Issues with album identification causing versions to disappear (ref#DDE25J)

[Aquidneck_Lanes]

Hi! What’s not quite right with Roon?

· None of the above quite fits

None of the above quite fits

· App interface looks or behaves oddly

Tell us what's going on

· I've noticed that when I use the Identify Album tool on an album that Roon didn't automatically ID, the Qobuz and Tidal versions of the album disappear from the album's versions entry and become inaccessible aside from directly searching for the song titles. I wonder if there's a fix here that I'm just missing.

Pictured here is the Primitive Radio Gods album "Rocket", which I picked because I wanted an album I didn't have complete in my library (I think there's only one good song on the whole album and it's their one hit, which is what I have from them here). "Rocket" is available on Qobuz, but it is separately listed from my version of "Rocket" for I assume some metadata reason or another. When I go to Edit > Album Options > Identify Album and correctly ID my "Standing Outside..." MP3 as being from the "Rocket" album, the end result gives me this placeholder image instead of the cover and only my MP3 is available to be chosen. When I go back to the Primitive Radio Gods' page, I only see that version of "Rocket". The Q for Qobuz is visible, but that version of the album is gone. In the screenshot, the versions tab is also gone.

I can undo this no problem by going back into Identify Album and clicking "None of these look right" a couple times, so it's not like this is a permanent change to my Roon library. I can live with the two wholly separate listings of these albums on the discograhy page (one on Qobuz, one in my library), but I was wondering what could be causing this issue I am seeing.

I just switched from Tidal to Qobuz, but this was also happening when I had Tidal too.

Tell us about your home network

· just using a router, nothing else, but it's not relevant to the question.

[connor]

Hi @Aquidneck_Lanes,

Thank you for your post.

We’ll gather logs to be sure in this case (we need to see what the server is doing). But looking at the upstream metadata, we can already see that there’s a redundant duplicate entry for this album coming in some of our partner metadata sources. Roon probably must have associated your local copy with the wrong entry upstream when you identified it. The placeholder artwork is the hallmark of a bad album entry.

The potential bug here is that identification binds to a duplicate metadata entry but then suppresses the streaming discography listing without establishing version equivalence. However, it’s tough to force the correct behavior at the level of the application logic when there’s bad data coming in from upstream.

[Aquidneck_Lanes]

Thank you. And just to be clear, this was one example. This happens every time I try to identify any unidentified album in this same manner.

[vadim]

Hi @Aquidneck_Lanes,

Thank you for the update and for clarifying that this behavior occurs with all unidentified albums you try to identify, not just this specific example. That is a very helpful detail.

Our R&D team hasn’t had a chance to review this ticket just yet. Once they are able to investigate the issue and look at how the application logic is handling these metadata bindings and version equivalencies, we will be sure to follow up and update you right here in this thread.

Thank you for your patience in the meantime!

[connor]

Hi @Aquidneck_Lanes,

Are you able to upload the local MP3 version for our team to test here?

[Aquidneck_Lanes]

Hi Connor,

I don’t think it’s necessarily a specific local file that is the problem, since it happens to every album I try to identify in Roon in this manner no matter what I do.

Let me upload a different MP3 for you that I’m experiencing this with instead of Primitive Radio Gods. I’ve sent you “Ruin” by Cat Power. I downloaded this track as a legal, free MP3 off of either The Fader or the official Matador Records website back in the days when labels would offer free MP3s in advance of an album’s release (remember when?). You can even see the same MP3 with the same file name here, although the link to download it off Matador’s server does not work anymore. Cat Power, “Ruin” MP3 | The FADER. This is just to confirm this is an officially distributed file. I have never had a need to replace this file since 2012 even though it’s a 192kbps MP3.

