Drill-down of ARTIST -> ALBUM mistakenly shows tracks by other artists

[DSperber]

Neutron mixes up multiple albums with same "album name" under a single artist. Searching for a single ARTIST, and then selecting that artist to reveal the albums by that artist (correctly shown), and then tapping on one of those albums mistakenly shows other "stray" song titles by other artists who happen to have an album of exactly the same name as the artist I'm drilling down for.

New app user, first time forum post.

At first I thought this was a screwup regarding album art. My music collection contains both MP3 and FLAC files, with FLAC having imbedded cover art inside each file's FLAC tag (which is actually OGG comment). MP3 files don't have imbedded cover art in each tag, but rather there is a single "cover.jpg" image file in the album folder.

And my organization is \Music\Artist\Album\file, insluding both single-artist albums as well as "compilation" multi-artist albums.

Anyway, I have a large music collection with 611 "artist-level" folders directly underneath \Music. Each "artist" folder has one or more "album folders" underneath, and then there is one or more MP3 and/or FLAC file within each "album folder". Total of about 7600 track files, inside about 1200 album folders.

Just today I copied the entire structure over to a newly purchased 128GB microSDHC card for my Android Samsung S10. The music folder is about 75GB. And then I used Neutron to do some playing, and some searching->drill-down.

The problem was revealed, for example, by what happened when I went to play Linda Ronstadt (who has two albums) by searching for Ronstadt, which correctly presented her "artist" row as having two albums. I then tapped on that row, to drill-down into that Linda Ronstadt artist. The first album is titled "Cry Like A Rainstorm, Howl Like The Wind" (although it is displayed second). Some FLAC files (with imbedded cover art), some MP3 files (relying on on external cover.jpg image file in the album folder). Everything looks and plays just fine for that album.

Then I went to play songs from the second album (although it is displayed first, not where it belongs alphabetically), this one titled "Very Best Of, The". Strangely, although the proper song played the displayed album cover art displayed was incorrectly from a Herb Alpert album, which also has the name "Very Best Of, The". Looking closely at the tracks shown for this supposedly Linda Ronstadt album, I did in fact see the additional tracks from that Herb Alpert album, as well as even more "stray" tracks from a Rufus (featuring Chka Chan) album which in fact is also named "Very Best Of, The". And yet one more, there is also a "stray" track from a Maria Callas album also named "Very Best Of, The". Total of 27 tracks displayed, even though there are only supposed to be 14 from the Linda Rondstadt "Very Best Of, The" album.

So although I had navigated using Neturon to artist -> Ronstadt, the Neutron database information presented is mixed up. Of course I'm a rookie when it comest to Neutron so maybe this is all my doing. Which is why I've come to this forum to ask this question.

There are in fact 17 tracks in the two Linda Ronstadt albums, 3 in "Cry Like A Rainstorm" and 14 in "Very Best Of". Neutron's alphabetical "artist" list shows that she has 2 albums and 17 songs. When I then tap on that row, it still shows 17 tracks for "all songs", and it shows two rows for the two albums. It should now have shown 27 tracks all from albums of the same name since they iare from three other artists.

So, in summary here are the defects:

(1) The two albums are not listed alphabetically under the artist, by their title as I would have expected. Is there some setting to make that happen?

The "All Songs" header line after drilling down into LInda Ronstadt correctly shows 17 songs. But the two detail rows (one for each album) shows 3 songs for one album (which is correct) and 27 songs for the second album (which is incorrect, mistakenly including songs from same named albums from three other artists).

(3) While "Cry Like A Rainstorm" shows 3 tracks in it (which is correct), the "Very Best Of" shows 27 tracks in it (which is incorrect, as there are only 14 tracks genuinely in that album's folder). The other incorrect 13 tracks are coming from the other three albums in my collection with the same "Very Best Of, The" name: Herb Alpert, Rufus, and Maria Callas.

(4) When I play any of the 27 enumerated tracks in this album (i.e. in this album-title) the cover art presented is from the Herb Alpert album. Doesn't matter if I play a Linda Ronstadt track of Rufus track or Herb Alpert track, it is the Herb Alpert cover art which is displayed. There actually are only 14 tracks in this album by Linda Ronstadt, and 4 tracks from Rufus in that album of the same name, and 8 tracks from Herb Alpert in his album of the very same name, and one track from Maria Callas in her album of the same name.

