, Album Artist and Genre. Listing all files in Library over DLNA wouldn't be viable for large Libraries and you have the All node to do this if needed.

[zottel]

ad 1) It is a pity that the "Unknown" nodes are not available anymore. It worked fine for me in the older version, except the posted bug within Genre and Year

Maybe it is possible to provide the "Unknown" node again and additionally provide an option to show it or not. The same would be nice for an additonal "All" node on each branch as I posted to the wish list.