In Roon, it does not show up with the Sun album cover and that MP3 instead shows a separate version of Sun from the one in Qobuz. When I click “Identify MP3” it shows me the correct album information. But when I apply it, it gives me another placeholder cover even though the rest of the information is correct. Much like the Primitive Radio Gods example, the listing for Sun on Qobuz also disappears as an option I can select: It cannot be found in the “version” tab or in the Cat Power library section on Qobuz inside of Roon. Only after I go through Identify This Album again and click “None of These Look Right” to completely disassociate it from Sun does the Qobuz version of Sun become visible again.

This happens with every album unidentified by Roon that I attempt to identify. “Ruin” by Cat Power and “Standing Outside etc.” by Primitive Radio Gods are just two examples.

I do wonder though: Does the filename of the mp3 have to be specific and exact for Roon to properly identify it? I don’t think it is though, because Roon has picked up and properly ID’ed many of my other files that aren’t exactly in the usual format for MP3 file names.

I do think it has something to do with the actual files, though. Either some metadata or something else. I imagine that, in this example, if I got another mp3 of “Ruin” (either on Bandcamp, or ripped directly from a CD of Sun, or some other means) the listing in Roon would be correct. I just don’t want to go about replacing every one the hundred or so files this is happening to if it can be helped. About a handful of them are rarer songs that probably won’t populate information no matter what I do.

[benjamin]

Hey @Aquidneck_Lanes,

Thanks so much for uploading the Cat Power “Ruin” file and for the added context on where it came from, that officially-distributed detail is genuinely useful for our testing.

To your main question: no, the filename itself doesn’t need to match any specific format for identification to work. Roon identifies files based on their embedded metadata (tags) and audio characteristics, not the filename, so that’s not what’s driving this.

Your instinct that it’s tied to the files is partly right, but not in the way it might seem. What we’re seeing on our end is that some of these albums have a redundant duplicate entry in our upstream partner metadata. When you identify a local file, Roon can bind it to that duplicate entry rather than the primary one. Because the duplicate isn’t linked to the streaming (Qobuz) release as a version equivalent, two things happen at once: you get the placeholder artwork (the hallmark of a bad album entry), and the Qobuz version drops out of the Versions tab until you disassociate again with “None of these look right.” So it’s less about your particular MP3 being flawed and more about which upstream entry the identification lands on.

That also explains why it’s reproducing across every album you try to identify this way, it’s the identification-binding behavior, not any one file. Swapping in a different MP3 (Bandcamp, CD rip, etc.) might occasionally land on a cleaner entry, but I wouldn’t recommend re-ripping a hundred files on that theory, since the root cause is on the metadata/binding side rather than your library.

I’ve passed the “Ruin” file along so our team can reproduce this directly. Our R&D team is still working through the ticket, and we’ll follow up right here as soon as we have more from them. Appreciate your patience.

[Aquidneck_Lanes]

Thank you! Please keep me posted on what you find out.

[vadim]

Hey @Aquidneck_Lanes,

We will keep you posted on any progress.

[Aquidneck_Lanes]

I’ve found a semi-fix to this issue:

So let’s go through this again using “Ruin” by Cat Power as the example. Without doing anything, the album Sun shows up twice when I look at Cat Power’s listing in my Roon: The first is the Qobuz version, and the second is my version that just has “Ruin” with no album cover, and it is unidentified.

After going through the Identify This Album process again with the Cat Power “Ruin” MP3, if I go to the Sun album, click “edit”, chose “fix track groupings” and then correct the track number (in this case it’s track 3 on Sun), the versions tab with the Qobuz version of the album is visible once again.

That was half my problem, though. Even though I can see the Qobuz version of the album again, the album cover is still that placeholder.

So, I went into MP3Tag, added the album cover I downloaded off Musicbrainz, and then went through the steps again, and now I have “Ruin” properly listed in my Roon with the Sun album cover and a connection to the Qobuz release with no duplicate when I look at Cat Power’s artist page. I didn’t need to replace my file or anything.

While that’s indeed a solution, that’s quite a few manual steps I had to go through, and something I do not plan on repeating for all the other instances of this in my library. “Ruin” just so happened to be my example file I was testing ideas out with (and now I need to find a new example if you need another one, since that particular mp3 has been corrected). I’m looking forward to seeing what the team comes up with for better solution to 1) get the correct album cover without a placeholder and 2) make sure that the versions tab with the Qobuz version of the record is not hidden.

