"Remove from group" Unavailable (Peter Gabriel I/O Bright/Dark Mixes)

[rcrawley]

Roon Server Machine

Dedicated MacBookPro (nothing else running except system and RoonCore)
Ubuntu 22.04 (LinuxMint)
3.5 GHz Dual-Core i7
16 GB RAM

Core: Roon 2.0 (1357)

Networking Gear & Setup Details

Ethernet between RoonCore and most endpoints

Connected Audio Devices

Many different ones

Number of Tracks in Library

~60k

Description of Issue

Roon is incorrectly grouping the two different mixes of Peter Gabriel’s new I/O album, which was released in both Bright and Dark mix versions via Bandcamp. I’ve purchased both versions (via PG’s Bandcamp subscription service), downloaded both, tagged each track in each album respectively with either (Bright-Side Mix) or Dark-Side Mix) in both the album and track titles, and are storing each album in their own folder in my main music folder (details in screen shot below).

Roon is incorrectly grouping the Bright and Dark side mixes together and nothing I’ve tried has allowed me to separate them: they’re in my library (not skipped), tags are correct, and I’ve sent both albums metadata to prefer track for both the album and track names. No luck. The result is that both albums show up separately when I filter my entire library in Album view but they show up as versions of each other anywhere else in Roon. Which led me to Groupings.

I can see that they’re grouped in Versions but I’m unable to break that grouping apart; the option in the … is grayed out for me. I saw there was a bug reported re: this album as individual tracks were coming out and the folder groupings, so is this the same issue?

Peter Gabriel i/O metadata in Roon?

It’s a problem Roon side. We have a ticket to fix this, but I can’t give any timescales for fixing it. It happens because some metadata providers dump these different singles into the same “bucket”. Disambiguation then becomes tricky.

Was that bug ever resolved? Is there something else going on with why I can’t remove either album from the grouping?

[Dirk_De_Taey]

I bought the album at Qobuz, but there it is 1 double album with the 2 mixes.
Most probably, Roon’s metadata is linked to this version.

Maybe you can try to re-identify your albums and link them exclusively to your own metadata.
Don’t know if that would work, but maybe worth to try.

[Martin_Webster]

I agree with @Dirk_De_Taey, this is a single release.

This is how I present the digital download in Roon. I have Roon set to prefer my tagging.

[RobH (Rob)]

It is a single album.

I’ve simply created playlists for Bright Side-only, Dark Side-only, and one for both versions of each song for back-to-back comparisons.

(Dark Side wins, usually.)

[DDPS]

This is what its standard state would be without any special work; it’s a 2 disc set:

[rcrawley]

Combining them into one album to match the CD release works as expected, but I’m still curious why “Remove from group” wasn’t available when I kept them as separate releases.

I was building these albums as each track was released on Bandcamp before we knew that they would be released together as one album, so I ended up with the two different mixes. I’m fine combining them so Roon isn’t confused.