Sorting Issues

[Bryce Curdy]

Naim Atom / Naim App / Asset uPnP / dBpoweramp: Edit ID

I know this is very much a first world problem but why am I unable to get Taylor Swift to appear under S rather than T? I sort by Additional > Album Artist/Album. I have edited the ID Tags using dBpoweramp so that both Album Artist Sort and Artist Sort are Swift, Taylor. I have deleted all of her albums and added just one back in, trying both a copy and paste and using dBpoweramp CD Ripper (a different album) but no joy.

Just noticed I've got another 6 Artists incorrectly sorted under 'S'. I've got The Pretenders and Bob Dylan appearing before my last correctly sorted S Artist (Matthew Swift) and R.E.M., Elvis Costello, Fleetwood Mac and Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers appearing after in that order. Everything else appears to be correct. I've tried adding Album Artist Sort and Artist Sort for the Fleetwood Mac albums but without success. I've restarted the Asset and rescanned the entire library.

[Spoon]

Re: Sorting Issues

On the Asset configuration:

'Sort Tag Handling' set to 'ignore sort values'

Or use a program such as PerfectTUNES to show every sort tag based on an artist. After changing the tags do a Refresh (Rescan all).

[Bryce Curdy]

Re: Sorting Issues

On the Asset configuration:

'Sort Tag Handling' set to 'ignore sort values'

Or use a program such as PerfectTUNES to show every sort tag based on an artist. After changing the tags do a Refresh (Rescan all).

Thanks Spoon. Would 'ignore sort values' not muck up artists and albums where I am relying on the sort values for correct sorting?

[Bryce Curdy]

Re: Sorting Issues

Du lịch vÃ* Địa phÆ°Æ¡ng *

I'm not sure if this is an attempt at humour.

This is becoming very irritating. I've looked at the Sort tags using PerfectTUNES and cannot see any issues. Taylor Swift had a Composer Sort tag which I've deleted but still sorts to 'T'. If I change Album Artist to 'Swift, Taylor' she sorts to 'S' but displays as 'Swift, Taylor' which is equally annoying. Why is she sorting by Album Artist rather than Album Artist Sort?

The other six random artists appearing under 'S are even more confusing. I deleted my Fleetwood Mac folder (3 albums) and then added Greatest Hits only back in. Still sorted under 'S'. But the Artist Tile shows the Rumours artwork (still deleted) but the Greatest Hits artwork appears correctly when I select Fleetwood Mac. Is there sort of memory problem? I've tried 'Clear image cache' and am in the middle of 'Rebuild music database' on the Naim app.

[mville]

Re: Sorting Issues

I've looked at the Sort tags using PerfectTUNES and cannot see any issues.

Double check your tags and, triple check your tags. These issues are often down to tagging inconsistences.

If you are certain the tag data is correct, I suggest you check with Naim support and if you get no conclusion from them, report back here with your findings.

[simbun]

Re: Sorting Issues

The first thing I'd try is another control point to rule out the Naim app. If you're using Android I'd try BubbleUPnP.

I've tried various combinations to get it to put Taylor Swift under T but no matter what I do is stays under S; admittedly you don't get a warning that there are conflicts which is bad, but it seems to do the right thing.

[Bryce Curdy]

Re: Sorting Issues

Thanks to simbun and mville for suggestions.

An update. Sorting remains incorrect but I can shed some light on things, but complicated and the solution remains elusive.

