I do not see conceptually why there should be any way that the information for one album should be capable of being written to another more or less at random.
I am not in a position where I can happily replace items in my library - it’s used by two other systems, and anyway all the original CDs are in boxes packed away, AND some of them are downloads where the concept of re-ripping is not available. Roon claims to leave the original library files alone and this must remain the case or it’s no use to me. In addition I have previously failed to remove a corrupted album from the database - as soon as I add the source files back the faulty assignments return. In the case of a downloaded album I would not have a sensible means of altering the files so they didn’t appear the same as the old ones - I can’t deliberately corrupt the file metadata (and my other systems that rely on it) to fix a problem that is actually due to a separate database getting its records cross-linked. The problem is the crosslinking, not my source files: it should simply not be able to write to arbitrary other records. That is surely a pointer gone astray or something.
As far as I can see the problem is solely in Roon’s database and not my original source files - even if some of them are in sub-optimal structures such as the two discs of a two-disc set being in two adjacent folders. Whatever my source structure is I can imagine that perhaps making it harder for me to find tracks to merge, but once I’ve found them it should be fine.
The fundamental issue is that Roon must not write arbitrarily to other album records. If I give myself trouble due to source track locations that’s my problem, it does not explain why Roon is corrupting the records of other albums when I edit one.
As far as difficult to replicate is concerned… I have deleted and re-installed Roon from scratch three times now and I can tell you, it is 100% replicable - just merge half a dozen or so albums and it will start doing it. There have to be several previously-merged/edited/identified albums before it starts doing it, but merge albums enough and it’ll happen without fail. Following yesterday’s experiences I deleted everything once again and started from scratch once again. I am not messing with the database until there’s a testable fix for this issue and I will be pleased to beta-test such a fix and help get it working.