Inconsistent "Album Artist" tags and properties

[clymbon]

I've been going nuts trying to get rid of "Multiple Artist Albums". I keep changing the "Album Artist" tag to "Various", but it doesn't seem to "stick". I think I've figured out whats going on, and can reproduce the problem.

Here are the steps:

1) Using MM, edit some Album Artist tags to create a "Multiple Artist Album". Here's a screen shot: https://i.imgur.com/t6zwGxx.png

2) Verify that the tags are correctly updated in the file on the hard drive. Here's a screen shot: https://i.imgur.com/zOR48hp.png

3) Use MM's "Files to Edit" feature, and select "Multiple Artist Albums" to find the album. Hit control-A to select all tracks, and then right click and select "Change Album Artist". Set it to some value. Now all tracks should have the same value. Here's the screenshot: https://i.imgur.com/6z6BG2K.png

4) Go back to the "Music" node in the library tree, and look at the album there. The "Album Artist" property is not updated. Here's the screenshot: https://i.imgur.com/y6OmDS2.png However at this point the tags are correct on the hard drive.

If at this point I sync to my iPhone, the tags are messed up. The album shows up as multiple different albums.

What idiot ever came up with this "Album Artist" idea. I can't see how it could be useful - it just seems to cause trouble. I wish I could just tell the iPhone player to ignore that field!

To make a long story short - Media Monkey seems to have trouble keeping it's notion of properties consistent with the tags on the hard drive.

My environment is as follows:
- MM 4.1.10.1778
- Windows 7
- Music stored on external hard drive D:

Thanks,

Duncan

[Lowlander]

As many Albums have the same name (think Greatest Hits), merely the Album name wouldn't be enough to identify what tracks belong to it. This is why Album Artist is used.

Have you tried selecting all files and using Edit > Properties to update the Album Artist? Does it still fail through that method?