Matthew Sweet that the six Artists incorrectly sort around under &*8216;S&*8217; (see my original post) is three albums of cover versions. It cannot be a coincidence that all six Artists have tracks covered by him on these albums with the original artist tagged under Artist and Matthew Sweet tagged under Album Artist and Album Artist Sort (I sort by Album Artist/Album.) PerfectTUNES shows for the Matthew Sweet albums that three tracks, all problem sorts for me, have two Artist Sort tags - Matthew Sweet and the original recording artist. This is not the case for the other three sorting problem artists, and there are other artists covered by Matthew Sweet who sort correctly. I have cut and pasted to my desktop the Matthew Sweet albums and the albums by the six covered artists removing them (at least temporarily) from my library but CD ripping, for example Fleetwood Mac Greatest Hits still gets sorted under &*8216;S&*8217;. It should sort by Album Artist Sort but seems to have got confused by the previous two different Artist Sort tags and even although the album that caused the confusion is no longer in my library, Asset seems unable to forget that Fleetwood Mac sorts under &*8216;S&*8217; even when Fleetwood Mac is deleted form the library and I try to reintroduce. Is there some sort of permanent memory?

I&*8217;m not sure if Taylor Swift is a separate problem or not. She sorts under Taylor rather than Sweet but again it seems coincidental that she is the next (and only Album Artist) under &*8216;S&*8217; following Sweet.

I hope that makes sense.

[simbun]

Re: Sorting Issues

This has got to come down to tagging - although the fact Asset still shows Fleetwood Mac adds uncertainty to the situation - did you try to access AssetUPnP from another control point, as this would at least remove the Naim app as a potential source of the problem.

I assume if you're browsing 'Additional > Album Artist/Album' then we're only dealing with AlbumArtist & AlbumArtistSort anyway, so the other artist values shouldn't affect it.

In General Settings, untick 'Combine Duplicate & Similar Artists' as it may be masking a funky character problem.

The only other thing I'd suggest is to check for conflicting values (one to many relationship) in AlbumArtist and AlbumArtistSort (and maybe Artist whilst you're at it). The easiest way I know how to do this is by running some SQL within foobar2000. I talked someone through using this a few days ago (they wanted to add the tag album_duration to all their tags) without problem, so I'll copy the instructions here, although I don't think I'll be able to include links as they seem to need manual approval and take a while.

Grab the latest 'foobar2000 download' and 'foo_sqlite component' (just google both terms).

• Run foobar2000_v1.6.10.exe, choose 'Custom', choose 'Portable installation' and select a path.
• Allow the installer to 'Run foobar2000' and pick the 'Album List + Properties (tabbed)' layout with whatever colour you want.
• Select the menu item 'File > Preferences > Media Library' and specify the path of your test music.
• Whilst still in the Preferences window, click 'Components > Install' and select the downloaded foo_sqlite.fb2k-component.
• Click 'Apply', then OK to restart, and foobar should scan your library and display the contents on the left hand side.
• Once it's finished scanning, select 'Library > SQLite console' and a popup window should appear.

Copy the following code into the window and Execute it.

select "album artist"
  from mediaLibrary
  group by "album artist"
  having count(distinct albumartistsort) > 1;

If there are any values of AlbumArtist that have multiple AlbumArtistSorts they will be displayed.

At this point you could check for consistency across AlbumArtist and Artist by running:

with distinctArtists as (
  select artist,
         artistsort
    from mediaLibrary
           union
  select "album artist",
         albumartistsort
    from mediaLibrary
)
select a.artist,
       a.artistsort
  from distinctArtists a
         inner join
       (
          select artist
            from distinctArtists
            group by artist
            having count(distinct artistsort) > 1
       ) b on (a.artist = b.artist);

This assumes you're on Windows of course!

[simbun]

Re: Sorting Issues

You may need to change collation types before running this to get accurate results (to make sure you get all instances of an artist whether they're upper or lower case etc), so I'll look at the easiest way of doing this and get back to you.

[Bryce Curdy]

Re: Sorting Issues

This has got to come down to tagging - although the fact Asset still shows Fleetwood Mac adds uncertainty to the situation - did you try to access AssetUPnP from another control point, as this would at least remove the Naim app as a potential source of the problem.

I assume if you're browsing 'Additional > Album Artist/Album' then we're only dealing with AlbumArtist & AlbumArtistSort anyway, so the other artist values shouldn't affect it.