Obviously the database is being incorrectly compiled. Just because multiple albums (by multiple different artists) happen to have the same name, they are still different artists. When I navigate down through Artist -> Album, I should be looking a just the albums of that artist, and the songs on those albums, and the cover art for those albums.

But instead it appears that all albums of the same name are mistakenly combined when my artist->album drill-down occurs. I should only see tracks from a single artist, but in fact I see tracks from four artists total, one being correct and the other three completely incorrect.


What am I doing wrong? Or is the app defective?

[blaubär]

See "Live" Album confusion . Make sure your tags are properly maintained. Or to put it another way: make sure you have chosen the correct option for identifying albums. Or don't use the album concept but rely on folders.

[DSperber]

The Media Library -> Settings tip that forum thread you pointed me provided to wasn't all that productive. I believe all it accocmplished was to sort the total collection of 27 tracks found in the four albums with the same name, into four "groups" (i.e. organized by album artist). It didn't correct the program defect (as I see it) which fails to realize that when I drill down starting from ARTISTS that means I only want to see albums and tracks by that artist.

Furthermore, because of the general defect in the program the incorrect cover art is being displayed for my MP3 files where I do not have an imbedded cover art in the ID3 tag, but rather have a COVER.JPG file in the album folder. I only have imbedded cover art in my FLAC files.

To summarize my points in this discussion, as I see things there are three ways to drill down from the Main Menu (i.e. Playlists, Artists, Albums, Genres, etc.), using the Linda Ronstadt example to demonstrate things. I can look for ARTISTS, or ALBUMS, or FOLDERS.

(1) For ARTISTS I navigate to Ronstadt, Linda (since that's how I have my tags' artist name produced... last name, first name). Then I drill down into that ARTIST where I expect to see each of the albums by that artist. And it's nice to also see "All Songs" (which should be the sum of all tracks in all albums by that artist). In all cases I expect to see the correct cover art both on the mid-level album list (small image), as well as when playing any track (large image).

(2) For ALBUMS I navigate to the Album name I'm interested in, where "album name" comes from the tag metadata (either ID3 for MP3 files, or OGG comment, i.e. FLAC tag, for FLAC files). I then drill down into that ALBUM. Each album is a separate "folder" (within the parent ARTIST folder for all albums by that artist), and there is unique cover art (COVER.JPG) for each album in that album folder.

Just because there are multiple albums with the identical album name, that doesn't mean all of them should be combined into a single displayed album list showing all the tracks by all artists who produced the album with the identical name. The artist name really makes each album unique (same as it is when doing a FOLDERS navigation), and so each Artist->Album should appear uniquely when doing an ALBUMS drill-down, exactly the same as with FOLDERS. That's my opinion. Perhaps there is a setting I'm missing that will make that split happen, but I haven't found it yet.

Again, I expect each album (by the separate artist) to appear uniquely, along with the corresponding unique cover art (i.e. COVER.JPG in each album folder). I do not expect the wrong cover art to be displayed for any track when playing it, nor do I want one cover art image to be used as the small icon for an album for which it is not the proper cover art, which is the result when all multiple albums of the same name (even though there are multiple different artists) are presented in one large list (even if sorted and segregated by artist).

(3) For FOLDERS I navigate to the external Folder name I'm interest in, which is actually the same as the internal tag field album name for each track of that album. Same as with ALBUMS, each folder has a unique COVER.JPG in it which is the cover art for that album (i.e. folder). I expect to see that image as both small icon (in the FOLDER list) as well as when playing any track from that folder (i.e. from that album).

Note that I have turned on the "prefer metadata cover art" setting as a way of overcoming the problem with cover art at least for my FLAC files which have imbedded cover art inside their tag megadata. But this doesn't fix the problem for my MP3 files which rely on the COVER.JPG image in the album folder. Because of the defect in Neutron the wrong cover art is being displayed for MP3 files in 3 out of 4 albums of the same name.


I will provide screenshot evidence of the situation as it currently occurs in the next post.

But to summarize, here are my "complaints" which I feel to be defective design or implementation in Neutron.

