Crazy room in the library

[abdoabdala (Abdo)]

Good morning everyone, I really can’t understand what’s happening with Roon, I’ve been trying to organize my library for months.
I’ve already organized all the discs with highly checked tags, etc.
Well, room creates albums that are all in the same folder and I’m going to check the tags, everything is correct, but it insists on doing this randomly. I’ve formatted it a huge number of times trying to adjust this, but without success.
Now another extremely curious problem, when I open Roon on the desktop a number of albums appear, different from what appears on the iPad as you can see on the screens. And besides, for example on the desktop it shows 507 albums on Tidal and on the iPad it shows 501 albums… you’ll understand what it does… does anyone have any idea how to solve this?

[Carl]

@abdoabdala

Now another extremely curious problem, when I open Roon on the desktop a number of albums appear, different from what appears on the iPad as you can see on the screens. And besides, for example on the desktop it shows 507 albums on Tidal and on the iPad it shows 501 albums… you’ll understand what it does… does anyone have any idea how to solve this?

Hi I suspect the desktop Roon GUI is configured show hidden tracks and albums, where as the other remotes are not. (Note, each Roon GUI is configured independently, it’s not a global setting.)

[Rudiger_Birkemeyer (Rüdiger Birkemeyer)]

Nothing. You’re not doing anything wrong.
[Moderated]
I’m happy to be a bit more specific:

Example 1
Today at 3:00 p.m. roon showed me that I had 6951 albums, 373 of which were not recognized and 74 were displayed without covers. (The problem has been discussed often enough in the forum)
At 4:00 p.m. I had 6966 albums, 393 of which were not recognized and 116 were displayed without covers.

Example 2
If I use the focus function, I can see that I have 514 live albums, sorted by album.

If I change the sorting by import date, I have 661 live albums. (Doesn’t every album have an exact import date?)

If I change the display by artist, I get 2599!!! live albums displayed. (I’m at a loss for words.)

As you can see, I use a Windows PC as a client.
If I do the same analysis on an Android tablet, I always get 514 live albums displayed for each of the above sorting options. (That’s what I actually expect.)

I can actually show more examples.
[Moderated] I hate to be so negative, but my advice is actually: don’t put any work into preparing metadata. Roon will throw everything back on its head. And what really disappoints me is that Roon is silent. The errors have been known for months and there has been no reaction or solution.

[abdoabdala (Abdo)]

Thank you very much Rudiger, for taking the time to explain in detail. Really the problem with showing was exactly as he mentioned.
But the problem is that every time Room breaks the Albums in part and then I have to search among 4600 records which one it broke to organize again.
Luckily, to make this job easier, I have 62 boxes, and each box has approximately 70 discs, so I know which box was changed and then I search these 70 to locate the disc that Roon messed up. It’s sad that software that basically in this area shouldn’t have these flaws, I haven’t yet pressed the button to buy the lifetime license because of these types of errors, I’m seeing how far Roon goes with this way of dealing with these problems.

[Rudiger_Birkemeyer (Rüdiger Birkemeyer)]

Thanks for the answer. But I can only repeat myself: I’ve been trying to clear up the mess for weeks. I’m having no success. Roon keeps throwing everything around and splitting up albums that I’ve had for years and that Roon has also recognized. (The bio, contributors, etc. used to be correct.) And now there are two albums, neither of which are recognized, of course.
If I put these two together again, I get a different one, which is now not displayed correctly. What surprises me is that if I fix the error in a jazz album, it may well be that some classical albums are now faulty. And both albums have nothing in common: not the genre, not the artist, not the title, …)

[abdoabdala (Abdo)]

Yes, this is exactly the problem, you correct one in a few hours and it damages other albums.
And look, I’ve already uploaded my albums separately, little by little, it recognizes it as a single one, after a few hours it starts to divide some and you’ll correct it… then it damages others…
This is unbearable. If they don’t fix this, I don’t see any point in continuing to pay for the service. And their way of communicating is terrible, you have no channel to call and resolve the problem.
Look, different from Tidal, for example, I accidentally deleted playlists in the past, I called Tidal in a matter of 1 hour and they resolved everything, I live in Brazil and they have agents here speaking Portuguese to resolve these issues. Roon is terrible at communicating, I only post it here with the hope that they can resolve it, but my patience also has a limit.

