Importing music to internal storage problem

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

ROCK on NUC10 i7 w/ 2Tb HDD Internal Storage

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

AmpliFi Router HD w/ Windows Laptop on WiFi & NUC Core on Ethernet

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

Denon AVR-6700 connecting to Core with HDMI

Description Of Issue

I just got my Roon Core up and running so I have zero experience with it. I’m trying to import(Drag and drop) music from a USB drive on my laptop to the internal storage drive on the Core Device.

I copied around 290 albums(A-C from my USB drive). My Roon library shows 455 albums. It took an album, say with the name “AA”, and made 2 albums named “AA”. Both have the same album art, 1 with the correct tracks, and 1 with all the same tracks plus 3 others from various artists.

Then it takes a various artists album (Billboard Hits 1967) and uses the correct album art for that album and creates 10 albums with the same art and puts 1 track in each and calls it that tracks artists name. I think I can force it to use the files data instead of Roon’s(although I haven’t tried it) but then that defeats to purpose of using Roon and its Metadata base in the 1st place.

I stopped at -C- because of this but I still need to import D-Z and all the single tracks I have. And will it try to make an album out of each of the singles?

Where should I go from here?

To fix this, you can select all of the instances of the split album, select Edit, and then Merge album, to re-create them into a single album.

As to what could cause it, one thing is the meta-data in the tracks themselves. There is both the Artist and Album Artist fields. If Artist is listed and Album Artist is not, Roon might mess things up. Usually, for compilations, Album Artist should be “Various Artists” (obviously not the quotes).

Thanks for your reply. When I starting to merge the albums I realized that it not only separated the tracks, it also jumbled many of the various artists albums together. So I have tracks that need to be merged and some that need to be removed and added to different album, I have 26 of the same album art with tracks from all over. Without sitting down with each album list, I’m not sure if I can trust anything that I’ve imported.
You stated that the Album Artist should be set to “Various Artists” but I don’t see where to do that. It seems like it would need to be set somewhere for importing. If not, the problem would already be created once it is in storage.
I’ve only imported 5% of my files so far, and it’s such a scrambled mess that I’m hesitant to do any more.
I’m really at a loss and need help. I bought Roon to make my life easier and so far it has done just the opposite. If I need to reformat and start over that’s fine but the way it is now is just a mess.

Yes, you would remove the affected album(s) from Roon watched storage. Clean up the library to remove any reference to them in the database. Then with a tag editor outside of Roon, like MP3tag, you would investigate and clean up the files tags. Once cleaned up, you would then move the album back into Roon as a fresh album.

Hi @LARRY_SLAWSON,

Welcome to the forum! Can you please share a few screenshots of affected albums?

It sounds like you are trying to import these files and they follow a specific structure? This Knowledge Base article may help!

Thank you for your help. I see now that what I thought was an 8 hour import job will end up taking me several hundred hours, but in the end, it will be right. I didn’t have any idea how bad my files metadata was until I tried MP3tag. I now see all the problems I really have. Thanks again.

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Thanks for the link. It showed me 1 of the errors of my ways

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Yes, I re did my collection’s meta data years before Roon came out. A long process, but, once done everything was standardized and complete. In the end it was well worth the effort.

I did it in two waves. The first was the easier to tag rock pop etc. Then once done, I tackled the classical , opera, jazz albums.

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