[benjamin]

Hey @Aquidneck_Lanes,

This is genuinely great detective work, thank you for taking the time to document it so clearly.

What you’ve found actually lines up with and reinforces what we suspected on the binding side. The fact that “fix track groupings” + correcting the track number brings the Qobuz version back tells us the version equivalence is being lost at identification, and re-establishing the grouping restores it. And the placeholder artwork clearing once you embedded a cover confirms that a bad/duplicate upstream entry was the thing supplying (or failing to supply) the art. So you’ve essentially isolated the two symptoms to the same root cause we’re chasing, which is really useful for the team.

To be clear though, this is exactly the kind of thing that shouldn’t require manual steps, and I completely agree it’s not something you should be doing across a hundred-plus files. The workaround is good to have in your back pocket for anything urgent, but the fix we want is on our end: identification landing on the correct primary entry so the cover and the Versions tab both come through automatically.

No need to hunt down a fresh example file on our account, we already have enough to reproduce this. If you do happen to have one that’s still in the broken state and don’t mind leaving it as-is for now, that’s handy, but don’t go out of your way.

I’ve added your findings to the ticket. R&D is still working through it and we’ll follow up right here the moment we have something. Really appreciate you sticking with this.

[Aquidneck_Lanes]

I’ve been able to fix some of these by also fixing the track numbers under Edit>Fix Track Grouping. Sometimes, that alone will add the album cover and attach the Qobuz version, sometimes I need to run Identify Album again, or even manually correcting the track numbers in Fix Track Grouping a second time. But it gets me where I wanted with many files: the correct album cover, no placeholder, and the Qobuz version is properly linked under version. I’ll have to do this manually, but it’s less work than I thought.

There are a few I could not ID like this, sometimes because the track time on my mp3 does not match what’s in Roon’s database or some other weird reason. In some of those instances, the Qobuz version of the album correctly attaches to the file in my library, but the album cover is still a placeholder. In a few of those instances, I added an album cover off Musicbrainz to the file and it fixed that.

I’m still in the trial and error phase with this, but at least I found a fix for several of my files that did not require replacing the MP3.

[Aquidneck_Lanes]

I am slowly going through my library using this method to correct my files. It’s going to take me a while, but doing it all in Roon is much more preferable and almost certainly quicker than manually editing my files in MP3Tag.

While going through this, here are the albums that will not pair no matter what I do. Each of these are also good examples of the three main issues I see when they do crop up. I have been able to pair about 90% of the files that were effected by the original issue so far, though.

Altered Images - Pinky Blue: I have the single edit of “I Could Be Happy” because the album version is one of those extended dance remixes with too many effects in it. The single edit was added to a later issue. Roon will not pair my Pinky Blue with the Qobuz one, which remains a separate listing, even when I change the track number for my single edit to the one for the album version, or to the track number for the single edit. At least I have the album cover and I can see the Qobuz version.

Animotion - Animotion (1989): I think the problem here is that this synth-pop group put out two albums that were both self-titled, and each of them as one of their big hits on it. The 1983 one has “Obsession”, the 1989 one has “Room to Move”. Roon will match my “Room to Move” file with the 1989 version on Qobuz but the cover remains a placeholder.

Bat for Lashes - Two Suns: Roon will only find a “special edition” album cover this is not the original retail version and I’ve never seen before. It is not the album cover that appears on Qobuz or any other streaming service.

I’ll fill in with more of these as I go on. This method gives me the album cover and pairs it with the Qobuz version of an album more often than it does not.

[benjamin]

Hi @Aquidneck_Lanes,

Thank you for the detailed follow up!

After discussing this with our QA team further, it would be ideal to have a copy of the full issue album to attempt additional reproduction.

Note that all media is immediately discarded after success in reproducing the issue.

If you could please upload one of the issue albums you’ve described in your above reply here, that would be most helpful.

