Long story short: we have a buy-to-stream/download service in the Nordics that’s based on the same catalogue. That’s why they’re there but not available everywhere.
On a whim, I just searched for “Eberhard Weber” via Roon. On Tidal, 21 albums show up. All are “unavailable.”
I’m not really surprised at the results, and I don’t think it’s Tidal’s fault. It’s just such a drag that all those albums are listed and I can’t listen to any of them.
Thanks for checking on that. I’ve been hoping those albums become available (USA) and haven’t checked lately.
At least they’re marked “Unavailable.” I hate it when I have a Tidal album playing in Roon and miss the too-short red lettered dialog box that tells me the track is unavailable.
Perhaps these messages could appear in the History. It is sometimes puzzling when a track that’s in the queue doesn’t make it to the History afterword.
If Tidal can mark files as unavailable so that they don’t play in certain regions I don’t understand why they could not mark them so that they don’t even show up in searches in regions where they are not available.
It’s very frustrating to find so may things that you might want to try only to then find they are not available.
Well, I like to see the artist’s bio and album reviews even if the audio is not available. Gives me a little more insight into the artist (without leaving Roon) and may help point me to a particular album in the artist’s discography that I might purchase, if inclined. Perhaps a symbol, like the red dot indicating live album - maybe a crossed circle over the Tidal symbol that indicates not available. Or little national flags that are crossed out to indicate where it isn’t available.
In the long run, this is where I’d like to see Roon become more like a streaming news site customized for my library. When an album or artist I favorite DOES become available, it would be cool to have that display in my “Here’s what’s going on in your library today” page. Things like reviews for albums that may have been missing before or streaming capability of a previously embargoed stream. Perhaps too much to ask.
If making albums invisible (or having an option to do so) when they’re not available is not do-able, I agree that it would be helpful to have a badge on such albums to indicate that they can’t be played.