Its a little thing, but when I add a Qobuz album to the library whilst listening to it (which is when we mostly add albums to the library I would have thought) Roon switches the display to that library album but carries on playing the Qobuz version not the library version. Which means when you change album artist pics or edit any details for the album whilst playing it is not reflected on the Now Playing screen as Roon isn’t playing the library version. Which is a bit daft as there aren’t really two versions, its only a key field linking the Roon database entry that now exists with the original album on Qobuz - I am always playing the Qobuz file.
This problem with Qobuz library links also means when you play a streamed album from anywhere else other than the library, say a playlist or from a search, the album played offers the ‘Add to Library’ button, which is very misleading as the album is already in the library?
Don’t know if Tidal integration works this way or whether it is just a Qobuz integration problem, I do remember Roon saying Qobuz would never be implemented as the streaming service wouldn’t provide deep access to their database?
Actually, I think there are data wise. When you add it to your library, a library object is created that references Qobuz; this is not the same as the non-library link although both are pointing to the same back-end music file, so to speak. It is to this object that your meta-data modifications are applied; as you cannot modify meta-data on non-library objects.
Playing an album not in your library does not have the same object reference. So, you are, I think, really asking for Roon to create the new library object and then have a “hand-off” mechanism during active playback.
That’s it in a nutshell - there aren’t two versions of the album, just two references to the one album, one goes via the now existing link in the roon library, one goes straight to Qobuz.
I think this whole ‘library’ idea has such a lot of potential, but it isn’t truly exploited as it could be with streaming services. To be honest, metadata and library really are the only reasons for paying for Roon aren’t they, streaming services have never got the idea people want to ‘collect’ music - even if it is never owned, always streamed when played! They just think we want to search and stream, maybe favourite a few albums, they don’t even use our favourites for suggestions (well Qobuz doesn’t!) so these area are where Roon can steal a march (and is doing so now with ‘Recommended for you…’).
What I think is needed is for a total rethink on what exactly Roon will be in the future, when files stored on local hard drives are a fond memory (as they are for some of us already, I haven’t ripped a disc or bought a file for at least 10 years, probably longer!). The streaming services were early pioneers of the concept of getting record complies, labels, distributors to allow access to their servers, to then aggregate those millions of files into some sort of database and offer it to the public. Now that is a known quantity I see streaming wholesale as a far more likely option for future development, with added value software services like Roon being the middle man - unless one of those streaming services already existing realises their are still record collectors out there, millions of them - and offer up a similar experience of ‘owning’ an album in a ‘library collection’!
Which is nothing to do with anything really… just thinking aloud!
It’s not a “feature request” but a request to fix the bug that I raised earlier. The latest build 790 still didn’t fix the problem. I’d like to hear from Roon developer team to confirm that this fix will be coming in the near future. Please read below.
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The issue:
When I add an album to my library (by clicking + button) while playing a track in the same album, then two parallel worlds open up: The newly added album does not show the play action of the track in play, and when I click the track in play, it moves to the album page showing that it is still not added to my library. I can flip back and forth between the two parallel worlds indefinitely. The only way to resolve this problem is to stop the play, go to the newly added album and fresh-start the play action.
Why does it have to be this way? Is there any way Roon can address this in the next release? It is rather a minor annoyance, but it is clumsy nevertheless.
This is definitely not just a minor annoyance as it opens various problems with playlists and items that cannot be liked, inconsistent play counts, etc…
I understand why they have this problem, it was clearly a bad design that is likely unfixable internally, but it can certainly be masked from the outside, in a way users don’t suffer because of it.
The relevance is if your now playing album is a lower resolution than other available versions of that same album. I guess your topic did not say what you mean.
When Roon Radio plays something I really like, I frequently click to add the album to my Roon library. I might delete it later if it turns out I don’t like it.
I always click Versions first to see the highest resolution available in both Tidal and Qobuz. I add those to my library.
thanks for moving my post to this thread, did not find it although the topic is nearly the same than mine.
I think everything is already said in this thread. As I am always adding albums when hearing it I struggle a lot with this behavior. I wonder how or when all others add albums to the library that they don’t struggle with those two instances of the same album like me.
