Album Artist still not working well

[nickaelliott]

Hi
This seems to happen every time I change my phone (which I only do every few years, so it's been going on a while).
I move the SD card over to the new device, MMA scans the card, and gets the album artist tag for "various artists" albums wrong.
I then delete all music off the card, do my best to wipe everything mediamonkey related from the phone, and start again, this time copying the tracks back onto the SD card using MMW sync.
I just did all that (overnight - I've got 8300 tracks), and when I opened MMA in the morning, all was well for about 5 minutes, before it started scanning again, and slowly over the next 10 minutes or so, random artists from the "various artists" albums started appearing in the album artist display.

How do I get MMA to just accept what it has been sent from laptop, and not overwrite stuff with its own scan? I know there's a way, as I eventually get there with each new phone, but I am struggling to remember this time (I'm getting older, I guess!)

Ta!

[Not_tech_savy]

On MMW in properties do you have the correct album artist info?
Also maybe try auto organize and add album artist instead of artist (right click and add/re scan are separate, auto organizers - they don't share changes)
Haven't used auto tag recently but that will probably reset info to various if you use it.

[nickaelliott]

My library in MMW is a thing of beauty! I have spent years adding album art, correcting spellings, tidying up genres, and yes all the Album Artist tags are correct.

I'm not really sure what you are suggesting with your second point? Are you saying I should auto-organize the library on my laptop? I'm quite happy with that library and don't want it being messed with. I just would like MMA to accept what is sent, and not overwrite those tags with incorrect ones following a scan.

[Not_tech_savy]

My library in MMW is a thing of beauty! I have spent years adding album art, correcting spellings, tidying up genres, and yes all the Album Artist tags are correct.

I'm not really sure what you are suggesting with your second point? Are you saying I should auto-organize the library on my laptop? I'm quite happy with that library and don't want it being messed with. I just would like MMA to accept what is sent, and not overwrite those tags with incorrect ones following a scan.

I had the same problem awhile ago. I don't remember the exact steps I did to fix it. And yes the one on your laptop. MM5 is the only music program I use. If you use something else with MM it could be altering your music.

I'll post a pic of how my auto organize is set up, when i get home. I believe that's what fixed my various/unknown artist problem but I did several things and I'm not sure if one or a combination of them did the trick.

One thing I realized is that artist includes featured artists and album artist is just the main one/group.

I think if you set it up so your computer library files it under album artist and have it auto change the file name to use album artist instead of artist. That may fix your problem.

Also after I made that change (and made sure all my tags and such were correct) I used a right click option to update my library info with MM. Not sure if that was an important step or if it was just redundant but I haven't had any problems since. Everything in my phone is sorted how I want.

After I post the steps I used, I'll ask the mod to go over them to make sure they fix your problem.

[nickaelliott]

I will wait to see your screenshot, but I don't really understand why changing the filename of the file stored on the computer would affect the way MediaMonkey handles the id3 tag on the phone. In any case, Most of the filenames don't include any artist information, just the track number and title.

I tried again, formatting the SD card, deleting everything MMA-related, then auto-syncing from the laptop overnight.
Again, initially, everything is perfect, but then over the next half-hour or so, MMA scans the newly constructed library, and changes the Album-artist field for every track in a Various Artists album to the Artist field of the first track in that album. I wonder if this might be an actual bug with MediaMonkey for Android?

I know there's a way to stop this happening, as I've eventually managed it with my previous 3 phones, but I haven't found it yet. I think I'll try syncing over wifi tonight. I seem to recall that sometimes work better.

[Not_tech_savy]

I completely understand having everything sorted a particular way. For me, I feel using auto organize is a much more precise way to organize your library. Just look through the options you have.

I think changing the file name so it uses album artist instead of artist will fix how mma saves your music. I don't think you need to change anything else, so it should remain sorted how you have it. Also you Don't need to add any of the other stuff I added to my filenames. I just added that for redundancy.

Also in mma you're using the album artist tile, correct? I think you have to add that one. Default is artist.

[Not_tech_savy]

Ya, I'm not too tech savvy I just keep trying things out till it does what I want. I'm using an s21 ultra and I think your phone saves things a bit differently than MM5.

[Lowlander]

Have you tried a resync to see if this updates the Album Artist to the correct values in MMA?

[nickaelliott]

Have you tried a resync to see if this updates the Album Artist to the correct values in MMA?

Yes, I just tried that, and it doesn't seem to have made any difference.

In MMA, I can select all the tracks in a Various Artists album and manually update the tag, and once I have done that, MMA seems to leave it alone. But that is laborious.

I think MMA is in all cases simply updating the AlbumArtist tag of each track on an album to match the Artist tag of the first track on that album. The Album "Pump Up The Jam" is in my library with the Album Artist set to "Technotronic" but the tracks have the Artist set to "Technotronic; Ya Kid K", and on my phone now the Album Artist is showing as "Technotronic/Ya Kid K".

I am also missing a load of album art, though there isn't a total correlation there - some Various Artists albums have got the album art, some haven't. There is, I think, one regular album (by Prince) which doesn't have the art.

I'll delete everything and try a wi-fi sync overnight tonight.

[Lowlander]

This is probably coming from the Android Media Scanner which provides MMA with information of the files. I'm not sure why this happened after a Sync though.

[nickaelliott]

This is probably coming from the Android Media Scanner which provides MMA with information of the files. I'm not sure why this happened after a Sync though.

Why does MMA accept that information though? The library is correct at the point the sync finishes - it is only over the next several minutes that the files get updated. It would be great if MMA could be set to not continuously scan, in the same way MMW can be.

Several years ago, you mentioned that a bespoke scanner was in the works for MMA. Is that still being planned?

[Lowlander]

Yes, MMA 2 will come with its own scanner and this is still in active development

[nickaelliott]

A wifi sync, initiated from the phone, has worked. The files have all transferred over, and MMA has not messed around with the library. All the album art has come across too, so this is obviously the way to do it. I'll have to try and remember in 5 years or whatever, when I get my next new phone!