Database Corruption, Wrong album-titles and can't find classical music

Support
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Roon Core Machine

Dell Powerserver T310, Xeon CPU 3.3, 16GB memory, Roon loaded on SSD, OS on standard HD as well as database. Running Windows 10 Pro, patched up to current level. No other applications running other than Windows and Roon.

Networking Gear & Setup Details

90% all wired: core, nearly all endpoints, etc. using Cisco kit. WiFi is Cisco 1832 access points running latest OS release.

Connected Audio Devices

Sonos One SL pair, Dell R10 with multiple audio interfaces for headphones and connectivity to Denon amp environment. Dell 7090 connecting to wired powered speakers. Squeezebox units (2) connected currently to WiFi. Considering replacing these with something else.

Number of Tracks in Library

100,091 tracks by 2331 artists, 514 “composers”, and 6694 albums

Description of Issue

I have been updating/recording many of my mp3 encoded cd tracks/albums into flac files. I am having repeated Core stoppages on mp3 encoded, low resolution tracks. Late in version 1.8, I discovered that at one artist (my definition, not Roon’s) was not displaying a recently updated album. The mp3 album was deleted in the disk database and the new one added so only one album remains in the database. It took me a while to finally piece together enough details to explain this issue. The corruption remains in 2.0. I have a number of screen captures that help to make sense of this issue. I tried to “rescan” the disk files. This completed in seconds and did nothing. Not what I expected. There is no “rebuild” option that would clear the database tables associated with the music side (but leave all of the configuration information intact).

Before I step though the issue above, it may make my debug tracking a bit clearer. First and foremost, I edit every single album and track metadata and standardize the formats for title, genre, and most importantly for me, Artist. For non-classical music and music not classified by me a “Various Artists”, this works great; both within Roon and for non-Roon based file and music management tools since the late the 1990’s. In my usage, classical “artist” is the composer. I have no interest in who performs these works for database tracking purposes. I have been encoding performer/orchestra, etc. within the album title as well as adding information about “HD” and “Ultra HD” encoding depending on how the tracks are encoded. I treat Various Artists as an “artist” which it appears Roon does not allow as I can’t find Various Artists under Artist nor easily find many of the albums in this category easily or maybe not at all.

Step through.

  1. I rerecorded the album as shown in Verdi Imported album error. You will notice the album is for “Masters of Classical Music” with Verdi being the “Artist”. If you look at the information under the album cover, it references another album that used to be in the database. The information presented is for the album “Verdi” and shows the associated artists with the artist (my definition) as Verdi, Giuseppe.

  2. The second picture “verdi masters actual album tracks” is a capture of the actual tracks and metadata elements (most) for what the actual imported album should match.

  3. The third picture “verdi other album now missing” depicts the disk files/metadata for the album “Verdi” as noted in the problem description. This album is missing as far as I can see in Roon. I looked under Verdi, Bocelli, Metha, etc. with no luck. Under Album, it is not there either.

  4. In this picture “Roon verdi mess”, I captured the albums listed under Giuseppe Verdi. Notice that there are only 15 albums total, many of which are not by Verdi and some are far from classical music.

  5. In this picture “verdi sample of actual albums”, you will see many of the albums by Verdi that are in library. Note the syntax of the Artist- Verdi, Giuseppe. This syntax is not used in Artists or other areas to help manage albums/tracks, etc. I also included the screen shot “artists example” to highlight the naming mess under Artists. You will see some artists, mostly those that seem to not be in the Roon master database, and those that are. In some cases, there are 2 entries for an artists, one based on firstname/lastname and the other using lastname/firstname (the setting selected in core Setup".

What I am asking for is (1) a method to either have a “rebuild” option that clears and then fully rebuilds the artist/album/tracks portion of the database. I would like to retain all setting, playlists, and other elements not associated with actual album imported information. (2) A backup option to backup all of the database other than album imported data. I believe the Rebuild to be better and less compication. and (3) Roon to eventually honor the customer select “Prefer File Information over Roon database” for Title, Artist, Genre and photo. Item (3), in my view, should greatly improve handling of Various Artists as an Artist and Classical music based on Composer being Artist.

