WMP 12: Arist vs. Album Artist...WHY?? How to fix?

Hi All,

Maybe I'm just bad at searching the internet, but I've spent 2 days looking
for a solution to a pretty major problem, and I'm astounded I seem to be the
only person in the world with it.

I just did a clean install of Windows 7 Pro. On my old box, I had one huge
folder with all my thousands of MP3s, which I copied into "My Music" on my
new Win7 box.

When I started up WMP for the first time, I set the options to automatically
download info from the net, rename files based on tag info, etc, as I had
never bothered to do anything like this before to organize my mp3s.
Immediately WMP went to work updating my mp3s. Good stuff.

Now to illustrate the problem. Lets use the example of 5 Aerosmith songs I
have from the album Get a Grip. When WMP was all done with scanning my mp3s
and updating info, everything appeared fine in WMP. That is, I could scroll
to artist "Aerosmith" and then to the album "Get a Grip" complete with cover
art, and see the 5 songs. Again, good stuff. Then I clicked "Show file
location" and noticed something weird...

WMP player had automatically created the folder My Music\Aerosmith\Get a
Grip. Awesome. Problem is, the "Get a Grip" folder only had 4 songs, despite
the fact that in WMP I could see FIVE songs in the album. I searched for the
5th song and noticed that it was still orphaned in the base My Music folder.
Why the hell hadn't it been moved with the rest? When I did some poking
around, I found the
answer:

The 5th song didn't have "Album Artist" set, whereas the other 4
songs DID have it set to Aerosmith. Umm, seriously? Now multiply this issue
over hundreds of albums....

First of all, why the hell would WMP do this? That is, sort the VIEW by
"Artist", but sort the FILE SYSTEM by "Album Artist" ???

Second, how can I solve this? My first idea was just to download a tagger
program to en mass update all my mp3s that have blank "Album Artist" to just
set Album Artist = Artist. Fail, despite dozens of tagger programs, none have
this simple functionality. My second idea is to make WMP organize the file
system based on Artist, not Album artist. Again, no such option exists.

Any ideas? Why am I the only human on the planet with this problem??

John wrote:
> The 5th song didn't have "Album Artist" set, whereas the other 4
> songs DID have it set to Aerosmith. Umm, seriously? Now multiply this issue
> over hundreds of albums....

It could be that these are just errors in the online music database that
WMP uses, but if it happens to hundreds of songs, something else could
be at hand. Don't really have an idea of what could be causing this, though.

> First of all, why the hell would WMP do this? That is, sort the VIEW by
> "Artist", but sort the FILE SYSTEM by "Album Artist" ???

It makes much more sense to use album artist, as the folder structure is
album based. Imagine that it would use artist, and that you have a
compilation album. Every track of this album has a different artist, and
thus will be put in its own folder.

> Second, how can I solve this? My first idea was just to download a tagger
> program to en mass update all my mp3s that have blank "Album Artist" to just
> set Album Artist = Artist. Fail, despite dozens of tagger programs, none have
> this simple functionality.

I'm pretty sure you can do this with Mp3tag. The feature is called
"Actions", if I remember correctly.

Regards

--
Tim De Baets
http://www.bm-productions.tk

Hi John

Really the problem is quiet weird. My first doubt is that the file in music
folder got the other album details updated or not. If that song is not
updated at all then there is good chance that the file is read only or during
the update the file was in use like playing. Check the album info of the file
in the music folder. Donot check it through media player because media player
has its own database also besides the file itself. But if it got all the
details then there is a big chance of a bug in media player itself.

--
Vanshaj Daga

http://www.akshitagroup.co.cc


"John" wrote:

> Hi All,
>
> Maybe I'm just bad at searching the internet, but I've spent 2 days looking
> for a solution to a pretty major problem, and I'm astounded I seem to be the
> only person in the world with it.
>
> I just did a clean install of Windows 7 Pro. On my old box, I had one huge
> folder with all my thousands of MP3s, which I copied into "My Music" on my
> new Win7 box.
>
> When I started up WMP for the first time, I set the options to automatically
> download info from the net, rename files based on tag info, etc, as I had
> never bothered to do anything like this before to organize my mp3s.
> Immediately WMP went to work updating my mp3s. Good stuff.
>
> Now to illustrate the problem. Lets use the example of 5 Aerosmith songs I
> have from the album Get a Grip. When WMP was all done with scanning my mp3s
> and updating info, everything appeared fine in WMP. That is, I could scroll
> to artist "Aerosmith" and then to the album "Get a Grip" complete with cover
> art, and see the 5 songs. Again, good stuff. Then I clicked "Show file
> location" and noticed something weird...
>
> WMP player had automatically created the folder My Music\Aerosmith\Get a
> Grip. Awesome. Problem is, the "Get a Grip" folder only had 4 songs, despite
> the fact that in WMP I could see FIVE songs in the album. I searched for the
> 5th song and noticed that it was still orphaned in the base My Music folder.
> Why the hell hadn't it been moved with the rest? When I did some poking
> around, I found the
> answer:
>
> The 5th song didn't have "Album Artist" set, whereas the other 4
> songs DID have it set to Aerosmith. Umm, seriously? Now multiply this issue
> over hundreds of albums....
>
> First of all, why the hell would WMP do this? That is, sort the VIEW by
> "Artist", but sort the FILE SYSTEM by "Album Artist" ???
>
> Second, how can I solve this? My first idea was just to download a tagger
> program to en mass update all my mp3s that have blank "Album Artist" to just
> set Album Artist = Artist. Fail, despite dozens of tagger programs, none have
> this simple functionality. My second idea is to make WMP organize the file
> system based on Artist, not Album artist. Again, no such option exists.
>
> Any ideas? Why am I the only human on the planet with this problem??

