Should we be putting our foot down with Tidal or Roon's implementation of it?

Ah, now I remember reading Brian’s comments and my impulse, as a lawyer, to remark on his use of the term “litigate.”

His solution framework is much more big picture than mine, and solves other issues at the same time: the problem goes away if Roon intelligently swaps in a perfect substitute, and Roon’s ability to do that also allows it to choose a contextually appropriate non-identical substitute.

One concern with that would be whether every user considers the substitute to actually be appropriate, as Mark comments that he’d not want to hear the wrong master of an album and truly cares about that.

That solution also sounds like a much, much larger project.

While I would be pleased with a solution that automatically reconnected my library with the best substitute, I’d still want it to tell me, to confirm it was my choice as a substitute. And actually all I want is to be told, and then be provided a process to swap in the substitute myself, with all the metadata, play count, tags, album merges, whatever, included. Best on a batch, check the box to confirm basis.

Roon already does this with the physical collection: I can get a report of corrupt tracks. I would consider a Tidal deletion something more severe even than a corrupt track. Users shouldn’t have to do this manually by comparing spreadsheets.

I was asked for my …

… and that’s precisely what I gave.

I’m not suggesting your view is less valid than mine. I simply don’t see this a problem; it’s how things are and I can live with this. Advance notice of “deletions” doesn’t change matters–what’s gone is gone.

This view more closely reflects my music library.

Where the tracks are not available and in Tidal and I want it - I simply download those tracks from HD Tracks or similar site that sells in a Hi Res format or like - simply add it to my library and Roon does the magic of integrating my music sitting on the my NAS with Tidal - that’s the beauty of Roon which makes listening experience such a pleasure!

We are definitely different people when it comes to music. Some are archivists and organizers, others are consumers and experiencers. Some just don’t care!

For me, it is an irritant like an itch I can’t scratch if there is a core piece of my collection missing. Not that every Tidal album does that to me.

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I agree 100%. I created a detailed topic about this which was looked at [and passed around] by various people within Roon. No solution and a lot of confusion on Roons part as to the understanding of their own software.

As I pointed out in my thread, the proper ‘Passing Through’ of Tidal into a third party interface was done CORRECTLY by Plex, so why can’t Roon do it? Plex if Free. Paying this much money for software the clearly FAILS is not acceptable.

I’m sure many people here have used Free software from various sources, PiCorePlayer, Volumio, MoOde autdio, etc. No software is perfect and users will always have issues of some kind. I can’t say software support from Roon is any better than that of Free software, which should not be the case. In fact in many ways support from the Free software is better and oddly enough these people support their software after their day jobs and with only two or three people.

Roon might and ‘should’ have a business plan, a road map etc. However to ignore the paying customer is wrong. What image are you portraying to your customers if you say your own plans and agenda outweighs that of the people who keep the lights on?

I think that is the point roon is a commercial organisation with a wide customer base and will put their investment money where the majority need is.
Most people really don’t seem to care about this issue they are used to media disappearing off the likes of Netflix, Spotify etc. Just because some small percentage of users complain doesn’t mean they should or can jump right to it. All software organisations have a percentage at any given time that are unhappy about features and direction, heck I worked at Microsoft for ten years…
There are many more people complaining about the iPad pro issue and amazingly as it is a core usability device they have said they are doing work on it.
I’m in the it’s annoying but I wish they would focus on other things camp obviously :kissing_smiling_eyes:

I’m not sure how you reach conclusions on what percentage of users are upset about either problem?

I use an iPad Pro, but being able to identify when albums go missing is higher on my list.

Entirely non scientifically just going by the number of threads and posts. What we want in release 1.6 thread, for example, is full of iPad pro requests, very few dissatisfaction with disappearing tracks.

Given my experience with Tidal removing content, I am beginning to think the old way of building a library is the way to go. That’s why I signed up to Qobuz. I can’t buy stuff in the UK via Tidal (at least never figured out how to easily do it). With Qobuz it is easy. Stream and if it’s good, buy. Or buy CD’s and rip, or vinyl and record it.
That way I remain in control of my library. I actually find it more engaging to build a library that way also - i.e. only stuff I really like and therefore buy gets added. I think I will revert to this approach.

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Haha, well that’s just amazing really.

That’s just an interface. Collection entropy is a far worse problem.

That’s in italics just to illustrate that we can all put down someone else’s concerns. I’d much rather see this forum be mutually supportive rather than some virtual wrestling match for Roon’s soul.

Back on point, there may not yet be a lot of chirping about this yet because people are just coming around to realizing the issue. For a long time it just didn’t hit my consciousness - error message comes up, but then another song plays, OK so just have a sip of beer and move on.

But in the long haul, if we groomers, organizers, and archivists are going to put in time and effort on the Tidal side of the collection, this is going to be an issue.

I don’t know the stats, but my gut feeling tells me this may be a 3%-6% per year type of issue or thereabouts. I have noticed it a lot more lately after living with a Tidal collection for about 2 years. So it will take some time for this to impact a substantial percentage of an overall mixed Tidal/local collection. If half a library is Tidal, it will take maybe 5 years to impact maybe 10% of the overall library.

My suggestion would be to create a feature request out of this discussion and post it in that category.

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I can understand where you’re coming from. In contrast, I’m done with grooming metadata and am (mostly) happy for Roon to do this.

Although we see things differently, I do see merit in an “album” sticking around even if it’s unavailable for streaming. So, there’s common ground.

Maybe bring this discussion and TIDAL Albums Get Lost into a new feature request as @Geoff_Coupe suggests.

Done!

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Exactly why my vinyl and physical CD’s will only be prized from my cold dead hands.

Here’s a thought nobody will like: regarding randomly disappearing songs/albums due to licensing changes, it’s just the universe telling you to move on already…you were able to link precious high school memories to specific passages of music, so why can’t the same thing happen with contemporaneous music? Answer: it can, you just won’k know it until 2039.

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Well one reason might be because music these dates suck.

I could not disagree more. There is so much great music happening these days, but you have to catch it in a live setting because commercial recordings do not bring home the bacon any more. So you have two choices: spend more time at your local music venue, and/or make friends with someone who tapes shows at said venue. It’s that simple, and the greasy long-haired middle-man now has to go legit.

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Soul’s Core Revival, Here If You Listen, Vanished Gardens, Shelter, Snail Mail, Hell-On, As Long As I Have You, Dirty Computer, Landfall …

Meh.

Much of amplified live music sucks, too. I can recall two live amplified shows that I have attended – The Shins and Sigur Ros – that were great in both music and sound quality. Every other show, I would have gotten more enjoyment had I stayed home and listened to the artist’s recordings on my system. Like it or not, so much modern music is written for and best heard from the recording studio, not from the live venue.

AJ