· Inconsistent album sorting between Overview and Discography
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I have a set of local Oscar Peterson albums that all share the same original release date (1968); I’ve named them “Vol. 1” through “Vol. 7” so they sort in the correct order.
While the “Overview” section sorts them correctly (Vol. 1–7), the “Discography” section lists them in the order: Vol. 7, 1, 2, 5, 4, 6, 3.
What could be the reason why “Overview” sorts by title when the original release dates are identical, whereas “Discography” does not?
OK. I guess in this case the implicit secondary sort criteria is missing/wrong/odd/unexpected/random. (I can’t find any indication for what it’s actually using, if anything)
There are obviously remaining discrepancies about translation, in-app treatment of Japanese names and credits, and product priorities, based on discussions in this and previous threads. Some of your questions still require a conclusive, technical response. For instance, we need to confirm against logs when and whether Original Release Date supersedes Release Date for Discography sort, and whether that represents an edge case.
Those efforts are ongoing and we will respond to all of your topic threads in Support as soon as possible. However, we need to ask for your patience. You’ve submitted over thirteen topic threads in the last two weeks. At this pace, we can’t guarantee a timely response to all your submissions; other users have high-priority, urgent issues, like server crashes, that also require attention from our small, dedicated support team.
A few other resources you can use instead of posting directly in Support
For translation string corrections, you can post directly in the translations subcategory. You can also contribute to localization directly if you’d like. Of course, if you’re not sure about where to submit a correction, please still post it here.
You can, more broadly, use the Roon Software Discussion general category if you have open-ended questions that don’t require a conclusive answer from support.
Our moderators and team will happily merge your topic thread on request if it’s in the wrong place.
Lastly, you can submit metadata corrections to our data team directly for assessment here.
Thank you for your patience and understanding. We will follow up with more information about this specific case once we’ve tested the media, if you’re able and willing to provide it.
I’ve gone ahead and exported the album, zipped the files, and uploaded them.
For some reason, the folders were split into “Oscar Peterson (Vol. 2–7)” and “The Oscar Peterson Trio (Vol. 1),” even though they all appear as “Oscar Peterson” within Roon.
The export process seemed to hang before finishing, but the files were successfully created, so I’m sending them as-is. Please let me know if there are any issues.
Regarding the CDs, I purchased them individually rather than as a box set.
I have already compiled and posted a list of Japanese translation errors here, so I don’t think this needs to take up the support team’s time:
Since this is a display-related issue, please prioritize critical problems—such as the inability to play music—and feel free to take your time looking into this matter.
I appreciate your continued assistance with the investigation.
In the local library’s folder structure, all the albums were located under “Oscar Peterson.”
It is unclear why the folders are being split up during the export.
My local Box Set files are fine.
They are recognized correctly because the disc and track numbers are assigned.
I believe the issue arises when items from a series are sold individually.
Thank you for the export and the screenshots, they made this much clearer.
What you are seeing is how Discography is designed. It shows the artist’s career, so for albums Roon has identified it orders them using Roon’s own catalog data rather than the dates and titles in your files or your edits. Your edits and file tags change Overview and My Albums, but not the order in Discography.
Your screenshots show this for Vol. 7: Roon’s original release date for it is 1995, and you changed it to 1968 in the album editor. Discography still uses 1995, so Vol. 7 appears first when sorted by date. The other six volumes have 1968 in Roon’s data, so they tie on date, and the remaining order comes from other catalog details for those albums, not from the titles in your files.
If you believe the date Roon holds for Vol. 7 (or any of the others) is wrong, please report it to our metadata team here. Discography uses Roon’s data, so a correction there is the way to change its order. Overview follows your own titles and dates, so it remains the better view for the order you expect.
Hi @vadim, thanks for the reply. I have a couple of follow-up questions.
Question 1: Based on that logic, since the “Original release date” is 1968 (for Vols. 1–6) versus 1995 (for Vol. 7), shouldn’t Vol. 7 appear much later in the list? (I would expect the order to be Vols. 1, 2, 5, 4, 6, 3, followed by Vol. 7 after a significant gap.) When I revert it to Roon’s “1995,” it appears much later in the list, which is consistent.
Question 2: Why is the manually edited “1968” displayed for Vol. 7 when Roon’s “1995” is being used for sorting? I would think Roon’s “1995” should be displayed instead.
Question 3: Could you please share the details of the “catalog information for each album” that determines the order (Vols. 1, 2, 5, 4, 6, 3)? I’ve checked things like the label and country of origin, but those don’t seem to be the deciding factors.
For context, Vol. 7 was released in 1995 because the master tapes were discovered much later, but the actual recording dates align with Vols. 1–6; I manually changed the date to 1968 because I wanted them listed in chronological order. Roon’s metadata is actually correct as it stands.
So, the conclusion seems to be that manually editing the “Original release date” in the discography isn’t ideal, as it leads to inconsistencies in sorting and display.
Therefore, it seems best to avoid manual edits whenever possible and only request corrections if Roon’s metadata is actually incorrect.