Please let me know where to upload the pictures, if desired.

Thanks you for your time and hopeful fix.

Bob

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Verdi imported album error

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verdi masters actual album tracks
verdi masters actual album tracks2188×307 208 KB

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verdi other album now missing
verdi other album now missing2371×406 344 KB

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roon verdi mess
roon verdi mess1920×1031 206 KB

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verdi sample of actual albums
verdi sample of actual albums1920×1322 374 KB

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@support wondering if anyone has had a chance to review this posting about corruption in the database.

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Hi @robert_merritt,

Please accept our apologies for the delay in responding.

As a first step, let’s refresh the database, to delete any cached data which might be misbehaving. I recommend you first remove the affected Verdi albums (and other affected content) from your local library. You can move the files out of your Watched Folder location, or temporarily delete it, but the idea here is to save a Backup of your Roon Database that does not contain the problematic metadata before refreshing the database.

Once you have a “clean” version of the library, try the following:

  • Create a Backup of your current database
  • Exit out of Roon
  • Navigate to your Roon Database Location
  • Find the folder that says “Roon”
  • Rename the “Roon” folder to “Roon_old”
  • Reinstall the Roon App from our Downloads Page to generate a new Roon folder
  • Restore the Backup
  • Import the affect Albums again and see if the issue persists.

What file management software are you using to edit this content?

I’m not sure the extent to which your library consists of re-recorded albums as you mentioned, but please note: as this activity can technically qualify as piracy even when for personal consumption, there are limits to Roon’s ability to support issues with unofficially re-recorded content. That said, we’ll absolutely do the best we can to meet your expectations.

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Hi @robert_merritt,

Thank you for your response via PM and for further clarifying the follow-up steps you’ve taken. Our apologies that this thread auto-closed before we could verify the issue was fully solved.

Given that some time has passed, I’ve reopened the thread in case anything has popped up since you made the change described in your PM. If not, we’ll happily assist you with anything else Roon-related.

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Hi, I have performed several tests, including the restoration of the last backup (V2.0) that, at the time, contained the incorrect meta data information in the database. I did backup the “current” database which was a built-from-scratch installation. As noted previously, the rebuilt installation initially had the same incorrect information once the music library was scanned. The album in question’s metadata was updated to reflect that the artist was “Various Artists” instead of “Verdi…”. Upon reimporting this album, the database issue went away. In this case, I believe the algorithm used to match album based on content became confused. The track contents of both albums were almost identical with only 1 or 2 tracks different. I guess when the Artist name became different, the lookup succeeded.

Based on the results using the rebuilt database, I decided to restore the last V2 database captured just prior to all of the testing. I followed the standard method. The restore was reported as successful and I restart the core to refresh the operation as noted. The restart failed. The core never came back online. I checked on the processes listed and Roon Application was running but RAAT was not. I rebooted the system with the same results. Nothing I tried seemed to correct the startup issue. I then resolved to uninstall Roon Core and install a fresh copy downloaded from your site. This reinstall failed to startup as well. I repeated the uninstall and then went to the Roon local “hidden” area and deleted all of the data here. I reinstalled and this time the Roon core started. I reapplied the older V2 backup and upon restart, everything worked as expected. The music library was rescanned and all of the changed/new files were processed. The final status is the library is functioning as expected.

Thanks for your time and information.

Bob

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While there might not be a specific “rebuild” option in Roon, you can try to perform a clean reinstallation. This involves uninstalling Roon, deleting its database, and then reinstalling it. Before attempting this, make sure you have a backup of your Roon database. To do this, locate the Roon database folder on your machine and make a copy of it. Roon has a built-in backup feature that you can use to backup your current state. Go to Settings > Backups in Roon and create a backup. This will include your playlists, settings, etc. If you need to restore, you can use the same section to restore from a previous backup.