Beginner trouble with missing files, non-consistent use of metadata [Resolved - Media Missing Extensions]

DeathRobot · June 3, 2017, 10:00pm

I have just started using Roon and am stumped by a couple of issues:

My audio files reside on an external drive called Library, in a folder called Music. This is the folder I use for iTunes. In Settings > Storage, I pointed to this folder and Roon did its initial import, but skipped quite a few files. My iTunes library contains 31,644 tracks, but Roon imported only 30,438 of them. I’ve spot checked a few of the missing files and nothing seems wrong with them; they are AIFF files, show up fine in iTunes, do not contain any special characters in the titles or folder paths, etc. There are also no files shown in the Settings > Library > Skipped Files list.
⁃ a) Is there a way to know which files were skipped without searching for them manually?
⁃ b) Can I force Roon to take another look at the files or otherwise correct the issues?
Under Settings > Import Settings > Metadata preferences, I have selected “Prefer File” for every option shown. When I am browsing albums, the artist names correctly show my tags. However, when I browse by artist, artist names are showing Roon’s tags. How can I fix this?

Setup:
Mac Mini (Late 2012) w/ 4GB RAM
OSX 10.10.5
Soon 1,3 (Build 223)
Music files on external firewire 2TB drive

Thanks

eric · June 4, 2017, 5:49pm

Hi @Michael_Lande ----- Thank you for the report and sharing your feedback, both are appreciated!

I am not sure if you have given our knowledge base a look yet but we have good documentation on why some file may not show up in ROON that could help in your troubleshooting

Moving forward, to help aide in my assessment of this behavior you are experiencing, may I kindly ask you to please provide the following information:

In regard to the missing content, can you verify if any of the media is DRM protected? Downloaded content from iTunes is usually DRM protected.
Can you confirm if you have “show hidden albums” enabled under the “general” tab found in settings?
If you were to search for a missing track via it’s “path” are you able to locate any of the missing content? More information on this process can be found: here.
You’ve also made mention of the following:

" I have selected “Prefer File” for every option shown. When I am browsing albums, the artist names correctly show my tags. However, when I browse by artist, artist names are showing Roon’s tags."

Can you provide me a screenshot of:

Your metadata preference highlighting your settings (i.e “prefer file”).
The album browser window that correctly displays the artists name as shown in your tags.
The artist browser that shows the artist names from Roons tags.

-Eric

DeathRobot · June 4, 2017, 6:52pm

Hi Eric,

Thanks for your response. I did go through the very helpful knowledge base but didn’t find the solution. Here are my answers to your questions:

None of the files are DRM. They are mostly my own CD or vinyl rips.
Show Hidden Albums is set to ‘yes’
I have checked for the files by their path, and they do not show up either by searching or browsing. That said, I’ve only identified a few albums that I know are missing. I’m not sure what most of the missing files even are; I just know that some 1,200 tracks are not showing up in Roon.
Yes, see attached screenshots. Note that in Artist view, in this example (I’ve only taken screen shots of a couple artists, but it’s the same for most of them) the artist names are:

Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers
The Art Ensemble of Chicago

But in album view, they show the way I’ve tagged them:

BLAKEY, ART & THE JAZZ MESSENGERS
ART ENSEMBLE OF CHICAGO

Similarly, in some situations I’ve tagged several albums with the same artist (e.g. BLAKEY, ART & THE JAZZ MESSENGERS) but in artist view Roon will use the tags it finds from its database, splitting the artist up into several variations (e.g. Art Blakey, Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers, etc.)

Thanks for your help!

Michael

----IMPORT SETTINGS 1----

----IMPORT SETTINGS 2----

----ARTIST VIEW EXAMPLE----

----ALBUM VIEW EXAMPLE 1----

----ALBUM VIEW EXAMPLE 2----

DeathRobot · June 8, 2017, 3:41pm

Hello, @support

Still trying to solve the above.

Thanks

mike · June 8, 2017, 10:00pm

Hi @Michael_Lande – sorry for the slow response. There’s some subtlety to Roon’s interaction with file tags that’s worth understanding here.

Think about the tags in your files as a big spreadsheet, with each cell populated by a bit of text for things like artist names, album names, etc. It’s tempting to think about Roon’s metadata the same way, as a spreadsheet of text that simply contains different bits of text, but that’s not actually how Roon works.

In Roon, some fields are text (like track or album titles, for example), but much of Roon is built around incredibly rich data that understands your collection in ways that text fields simply aren’t capable of. This is covered in more detail here.

For example, Roon understand that Art Blakey is a person, with a first and last name. If you want your content sorted by last name, Roon can easily handle that for Art Blakey albums without needing to mangle the name to “Blakey, Art” – it will appear as “Art Blakey” in the app, but it will automatically sort to B based on your settings.

This isn’t possible with simple text fields, since there’s no way to programmatically sort Art Blakey to B without also sorting The Rolling Stones to S-- for this stuff to work automatically, you need a smarter system that actually understand the content, and the context.

The Artist browser is a list of people Roon knows about in your collection – it’s based on a rich understanding of the people in your collection, not the text fields from your files. Roon’s editing functionality will let you display your file tags for many, many fields, but the Artist browser is about people who performed in your collection, not text in your file tags, so the options you’ve selected won’t affect that browser.

We know that for many people that’s a big change, particularly if you’ve been editing files by hand for a long time and are used to things working a certain way. Because Roon doesn’t modify your files at all, it’s easy to experiment with Roon’s metadata and get an understanding of capabilities that simply aren’t possible with file tags. My recommendation would be to try out Roon’s metadata with an open mind, and if you have more questions, please let us know.

Can you give us some examples here?

DeathRobot · June 8, 2017, 11:34pm

Thanks for the explanation. I’ll give myself some time to get used to Roon’s handling of artists, and I see that it makes a lot of sense. I’m really liking how the program works so far!

As far as the missing tracks, there are a LOT of them. First of all, is there a way to easily compare Roon’s files with my music folder structure? So far, the only way I can think of doing this is to export all my track info from Roon, export all my track info from iTunes, paste everything into Excel, and manually match them up. I’m actually doing that but it’s a very time consuming process! I have discovered some of the missing files. There does not seem to be anything wrong with the files nor anything consistent among them that would explain these being the missing tracks. Here’s a summary:

• The only folder being monitored by Roon is my iTunes Library. It’s a folder called “Music” on an external drive called “Library”
• The missing (and non-missing) tracks are all in the “Music” folder; individual folder paths are automatically managed by iTunes
• The missing tracks are a mixture of AIFs that I’ve recorded from vinyl, AIFs that I’ve ripped from CDs in iTunes, and mp3s
• None of the missing tracks are DRM
• The missing tracks’ file names do not have any special characters that I can see
• The missing tracks all show up and play fine in iTunes
• The missing tracks also play fine using OSX preview, Quicktime, and Rogue Amoeba’s Fission app
• In Roon, Show Hidden Albums is set to ‘yes’
• In Roon, the Settings > Library > Skipped Files list is empty.
• The missing tracks do not show up in the Roon file path browser

Here’s are two examples. Screenshots are from iTunes’ track info window:

Thanks for your help.

Michael

mike · June 9, 2017, 12:19am

Thanks for checking all of that Michael – very helpful

I sent you a PM about sending over a file or two for us to look at. Appreciate your patience here.