Hi John
The problem is really weird. Check the file in the music folder that it has
got all other data updated or not. If all other data is not updated then the
best chance is the file is readonly or the file was in use (playing) during
update. If yes remove readonly and try to update it. Or select all songs in
music folder goto properties and then click details. And make the Album
Artist and other info blank and click apply. Try to update again. Hope it
helps.

--
Vanshaj Daga

http://www.akshitagroup.co.cc


"John" wrote:

> Hi All,
>
> Maybe I'm just bad at searching the internet, but I've spent 2 days looking
> for a solution to a pretty major problem, and I'm astounded I seem to be the
> only person in the world with it.
>
> I just did a clean install of Windows 7 Pro. On my old box, I had one huge
> folder with all my thousands of MP3s, which I copied into "My Music" on my
> new Win7 box.
>
> When I started up WMP for the first time, I set the options to automatically
> download info from the net, rename files based on tag info, etc, as I had
> never bothered to do anything like this before to organize my mp3s.
> Immediately WMP went to work updating my mp3s. Good stuff.
>
> Now to illustrate the problem. Lets use the example of 5 Aerosmith songs I
> have from the album Get a Grip. When WMP was all done with scanning my mp3s
> and updating info, everything appeared fine in WMP. That is, I could scroll
> to artist "Aerosmith" and then to the album "Get a Grip" complete with cover
> art, and see the 5 songs. Again, good stuff. Then I clicked "Show file
> location" and noticed something weird...
>
> WMP player had automatically created the folder My Music\Aerosmith\Get a
> Grip. Awesome. Problem is, the "Get a Grip" folder only had 4 songs, despite
> the fact that in WMP I could see FIVE songs in the album. I searched for the
> 5th song and noticed that it was still orphaned in the base My Music folder.
> Why the hell hadn't it been moved with the rest? When I did some poking
> around, I found the
> answer:
>
> The 5th song didn't have "Album Artist" set, whereas the other 4
> songs DID have it set to Aerosmith. Umm, seriously? Now multiply this issue
> over hundreds of albums....
>
> First of all, why the hell would WMP do this? That is, sort the VIEW by
> "Artist", but sort the FILE SYSTEM by "Album Artist" ???
>
> Second, how can I solve this? My first idea was just to download a tagger
> program to en mass update all my mp3s that have blank "Album Artist" to just
> set Album Artist = Artist. Fail, despite dozens of tagger programs, none have
> this simple functionality. My second idea is to make WMP organize the file
> system based on Artist, not Album artist. Again, no such option exists.
>
> Any ideas? Why am I the only human on the planet with this problem??

Hi John
The problem is little weird. Firstly try to check if the files that remained
in the music folder are read only. If not then were they playing or in use
during the update. If so then there is a good chance that media info is not
updated in these files. You can remove read only from such files if they are
not already. Then select all files in the music folder at once and right
click then come to properties and then come to details tab and remove album
artist and other data and click apply. Then try to update it again. I also
read about you next problem concerning multiple album arts, i need to say
only one thing that album art is saved one in one folder. If all the music is
in one folder then only one album art will be available for all. If you put
your music album wise as the media player is doing then you will get the
right album art on each album. Hope it solves the problem. One quick note in
the end, defragment your hard drive before album update and close all other
programs and useless services so that the file is not in use even by other
windows services. Hope it helps...

--
Vanshaj Daga

http://www.akshitagroup.co.cc


"John" wrote:

> Hi All,
>
> Maybe I'm just bad at searching the internet, but I've spent 2 days looking
> for a solution to a pretty major problem, and I'm astounded I seem to be the
> only person in the world with it.
>
> I just did a clean install of Windows 7 Pro. On my old box, I had one huge
> folder with all my thousands of MP3s, which I copied into "My Music" on my
> new Win7 box.
>
> When I started up WMP for the first time, I set the options to automatically
> download info from the net, rename files based on tag info, etc, as I had
> never bothered to do anything like this before to organize my mp3s.
> Immediately WMP went to work updating my mp3s. Good stuff.
>
> Now to illustrate the problem. Lets use the example of 5 Aerosmith songs I
> have from the album Get a Grip. When WMP was all done with scanning my mp3s
> and updating info, everything appeared fine in WMP. That is, I could scroll
> to artist "Aerosmith" and then to the album "Get a Grip" complete with cover
> art, and see the 5 songs. Again, good stuff. Then I clicked "Show file
> location" and noticed something weird...
>
> WMP player had automatically created the folder My Music\Aerosmith\Get a
> Grip. Awesome. Problem is, the "Get a Grip" folder only had 4 songs, despite
> the fact that in WMP I could see FIVE songs in the album. I searched for the
> 5th song and noticed that it was still orphaned in the base My Music folder.
> Why the hell hadn't it been moved with the rest? When I did some poking
> around, I found the
> answer:
>
> The 5th song didn't have "Album Artist" set, whereas the other 4
> songs DID have it set to Aerosmith. Umm, seriously? Now multiply this issue
> over hundreds of albums....
>
> First of all, why the hell would WMP do this? That is, sort the VIEW by
> "Artist", but sort the FILE SYSTEM by "Album Artist" ???
>
> Second, how can I solve this? My first idea was just to download a tagger
> program to en mass update all my mp3s that have blank "Album Artist" to just
> set Album Artist = Artist. Fail, despite dozens of tagger programs, none have
> this simple functionality. My second idea is to make WMP organize the file
> system based on Artist, not Album artist. Again, no such option exists.
>
> Any ideas? Why am I the only human on the planet with this problem??