Just bought several albums from Chesky’s Audiophile store, which means many albums have a headphone version and a speaker version. I created custom names for each version (title with Headphone or title with Speaker) so they’d be separate albums, and then copied them into the database. Some WAV, some DSD, some ALAC.
First try, Roon lost all but one file on one of the albums, two or three files from several albums. The files were visible on the disk. Also, several albums didn’t show up at all. I tried forcing a rescan of the whole library. Nothing changed. Tried rescan of the individual albums. Nothing changed. So I copied the directory with the new albums off to a thumb drive, shut down Roon, deleted them where music library for Roon lives. Brought Roon back up, and none of the files were there. Good.
Then I copied the files back over into the library, and Roon busily created all the albums. But once again, I’m missing a song here and there where I have the Speaker and Headphone version to compare. Oddly, it’s always song 2. Tried forcing rescans, no change. Happening no matter the file type. Tried copying the file from my backup into the album folder (overwriting the file that Roon somehow isn’t seeing) but that didn’t work. About to try deleting just the albums that are missing files and restoring them.
But now I’m worried that I’m missing files on other albums and can’t tell because of the lack of a comparison.
What’s going on? What can I try to fix this?
WIndows 11 Pro, on an i5 NUC server, files all on a USB connected hard drive.
Thank you for your post. We’ll happily investigate.
First, are any of the failed import tracks visible in Skipped Files? (Settings > Library)
Do you have “Show Hidden Tracks and Albums” toggled off in your Settings > General page? Am I correct to interpret that a headphone and speaker version of the same track (two tracks total) are always missing? Roon is possibly flagging these versions as duplicates.
Sorry for the delay getting back… had nerve surgery on a foot and I only have so many minutes a day where I can be doing things upright instead of being prone with my foot elevated.
The post with ideas about duplicates and versions felt right, so this PM I went to try to fix the problem. Just for giggles, once again I closed Roon down, deleted all the files from the storage disk, brought Roon back up and confirmed they were no longer showing. Then I shut Roon down, copied the files back into the library, and prepared to to in and see how to turn on “show hidden files” and edit metadata. Note that I’d already named the folders for headphone and speaker differently back when this all started thinking that would matter. And just like the kid who chooses to behave, there all the albums were, both headphone speaker versions, with every song there (the problem when I posed was that everything was there except for one song on each headphone album… always the second song.) But only one album showed in the library view, with the versions showing inside.
I still went in to edit and learned a bit about Roon that may be useful in the future. I didn’t realize that Roon overrules what the files are named in favor of what it has in its’ own database for the album… or, you can tell Roon to use the album name in the files. So that’s what I did for “album title” - and saw that Chesky had album titles that included the words “headphone version” or “speaker version” in the album title metadata. What I typed in the folder names was pretty much ignored, which I didn’t realize - next time I’ll not spend effort on creating folders named how I think the album title should be. Roon showed a single album cover and title on the library view, but inside that it showed both versions with their “speaker” or “headphone” names.
I wanted both albums to show in the library view, so I checked “show hidden files.” I couldn’t find anything that said “show duplicates” or I’d have checked that. I now have both album versions showing in the library view, and inside each album detail you see both versions of the album showing as “versions.”
With one exception. One of the albums isn’t showing both versions. I can’t figure out why. I’ve got “use file data” checked just as I do for the other albums. Everything I did for the albums that now display separately is the same as for the one that does not. But my foot started to scream at me so I’m now on the couch with the foot elevated and I’ll look back at what’s going on again once the pain settles down.
For reference, the album image for Paloma Soul on Soul is an example exactly the same as the albums I’m dealing with here. (that album is amazing… the new ones I just got, not so much…)
Thanks for the update! First, I hope your recovery is going smoothly—sounds like a tough process, and I appreciate you taking the time to troubleshoot despite everything.
It’s great to hear that enabling “show hidden files” helped surface both album versions in the library view! You’re absolutely right that Roon prioritizes the metadata from its database over folder names, which can sometimes lead to unexpected behavior when organizing files manually. Naming folders differently doesn’t usually impact how albums appear, but using file-based metadata, as you did, is a good approach when you want more control.
For the one album that still isn’t displaying both versions as expected, it might be worth double-checking if Roon is still treating them as duplicates under the same album entry. Sometimes, forcing a rescan of the album or editing the version tags can help. If the issue persists, I’d be happy to dig deeper with you once you’re feeling up to it.
Wishing you a smooth recovery - we’ll be on standby for whenever you get the chance to take another go at it!