(1) When drilling down through ARTISTS, only albums by that artist should be presented. And within those albums, only tracks by that artist should be presented.

So if you have a "compilation" album with songs by multiple artists, or a situation where more than one album has the same title (including at least one by the artist named in the drill-down), again only albums and tracks by that artist should be presented. Albums with the identical name but with a different artist should NOT be presented. And on any given album that has at least one track by the drill-down artist on it, no other track by a different artist should be presented.

In other words, when drilling down through ARTISTS I only want to see albums and tracks for that artist.

(2) Cover art (either imbedded in tag metadata or external in a COVER.JPG file in an album folder) should be correctly presented whether in small form (for an album list) or large form (when playing a track). It should absolutely be the cover art for the album being played, either as implied by the COVER.JPG in the album folder in which the track resides, or explicitly present by being imbedded in the tag metadata. It should never be wrong.

(3) Presenting the ALBUMS list should show multiple album entries (each one showing whatever is the artist name for that album), even if there are multiple albums with the identical name. They should NOT BE COMBINED into one large list containing all of the multiple album/artist tracks inside of it, and with incorrect cover art displayed for all but one of those albums.

In other words ALBUMS should be identical to FOLDERS in its presentation for that common album title. Yes, ALBUMS data comes from the tag fields and FOLDERS data comes from the external folder name, but in both cases each unique album/folder should display uniquely (since there is a unique artist for each album, but even if one artist made more than one album with the identical title there STILL should be unique entries shown for each individual album/artist). Multiple albums with the identical album name should NEVER BE COMBINED with one consolidated track list produced by combining the tracks of all albums.

[DSperber]

Here is the ARTISTS story. Again, I'm interested in Linda Ronstadt who has two albums in my collection. One of her albums is named "Very Best Of, The" which happens to also be an album name associated with three other artists: Herb Alpert, Maria Callas, and Rufus.

(1) Navigate through ARTISTS to Ronstadt, Linda. Note that the line entry correctly shows 2 albums, and 17 tracks (which is correct, i.e. 3 tracks on one album and 14 tracks on the second album).



(2) Drilling down into the Ronstadt, Linda entry, what shows is "All Songs" as well as the two albums. The line entry for "All Songs" correctly shows 17 tracks.

However the line entry for the "Very Best Of" album incorrectly shows 27 tracks. This is the 14 tracks of Linda Ronstadt's album plus 1 track by Maria Callas plus 4 tracks by Rufus plus 8 tracks by Herb Alpert, for the common album name of "Very Best Of".

Furthermore, the small cover art image next to the "Very Best Of" line entry is the COVER.JPG image for Herb Alpert's album, not the image for Linda Ronstadt's album.

And finally, why isn't the list of albums alphabetically arranged? Why does the "Very Best Of" appear in front of "Cry Like A Rainstorm"?



(3) When I drill down further, into "All songs" by LInda Ronstadt, in fact I correctly see only the 17 songs truly by her in the two albums. The list starts with the 3 tracks on "Cry Like A Rainstorm" followed by the 14 tracks on "Very Best Of". So this list of 17 tracks is organized alphabetically by album name, even though the album list itself (one level up) was not.

But more importantly, the small cover art image at the top of this "All Songs" detail list is INCORRECT! It is actually the COVER.JPG for Herb Alpert's "Very Best Of" album! It is neither of the two COVER.JPG images actually present for LInda Ronstadt's two albums!!





(4) When I drill down into the second of the two line entries for the two albums shown, the information shown for "Cry Like A Rainstorm" is correct. The three tracks are correct, and the small cover art image is correct.



(5) But when I drill down into the first of the two line entries for the two albums shown, i.e. the "Very Best Of" album which has three other identically named albums by three other artists, now we see the (what I feel to be) incorrect list of 27 total tracks from the four individual albums with the same name.

Note that the list of 27 tracks from four separate albums is organized alphabetically by each of the four artist names.

[DSperber]

As for the ALBUMS vs. FOLDERS issue, here is what ALBUMS looks like for the "Very Best Of" album name. Note that only one line entry is displayed even though there are four identically named albums by four different artists. And also note that the small cover art image shown is that of Herb Alpert, which is clearly incorrect for the other three albums. Again, the track count is shown as 27 which is the sum of the number of tracks in the four separate albums.



