Tracks on discs that are two takes of the same song (both file names & meta data have take numbers in song title) are see as non-matching tracks. It highlights a mismatch on track length, though my dbPowerAmp CD Ripper certified the tracks as matching AccurateRip database. This happens for several songs that had 2 takes. This part of a larger problem where Roon refuses to see the 3 discs as part of a single album.
Rather than relying on file tags or track lengths for identification, Roon compares each album to canonical versions from its metadata providers, which include expected track order, disc numbers, and track durations. Your rips are accurate, but because Disc 1 contains two takes of several tracks with durations that differ from Roon’s reference metadata libraries for the 1991 BMG release, the system separates it from Discs 2 and 3 and flags the tracks as non-matching.
Once you force Roon (for this particular album) to either prioritize file-based tags or a unified metadata identity, Roon will group everything correctly and stop flagging alt takes as mismatched.
For this particular multi-disc set, is each disc stored in its own subfolder in the underlying file structure?
In the Roon Album Editor (album page → three dots → edit), do you have everything set to Prefer File?
We’ll keep a lookout for your response and proceed from there. Thanks!
Thanks.
I have (as suggested) changed the metadata preference to the “prefer file” for all items (they do not have one for track length). It did not cause the 2-albums grouping in Roon. Is there an extra step to cause it to reevaluate the grouping after forcing the preferences?
btw it is odd that whenever I tried to do a fresh start by deleting the files in the monitored directory (disappears from the Roon display of albums) and then copy the files back into that directory, it does not tag it as newly added, but instead remembers when it was first added and uses that for its position in the By Date Added sort sequence.
Prior to importing the albums files into my Roon server, I placed the files for each disc in its own folder underneath a common folder that has a folder name matching the name of the 3-disc album (in the metadata). I have done this with many multi-disk sets without problem.
see the below images:
Also, just noticed that sometimes “The Birth of Swing” had “Of” instead of “of”, so I changed that to “of” everywhere in the metadata and file names.
Still grouped as 2 albums, except the Roon album that only includes Disc 3 is now seen as newly added, while the Roon album with Discs 1 & 2 still is positioned back at the original add sequence position (still remembers the old add date?).
Odd that even after I have set my metadata preferences all to be from the files and saved the results, when I go back into metadata preference for the album, the preference settings have disappeared. Maybe I don’t understand how that preference interaction is supposed to work & be used by Roon …
In any case, I re-did the data preferences for the Roon album that has Discs 1 & 2 and it now appears as the most recently added, next to the Album with only Disk 3.
But still not merging into a single Album with the tracks from all three discs.
Can you please zip this album and upload it to our Media Storage so we can have a look at it and try to group it ourselves if it has problems, and let you know if there are some exact steps to do.
