But it fails me to understand what this does, and it’s very purpose?
And secondly, not all albums are “split” into different groups originally, i have other examples where several local releases are “In this group” along with a Qobuz version but not having been manipulated.
One example:
Versions means different versions of the same album, like Allman Brothers Live at the Fillmore, and Live at the Fillmore Complete Concert.
Groups are for when Roon detects (or you manually group) two copies of the same album together, like Born to Run in DSD and Born to Run in 24/192 [exact same album just different formats].
If grouped, Roon recognizes them as different version of the same album. It shows only one cover for them in My Albums, and the different versions are under the VERSIONS tab. Like @Rugby wrote above.
I believe that those mentioned under VERSIONS as “Also in your library” are recognized as being similar but are not yet understood as being a version of the exact same album. So I think they may still be shown with a separate cover in My Albums (until you click “Group”). However, I have that rarely and always forgot to check My Albums to verify this theory.
Album grouping happens by default if you have two or more copies of the same exact version of an album. An example would be you have a local copy of Revolver and then same version from Tidal and Qobuz. You might also have a copy of the new remaster of Revolver just released. Roon will see this as a different version as it’s not from the same release. You have an option to also group other versions of the album so then Roon only shows the album once and all the different versions show under the versions tab. If you don’t group them then you would show two copies of the album in the main library if you have show hidden files off (default). If you have show hidden files on then grouping is not used for the library view but they will show up under versions still. It’s just a neat way of gathering all verions of a particular album together. I use it all the time for neatness. How eve it has some oddities when an album that is grouped from streaming services is deleted via that service as it can’t be deleted from your library until you ungroup it.
I now understand what album grouping does, even if it’s still a bit foggy as to why there is just one Primary version even if similar albums are not grouped.
And, where to go if i want to “Ungroup” similar albums, that i have grouped earlier.
Hmm that does seem odd mine show up as separate if I don’t group them. It maybe if it’s one from streaming and the links have been changed it’s causing some confusion. I have had issues with grouping Qobuz albums from different versions that later get removed. They become orphaned and can’t be removed easily. Maybe something similar happening. If you show hidden versions do you see both primaries? Can you show a screen grab.
Okay, this album is in my library “twice”. once as a download and once as a Qobuz-item.
They were “grouped” using the top right “Group…” command under Versions.
I’m using the setting “Show hidden…”
The pink Floyd one is correct if grouped. You can ungroup by going in the versions tab click on … and dry ungroup if it won’t this is because of the oddities I mentioned earlier you may need to select the qobuz one as primary and ungroup your version i think sometimes how you grouped them makes some difference and if you grouped to a version that’s been removed it causes even more issues. I then have to add back in that version group and then ungroup. The grouping thing needs work as streaming stuff tends to break it a bit.
Note: Sometimes, Remove from Group is not active for one version in the group, and I have not understood why. But then you can remove the other version from the group, same result as far as I can tell
That’s probably because Roon does not automatically recognize them as versions of the same album. Their titles differ, maybe different track numbers.
In most cases in my experience, Roon recognizes such albums automatically as different versions anyway and groups them with Show Hidden disabled, sometimes it does not. In this case, select both albums, click the (…) button at the top of the page > Edit > Group Alternate Versions
