The thing is this: If an artist exists properly as a known artist in Roon (e.g., may have a Valence picture, a biography, and/or is credited on other albums), but no album where they are credited is already in your library, then Roon often (or always?) creates a duplicate artist when you import the local files. I think this can occur even if the newly imported album is identified, but definitely if it is unidentified.
This duplicate artist will show under the name as it appears in the file tags, but the artist entry won’t be linked to the proper artist that Roon knows. I.e. it is just like a different, new artist, that happens to have the same name as the existing one:
- It won’t have an artist picture from Valence
- The artist metadata (like birth date etc) is empty
- The other works of the real artist won’t show in the duplicate artist’s discography.
The same issue will happen if you edit album/track credits in Roon and add an artist credit - if you don’t yet have an existing, identified album in the library yet, where this artist is already credited, then Roon won’t find it during editing. When you then create a new one by that name, it will be a duplicate without the real artist’s metadata and links.
I think the best way to avoid this is to make sure that you first add an album to the library from a streaming service (if you have any) where this artist is already credited. (After you import your local files, you can remove these albums again from your library if you don’t need them). If you don’t have a streaming service, then you need an identified album with this artist credit in your library before importing the new one.
Yes it is a PITA to make sure of this before every import but I think it leads to the cleanest outcome.
Alternatively, you can search for that artist name(s) after importing your new album, or find them on the My Library > Artist page (but only primary artists show there). Then select both (or more) artists with this name. A “Merge Artists” button will appear top right. Click it and you can merge the duplicate artists into the real one. (Note: “Merge Artists” will only appear if you have an identified album of each selected artist in the library, so you won’t get around this anyway. Again, after you are done with merging you can remove these albums from the library again, if you don’t need them)
Also see this post and the other threads linked from there: