Counts (Artists/Albums/Songs) in Roon don't match iTunes Library

[robert_vanarsdall]

Core Machine (Operating system/System info/Roon build number)

AMD Ryzen 3, 16G RAM, Win 10 latest version, latest Roon version

Network Details (Including networking gear model/manufacturer and if on WiFi/Ethernet)

Arris Surfboard router to Google mesh router, wired ethernet to core, wired ethernet to Cambridge Audio CXN

Audio Devices (Specify what device you’re using and its connection type - USB/HDMI/etc.)

CXN=>Marantz DBA-1000 through TOSLINK optical

Description Of Issue

I have a well-curated iTunes library all in one folder on its own HD that shows me 656 Artists, 2066 Albums, 33,664 Songs (659.64GB worth of material). After installing Roon and pointing it to the library, Roon tells me it has 747 Artists, 2090 Albums, and 33,458 Tracks.

I read through the FAQs and searched the Forum, so I understand how Roon treats duplicates and such, and I’m prepared to go through the library to tweak it to Roon’s system.

As an example of the differences, just picked at random:
For The Byrds in my iTunes library I show 15 albums, 253 items. Roon shows me 12 main albums and 6 “appearances” - meaning on compilations. In Roon some of the albums have been renamed. For example, “Sweetheart of the Rodeo 50th Anniversary Edition” in iTunes is just “Sweetheart of the Rodeo” in Roon. That’s not really a problem, and I can see how that fits your database. But on the Byrds 4CD Box Set, one of the CDs is missing entirely. In iTunes each of the Box Set CDs had its own name like “Byrds Box Set Disk One - We Have Ignition” so they were treated as separate albums, not disc 1,2,3,4 of the same album. Roon brought them in that way, but omitted one entire CD.

In iTunes’ Smart Playlists a user could use its Boolean logic feature to find “orphaned” tracks, duplicates, and such so that you didn’t have to scroll, hunt-and-peck, or go on chance to find material that was missing metadata or had incorrect metadata. Amazing how often an invisible space at the end of a name threw the entry into another category.

Does Roon have anything similar to the Boolean logic feature of SmartPlaylists in iTunes that would allow users to reconcile the differences in the data between their core library and Roon’s excellent database?

Thanks -

Bob

[dylan (Dylan Caudill)]

Hi @robert_vanarsdall,

First, I’d like to point out some documentation we have that may be helpful here. In our KB we have an article about Skipped Files and an article about why some files might be missing from Roon .

If you go to Settings > Library > Skipped Files do you see any of your missing files there?

I’d like to recommend looking at a couple of specific examples of tracks that did not get imported into Roon. Are they supported files? Are they showing up in Skipped Files? If it looks like they should be importing, let me know! Screenshots of these files in their storage location would be helpful for discovering what may be happening.

But on the Byrds 4CD Box Set, one of the CDs is missing entirely. In iTunes each of the Box Set CDs had its own name like “Byrds Box Set Disk One - We Have Ignition” so they were treated as separate albums, not disc 1,2,3,4 of the same album. Roon brought them in that way, but omitted one entire CD.

We have some best practices for Box Sets in Roon here: https://kb.roonlabs.com/FAQ:_How_can_I_ensure_multi_disc_sets_and_box_sets_are_identified_properly%3F

I definitely recommend giving that a read. You can use the Merge Albums feature to add the disc into the box set if it was added separately.

Does Roon have anything similar to the Boolean logic feature of SmartPlaylists in iTunes that would allow users to reconcile the differences in the data between their core library and Roon’s excellent database?

Check out our Focus feature. Here you can Focus on duplicates and a variety of other factors to help find specific content.

[robert_vanarsdall]

Thanks - the Best Practices/Box Sets solved the Byrds problem.

I figured Roon needed a different naming convention of some sort, but it was hard to figure out without actually identifying those files/folders that weren’t showing up.

Since iTunes doesn’t match a user’s library data to any database, a iTunes user is free to name files and folders however he might like. Convenient, but it can also be idiosyncratic depending on how quirky the user’s organizational sense is.

Enjoying Roon so far!