ALAC files are routinely ignoring my meta-tags

Early Access
1

Hi all.

I’ve just thrown my Bob Marley library into Roon. It works out at around 112 albums. Most are in FLAC, a couple are in MP3 & about 10 or 15 are in ALAC (M4A file extension).

Everything has filed perfectly except for the ALAC files, where my dates have been ignored & Roon has used its own. All the ALAC files & only the ALAC files, so it’s very consistent in that sense.

I seem to recall that this has happened in the past & having wasted a ton of time removing the album, clearing caches & re-adding without success, I have either elected to “un-recognise” the album or convert the ALAC files to FLAC.

I’ve just un-recognised a couple of the Marley albums & they have moved to where they’re supposed to be. I’ll probably go ahead & do that for the rest, but I just wanted to flag this. It’s not a new thing, so it has nothing to do with any recent upgrades, but it is definitely a thing & should probably be addressed.

1 Like
2

Hi, @Snowdog, thank you for your report. Could you, please, upload a sample of such an album here

Thanks!

–
Ivan

3

Okay, that’s done. Thanks. It wouldn’t let me upload the folder, so I grabbed all the files that were in the folder & sent them up. I hope that’s okay. (Probably should’ve zipped the folder, now I think about it. :roll_eyes:)

4

No problem, @Snowdog, thank you!

–
Ivan

5

Is there any news on this?

I’m still finding that Roon is routinely ignoring my tags on ALAC files (with the M4A extension).

I’m about to de-identify yet another album that hasn’t filed correctly, so that it goes where it’s supposed to be.

6

That’s weird. All (most) of my files are ALAC. I don’t seem to have that issue.

7

Yeah, I dunno what to tell ya. Are you manually tagging your music? I do use some pretty idiosyncratic tags, to be fair. It’s almost always the ALAC/M4A files that refuse to take my file tags unless I de-identify the album. I can add a spurious tag (such as “test” in the comments section) to force a refresh, I can remove it, clear the caches & re-add it. Nothing seems to make a difference.

8

Happens with any format in my experience. I have had Roon just refuses to update the metadata I have added if it’s been edited after files added to my library , only way I get it to work is to remove it from library, clean up and add it new. Sometimes editing them after they have been added works fine, other files albums not so. It’s inconsistent behaviour I have never been album to work out a pattern for it.

9

Yeah, Roon’s not great at stepping away from the music & letting us decide how it should be tagged.

Roon is like that family member who will not stop interfering & dicking around with all your stuff. Like, you love them but by god if they came close enough they’d get a proper slap!!

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