In General Settings, untick 'Combine Duplicate & Similar Artists' as it may be masking a funky character problem.

The only other thing I'd suggest is to check for conflicting values (one to many relationship) in AlbumArtist and AlbumArtistSort (and maybe Artist whilst you're at it). The easiest way I know how to do this is by running some SQL within foobar2000. I talked someone through using this a few days ago (they wanted to add the tag album_duration to all their tags) without problem, so I'll copy the instructions here, although I don't think I'll be able to include links as they seem to need manual approval and take a while.

Grab the latest 'foobar2000 download' and 'foo_sqlite component' (just google both terms).

• Run foobar2000_v1.6.10.exe, choose 'Custom', choose 'Portable installation' and select a path.
• Allow the installer to 'Run foobar2000' and pick the 'Album List + Properties (tabbed)' layout with whatever colour you want.
• Select the menu item 'File > Preferences > Media Library' and specify the path of your test music.
• Whilst still in the Preferences window, click 'Components > Install' and select the downloaded foo_sqlite.fb2k-component.
• Click 'Apply', then OK to restart, and foobar should scan your library and display the contents on the left hand side.
• Once it's finished scanning, select 'Library > SQLite console' and a popup window should appear.

Copy the following code into the window and Execute it.

select "album artist"
  from mediaLibrary
  group by "album artist"
  having count(distinct albumartistsort) > 1;

If there are any values of AlbumArtist that have multiple AlbumArtistSorts they will be displayed.

At this point you could check for consistency across AlbumArtist and Artist by running:

with distinctArtists as (
  select artist,
         artistsort
    from mediaLibrary
           union
  select "album artist",
         albumartistsort
    from mediaLibrary
)
select a.artist,
       a.artistsort
  from distinctArtists a
         inner join
       (
          select artist
            from distinctArtists
            group by artist
            having count(distinct artistsort) > 1
       ) b on (a.artist = b.artist);

This assumes you're on Windows of course!

You assume correctly about Windows, but wrongly about my IT abilities!

In summary, I sort by Album Artist / Album. I have six artists who incorrectly sort as 'Sweet, Matthew' despite having correct Album Artist Sort (and Artist Sort) tags. Their connection with Matthew Sweet is that all of them are included as original artists on his three albums of cover versions. Removing these three albums from my library does not resolve the problem; their own albums still sort as 'Sweet, Matthew'.

Last night for 'The Pretenders' who are one of the artists affected as an experiment I changed the Album Artist tag (not the Album Artist Sort tag) to 'The Pretenders' with a double space between 'The' and 'Pretenders' and it sorted correctly under 'P' but displayed with the double space. When I changed back to a single space it sorted under 'S' again! So it appears to be sorting by Album Artist and not Album Artist Sort, and not sorting correctly by Album Artist if the Album Artist is tagged correctly!

So I understand that the problem appears to be somehow related to the three Matthew Sweet albums causing confusion, but how do I get Asset (or is it the Naim app?) to forget this and start afresh?

[Spoon]

Re: Sorting Issues

The naim app might cache, there is an option within it to clear the cache. Asset just simply do a Rescan (Refresh all)

[Bryce Curdy]

Re: Sorting Issues

The naim app might cache, there is an option within it to clear the cache. Asset just simply do a Rescan (Refresh all)

I've tried both, more than once for Asset Rescan, but will give it another go. I read earlier that Asset has some sort of ripping cache. Does Rescan clear that?

[Spoon]

Re: Sorting Issues

A refresh all clears everything

[simbun]

Re: Sorting Issues

I've tried both, more than once for Asset Rescan, but will give it another go. I read earlier that Asset has some sort of ripping cache. Does Rescan clear that?

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, try another control point, it'll take all of 5 minutes and will rule out any problems coming from the naim app :-)

[Bryce Curdy]

Re: Sorting Issues

Update - a combination of Refresh App (on the Naim App) and Rescan All (for UPnP) seems to have resolved the problem. Thanks for all suggestions.