[Mark_Sealey]

With the greatest of respect, Rüdiger, may I suggest (at the same time as acknowledging your frustration, and wishing you well in resolving things), isn’t that a little harsh?

Anecdotes rarely prove theses.

Although I’ve had a few problems over the five years since which I began using Roon, they’ve all be resolved.

I’d have thought that the vast majority of users have found the same. Those in the minority who want to pursue incompatibilities or anomalies in the way they use Roon come here and - again, my own conclusion is only based on the anecdotes which we all see here - usually get resolutions.

I’d hate casual readers of and visitors to this forum to get a distorted impression.

Again, good luck to you and Abdo!

[Rudiger_Birkemeyer (Rüdiger Birkemeyer)]

No, Mark, with the greatest respect: I have to disagree here.

I have been using roon since 2018. And I have had a lot of fun with this program. In 2021 I bought a lifetime license.
Roon was the crowning glory of my hobby for me. (Music and also the hi-fi system itself.) That is not the feeling I have at the moment.

If I look at the current quality, then you can’t talk about quality. roon is a database system. And I want or can expect that every query (focus is meant) will produce the same and correct result. But that is not the case. Depending on the client, I have a different number of albums, of live albums, of compilations, etc. How can that be? I only have one DB on my NUC (rock is meant)

I know that mistakes happen. I have worked in IT myself for 35 years - and in service management. A question of service is always: How do I deal with the error? But silence is definitely not an option.

What bothers me, even frustrates me, is the fact that new functions are added to roon every week, but this essential feature of a DB system is flawed and is not corrected. Even if the errors are known and accepted by roon.

If roon tells me: “You have tagging, we expect something different,” then I’m happy to follow that. But if an analysis of the data shows me an error in 120 albums (for example) and I then correct this error manually, then I also want it to disappear. And not be mentioned again, or other albums listed 2 hours later that were previously “error-free.”

That’s what I meant. Don’t use roon if you want to find and correct errors in your metadata. But that’s exactly what I expect from a DB system. Reliable results.

By the way: I use roon every day. Listening to music is (still) possible.
Have a nice evening.

[Rugby (aka Daniel or Big Dan)]

What version of Roon are you using. In my version the option you circled is the 5th option on the page, and you seem to be missing the Yes/No switch for “Show Playlists in the sidebar”

[Rugby (aka Daniel or Big Dan)]

@Rudiger_Birkemeyer

. How can that be? I only have one DB on my NUC (rock is meant)

It can be because the “Show Hidden tracks and albums” is a per control client setting. I just tested it. On my desktop with the the switch set to Yes, it showed 130 live albums. Opened up my android phone, live showed 121, but Show Hidden was set to No, set it to yes and it is now displaying the same 130 live albums.

[Carl]

@Rudiger_Birkemeyer

Depending on the client, I have a different number of albums, of live albums, of compilations, etc. How can that be? I only have one DB on my NUC (rock is meant)

See my post above …

Crazy room in the library

Hi I suspect the desktop Roon GUI is configured show hidden tracks and albums, where as the other remotes are not. [image]

[Mark_Sealey]

Rüdiger,

Not wanting to prolongue this unduly, may I just say that music is one of the most important things in life for me too, as a listener for over 60 years and an extensive collection.

I have invested heavily (time, effort, my own annotations/documentation as well as hours and hours and hours of organization and tagging etc - not to mention money ) in Roon.

I would not have done so if I had read first the many difficulties which get reported daily on this forum. It would have put me off - until or unless, that is - had realized that:

• difficulties, Yes including bugs, tend to stand out when you have a user base estimated to be in the tens of thousands. So don’t such things probably represent a tiny minority?
• Roon caters for many third party hardware (networking and software) devices and, presumably, as many combinations of ways of using files (filetypes, ways of importing, music file naming conventions, merging, separating, tagging, settings) as there are users!

Aren’t some ‘mistakes’ inevitable; and usually ironed-out (quickly): that’s certainly been my experience?

What bothers me, even frustrates me, is the fact that new functions are added to roon every week

A slight exaggeration - but I take your point. I too made my living for over 20 years in IT.