In contrast, here is what FOLDERS looks like. Now we see four line entries, one unique item for each unique album of the same name (since there are truly four separate folders). Note also that the track count shown for each of the four album line items is correct as well (all four adding up to 27). Note also that the small cover art image next to each line item is also correct.



However... when I drill down into each of the four album line items, while the tracks shown is correct the small cover art shown at the top of the track list is incorrect! In fact it is the Herb Alpert COVER.JPG for all four albums!! The correct cover art showed up on the line item album list, but now that we're down into the details of each album the cover art for only the Herb Alpert album is displayed incorrectly for the other three albums as well.

Furthermore, the track count shown for each individual album's detail track list is incorrectly presented as 27, which is the total track count for all four albums rather than the individual correct track count for each individual album currently being displayed.

So the Herb Alpert album detail is the only one which is correctly showing the proper small cover art. The cover art for the other three albums is incorrect.

[blaubär]

Well, whatever the problem is, it's not a general one. If a simple refresh doesn't work perhaps a full rescan does. As to the album art think about how to set Settings > Media Library > Prefer Metadata Album Art .

[DSperber]

Well, whatever the problem is, it's not a general one. If a simple refresh doesn't work perhaps a full rescan does.

I have deleted and re-added the entire \Music folder. Made no difference.

If there are settings somewhere that can accomplish correcting the mistakes I've observed, I'd like to know what those settings are.

As to the album art think about how to set Settings > Media Library > Prefer Metadata Album Art .

I forgot to post my settings. As suggested in that other thread you originally pointed me to, I turned on the "split album by album artist". I mentioned that above. And I also had already set the "Prefer metadata album art" as my workaround for the cover art issues when playing tracks. But for me that only works for my FLAC files, since those are the only tracks where i've imbedded the cover art inside the tags.



In my opinion the issues I've raised are fundamental design defects, or bugs in the implementation if the design intent as actually correct.

(1) ARTISTS navigation should only show albums and tracks by the selected artist. I don't see how anything but that position can be argued.

(2) When the collection folder structure is ARTIST -> ALBUMS -> TRACKS, then ALBUMS and FOLDERS displays should be identical. Combining multiple albums (i.e. folders) which happen to have the same name into a single list showing the sum total of the tracks in all of the albums together, even though each album is by a different artist, makes no sense. The cover art is wrong, the track counts are wrong, and PLAY is wrong. I don't want to hear anything by Herb Alpert or Maria Callas or Rufus when I play specifically Linda Ronstadt's "Very Best Of" album. Simply makes no sense.

I feel the issues I've raised are major defects in the user interface that should be corrected. I suppose it's not terribly common for albums to be identically named which is why perhaps my observations are only now being presented for perhaps the first time. Nevertheless, it didn't take me but one day of trying out this brand new player app with my own music collection for the issue to rear its ugly head.

I wanted to use my phone as a player, rather than my Cowon J3 (which also has the identical music collection on it). The Cowon user interface has none of the above issues as Neutron does, specifically because it recognizes that ARTISTS means INDIVIDUAL ARTISTS (not combined artists for a common album name), and FOLDER means the same as ALBUMS when that's the collection's folder structure. Yes, ALBUM information comes from tags, and FOLDER information comes from external folder names. But if they are the same then the displays from ALBUMS and FOLDERS should also be the same.

[blaubär]

Sorry, I can't reproduce that. For me it works.

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album-06.PNG (46.84 KiB) Viewed 2837 times

[DSperber]

So, maybe it's a setting difference, that you've got and that I need. Remember, I'm a total rookie with this app.

(1) Please post your screenshots of long-press ARTISTS -> Setup -> (a) Sort by: Albums, and also (b) Sort by: Track List (default)








(2) Also, same screenshots of long-press ALBUMS -> Setup -> (a) Sort by: Albums, and also (b) Sort by: Track List (default)








(3) And finally, same screenshots of long-press FOLDERS -> Setup -> Sort by (Default)

[blaubär]

I switched to your sort settings, no difference. I suggest you make sure that you have set all "Album Artist" tags. And perhaps try the default sort options.

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