Hi @vadim,
It appears to be working simply as follows:
The “Original release date” (either from Roon or a manual edit) serves as the primary sort key; since Vol. 7 was manually set to “1968,” that is the date displayed.
Sorting for subsequent keys follows “other catalog details”; based on this criterion, Vol. 7 appears at the very top.
Could you please provide details regarding point 2? I would like to verify this myself (e.g., Label, Country, Catalog Number, listed in order of priority).
Hi @vadim,
I investigated the issue regarding the title sorting order, and here is what I found.
It seems designed to handle series, but frankly, it’s an unwanted feature:
Sorts based on the text following prefixes like "Vol.1: "
Ignores “The” at the beginning and sorts based on the subsequent text
There are some exceptions:
“Vol. 7: The Lost Tapes” is located between E and F for some reason
“Fiolleo” is located among the M entries for some reason (a separate issue I happened to notice)
If points 1 and 2 are intended behavior, then so be it, but are points 3 and 4 bugs?
The reason the Discography appeared in the order Vol. 1, 2, 5, 4, 6, 3 when sorted by “Original release date” was that the secondary sort key—the title sort—uses the same logic I mentioned earlier.
In the Overview, the sorting is based simply on the album title (ignoring “The,” etc.), which is why they appeared in the order Vol. 1 through 7.
It would have saved me a lot of trouble if you had mentioned that from the start.
Why do the Overview and Discography use different logic for sorting titles?
And why is the Discography’s sorting method so much more complex?
A < G < Me < My < T < W
Vol.1: Action
Vol.2: Girls Talk
Vol.5: Mellow Mood
Vol.4: My Favorite Instrument
Vol.6: Travelin’ On
Vol.3: (the) Way I Really Play
I still haven’t figured out why Vol. 7 comes first. I wondered if items with manually edited “Original release date” fields took precedence, but that turned out not to be the case.
I was experimenting with different filters and noticed that the sort order changes.
“Exclusively for My Friends Vol.” (with a trailing dot): Sorted as Vol. 1 through 7.
“Exclusively for My Friends Vol” (without a trailing dot): Sorted as Vol. 7, 1, 2, 5, 4, 6, 3.
Is it intended behavior for the sort order to change based on the filter criteria? What logic determines this change in sort order?
I tried removing “Vol.” and other symbols from the album titles, but the sorting results based on “Original release date” remained the same. It turns out my assumption that the sorting was based on the text following “Vol.x” was incorrect; it appears to be sorting by the Roon album title itself. That was a misunderstanding on my part.
Regarding title sorting: “Vol.7” starts with “Exclusively…”, so it appears under “E,” whereas “Vol.1” through “6” start with “Action (Exclusively…),” placing them under “A.” (I’ve resolved my questions about title sorting for now, though the “Fiolleo” issue remains puzzling.)
However, if that were the case, “Vol.1” (starting with “A”) should appear first when sorting by “Original release date,” yet “Vol.7” (starting with “E”) actually comes first, suggesting there are specific sorting criteria at play.
Furthermore, if I manually change the “Original release date” for “Vol.7” to 1968/01/01, it moves to the end of the list; this indicates that the sorting relies on the manually edited date rather than the date provided by Roon.
I feel there is a lack of consistency in having the “Original release date” sort rely on manual edits while the title sort relies on Roon’s data.
Through a process of trial and error, I ended up posting some incorrect information; I’d like to clarify the situation now and close this thread. The sorting behavior for “Original release date” appears to be as follows:
1. The primary key (date) sorts based on the metadata set for each album (whether from Roon, the file itself, or manual edits); the displayed date is also based on this same metadata (e.g., if I manually change Vol. 7 to 1968/1/1, it moves to the end of the list and displays as 1968/1/1).
2. The secondary key (?)—the title—sorts based on the Roon metadata set for each album, while the displayed title is based on the metadata set for each album (Roon, file, or manual edit).
3. The fact that Vol. 7 appears first suggests there might be additional logic regarding how the primary key (date) is handled, or perhaps a sorting key that takes precedence over the secondary key (title).
The current Discography specifications are confusing because there is a lack of consistency between the sorting logic and the displayed data.
There are two possible approaches to resolving this:
A. Use Roon metadata for both sorting and display.
B. Use the configured metadata (Roon, file, or manual edits) for both sorting and display.
Judging by the current specifications, option B seems very difficult, whereas fully implementing option A appears easier; perhaps your team could discuss the overall concept of the Discography feature?
For now, I’ll set up the “Overview” section to my liking and treat the “Discography” section merely as a reference.
Regarding the “Fiolleo” issue, since it involves title sorting, I’d like to verify a few more details before starting a new thread.
Please let me know if you have any comments. Otherwise, feel free to close this thread.
A downside of Option A mentioned above is that the album titles differ between the Overview and Discography sections; this could be confusing and might lead to inquiries.
A downside of Option B is that sorting relies on various metadata, which could impact performance (depending, of course, on the program’s implementation).
Roon recently revamped its search engine, resulting in a dramatic performance boost; perhaps you should consider doing the same for the Discography section—starting over from the requirements definition and design phases?