If I were a manager (at RoonLabs: heaven help them), I’d announce a freeze on new features and divert every member of the programming and QA staff to dealing with every conceivable adverse confluence of third party compatibility and anomalies arising from the way that literally every music label in the world can (and almost always does) potentially throw its files Roon’s way.

…an analysis of the data … error in 120… I then correct…not be mentioned again…other …2 hours later…

Of course. Couldn’t agree more.

It’ll be interesting to see how the staff there (already working on it with you) do resolve it.

It’s a question of good faith, isn’t it?

I suspect they want to isolate the behavior as much as you do; and either fix it and/or advise you accordingly.

…Don’t use roon if you want to find and correct errors in your metadata…

My experience (over five years, as I say, with files (exclusively ‘Classical’ C11th to C21st) which are most definitely not mainstream) has not been like yours. For me, I find an error, fix it and it stays fixed. Always. So I feel I can use Roon.

So (again, with respect) I don’t believe I have the right to generalize just because I’ve had so few problems. IOW my suspicion is that a majority (I could be wrong) of users also do not have the majority of problems (like yours) reported here.

Hope it’s resolved soon!

[DDPS]

@Rudiger_Birkemeyer what happens if you change your compilation settings to use “Various Artists”?

[Mike_O_Neill]

Too long and heated to bother reading Roon is "stupid’ it’s a program that does as its programmed to do .

Have you checked in the file tags

1. All tracks in the Album have the same [Album Name] tag
2. All tracks in the Album have the same [Disc #] tag
3. Tracks can have individual [Artists] tags but all tracks should have a common [Album Artist] tag (even if that is the infamous “Various Artists”)

worth a check , this normally fixes errant split albums

[Rudiger_Birkemeyer (Rüdiger Birkemeyer)]

Thank you very much for the many tips and for trying to help. I’m very happy about that.

I would like to answer a few questions:

1. All clients and roon Rock have the latest productive version: (Build 1442)
2. Yes, all clients have the same setting and “Show hidden tracks and albums” is deactivated.

4. Switching to the language “English” does not change the behavior.

[Rudiger_Birkemeyer (Rüdiger Birkemeyer)]

The setting is actually different. I’ll try it out and change it to “Various Artists”.

[Rudiger_Birkemeyer (Rüdiger Birkemeyer)]

@Mike_O_Neill

• All tracks in the Album have the same [Album Name] tag
• All tracks in the Album have the same [Disc #] tag
• Tracks can have individual [Artists] tags but all tracks should have a common [Album Artist] tag (even if that is the infamous “Various Artists”)

1. Yes
2. Disc # is often only set if there is more than one CD.
3. I haven’t filled Albumartist very often. Even with a compilation, it’s usually empty. I’m testing it with a few albums.

[CrystalGipsy (Resisting the flow!)]

I just put in a ticket today as Roon shows incorrect value of albums when compilation sorting is switched to Various Artists and I have noticed this value has chnaged since this morning. This morning it showed this

Now it shows this

Nothing has changed nothing removed or added.

Also track analysis shows 1 less track than my total tracks.

Something is definitely wrong in Roon for some of our databases without any rhyme or reason. I have been having other database oddities since I renewed my subs and updated to later version.

Also random instances of Focus not showing any albums for certain criteria. After last update it refused to show any duplicates I had until after a reboot.

[abdoabdala (Abdo)]

Roon’s exact problem is in the Database, the rest is all very good.
But this issue needs to be resolved. I see some people writing in various threads defending Roon as if it were a religion.
I agree with another colleague above, that Roon should stop trying to add new functions and work exhaustively on fixing the database, which is the key piece.
Roon without a decent database loses all its function.

[Rudiger_Birkemeyer (Rüdiger Birkemeyer)]

Thanks!
Since my first post here yesterday at 3 p.m., the display has changed as follows. (I haven’t added or deleted any albums for weeks, but I write down the values ​​since yesterday every few hours. It’s now 9 p.m. here and the latest numbers are confusing.)
Perhaps one more thing: ca.65% of the albums affected are compilations. But the rest are albums that roon has correctly identified for years.