Thank you!

[Aquidneck_Lanes]

I’m not sure if I can do a full album upload since almost all of the affected albums are partial. That is, I only have one or two songs off the album as a local file. Would you like me to send you another affected mp3? Like that Animotion one for instance?

[Aquidneck_Lanes]

Sorry for the double post, but what I came here to post is I think I’ve figured out the issue: Many of these local files either do not have a track number or an incorrect one (so, for instance, a promo mp3 that has a track number of 1, since it’s track one of a “single” so to speak, but may be track 6 on the full album).

ETA: I posted a longer explanation below, with screenshots that better explain what I’ve found to be the solution to my problem.

[Aquidneck_Lanes]

Sorry for, oh gosh, a triple post. But I think it would better to document what I’m doing with screenshots.

My example MP3 for this is “Paradise is Not So Bad” by Lifeguards. This was a short-lived side project of Robert Pollard of Guided by Voices, and I got this MP3 off of Pitchfork in 2011. From the text of this article, there used to be a link to download the MP3 there (“Up above, you can download the leadoff track”). Again, just giving the background that this is a legal file from the record label distributed by a website as above-board as Pitchfork.

In screenshot 1: You see the Waving at the Astronauts album before any pairing: No album cover, and it is completely separate from the Qobuz copy on Lifeguards’ page.

Screenshot 2: Well here’s the problem in “Fix Track Grouping”. The track number is set to the default 0 (this usually means the track number is blank in the metadata. Sometimes I will have a wrong track number in here too).

Screenshot 3: After checking another source (Wikipedia, RateYourMusic, even Identify Album in Roon), I know that “Paradise is Not So Bad” is track 1 on Waving at the Astronauts, so I correct that in Roon.

Side note: No steps of this affect the actual local file in any way. If I pull up the mp3’s properties on my hard drive at the end of all this, it shows no change to the track number. I don’t really care either way whether it does or not, but it’s worth noting.

Screenshot 4: After I click “create album”, I wait a few seconds and eventually I get the album cover…but not the version tab with the Qobuz version of the whole album. To fix that…

Screenshot 5: …I have to go back to Fix Track Grouping. The track number is correctly showing as 1, but I need to click “create album” a second time. This seems like a redundant step since I’m doing the same thing I just did in step 3, but if I do it a second time…

Screenshot 6: It will eventually pop up with that Versions tab with the Qobuz version. The Qobuz album also shows up pared with my library file when I look at Lifeguards’ page in Roon. Problem solved!

It’s a lot of steps, but I’m satisfied with this as a solution. I did a lot of tinkering to figure out what the problem was and how I could streamline this. I wish “re-identify album” or “re-analyze” album were helpful after step 4 so I don’t have to run “create album” a second time, but both of those options were inconsistent and unsatisfactory. It sure tells me that the track numbers in many of these local files I’ve been lugging around for over 15 years or more are incomplete.

I was running Identify album between step 4 and step 5 for several albums, but then accidentally discovered I don’t need to that in many instances. Just certain ones where I have a slightly different tracklist from the default (my version of Rumours by Fleetwood Mac, a whole album I’ve already run through this, has “Silver Springs” in the tracklist, and it was something like version 8 or 9 or something like that in Identify Album, so I had to that process for that record)

The only thing I use Identify Album for is to double check the track numbers I’m adding in Roon, and I click save instead of back. Not going through whole the Identify Album process in this case saves me a step, a possible headache, and potentially seeing those placeholder covers.

I can upload the “Paradise is Not So Bad” MP3 so you can run all this for yourselves. Like I said, this process does not effect the metadata of the MP3 in any way. It doesn’t add the 1 track number or the album cover to the actual file. This process is all in Roon.

I am running Roon on a laptop until I can get a separate NUC, so I suspect I’ll need to make a backup of my database after I’m finished so I don’t have to do all this work second time when I move over to that.

To close: I am marking this as my solution. If you are running into a problem like mine: Check your track numbers!