Grouping error

[DavidHB]

I have a 2 disc album of Beethoven Piano Sonatas. As is now my custom, I saved each disc to a separate folder, but used a common name (with "(Disc 1)" etc.) to form a single album, which appears as such in the Control Point. Individual works are grouped, but I am not at present using a "Composition" or similar tag.

The tracks of Disc 1 group normally, but attempting to group any 2 or more tracks on Disc 2 produces an error in the MinimServer log of the form

"Error: group contains tracks that aren't consecutive: Sonata No. 17 in D minor "La tempête" Op. 31 No.2"

and the first of the grouped tracks does not appear in the Control Point. All data appears normally when the Group tags are cleared.

The tracks on the disc are correctly and consecutively numbered, and I cannot see anything wrong with the metadata. Re-ripping the disc and re-entering the metadata has not cured the problem.

I've run out of ideas as to what to do next, and would be very grateful for any suggestions.

David

[simoncn]

(26-10-2013 23:14)DavidHB Wrote:  I have a 2 disc album of Beethoven Piano Sonatas. As is now my custom, I saved each disc to a separate folder, but used a common name (with "(Disc 1)" etc.) to form a single album, which appears as such in the Control Point. Individual works are grouped, but I am not at present using a "Composition" or similar tag.

The tracks of Disc 1 group normally, but attempting to group any 2 or more tracks on Disc 2 produces an error in the MinimServer log of the form

"Error: group contains tracks that aren't consecutive: Sonata No. 17 in D minor "La tempête" Op. 31 No.2"

and the first of the grouped tracks does not appear in the Control Point. All data appears normally when the Group tags are cleared.

The tracks on the disc are correctly and consecutively numbered, and I cannot see anything wrong with the metadata. Re-ripping the disc and re-entering the metadata has not cured the problem.

I've run out of ideas as to what to do next, and would be very grateful for any suggestions.

David

Have you accidentally omitted one of the tracks from this sonata from the group?

Do any of the tracks from this sonata produce a warning or error message in the log?

Do any tracks with the same group name appear on disc 1?

Do the tracks on disc 2 begin with track 1, and are they all numbered consecutively?

Please try isolating the problem by adding the first movement of this sonata (only) to the group. If this works, try adding movements 1 and 2 only, etc.

[DavidHB]

Thank you, Simon. I have now identified the problem, but, as your litany of questions forms a useful diagnostic tool, I shall answer them first, in the hope of helping other users afflicted with issues of this kind.

(27-10-2013 08:05)simoncn Wrote:  Have you accidentally omitted one of the tracks from this sonata from the group?

No.

Quote:Do any of the tracks from this sonata produce a warning or error message in the log?

No (other than the group-related message previously described).

Quote:Do any tracks with the same group name appear on disc 1?

No.

Quote:Do the tracks on disc 2 begin with track 1, and are they all numbered consecutively?

Yes and yes.

Quote:Please try isolating the problem by adding the first movement of this sonata (only) to the group. If this works, try adding movements 1 and 2 only, etc.

I had tried this. If the Group tag was added to a single file, there was no error message, and the track would show up normally in the Control Point. The fact that it did not show up as a group should have been a clue, but I only realised the implications later. Adding a second track to the group generated the error previously described.

The problem was that the file set on the NAS was not identical to the file set in my PC music folder. I do all the ripping and metadata work on the PC, and then use a SyncToy 'Echo' folder pair to synchronise the NAS with the PC music folder. For reasons I still don't understand, SyncToy failed to delete a separate, rogue copy of the offending disc from the NAS file set. Understandably, MinimServer did not take kindly to two folders with identical content. With the rogue copy removed, all works normally.

The moral here is that, if the workflow requires separate but synchronised copies of the music library to be kept on the PC and on the NAS (and I believe that this is a generally good way of working), a separate instance of MinimServer, accessing the PC file set, should be run on the PC, so that, if need be, the two file sets can be tested separately. I have known for some time that this is a sensible idea, but neglected to follow it up. In the present instance, testing the file sets separately would have enabled me to identify the problem much more quickly.

Thanks again for your help.

David

[simoncn]

(27-10-2013 14:07)DavidHB Wrote:  Thank you, Simon. I have now identified the problem, but, as your litany of questions forms a useful diagnostic tool, I shall answer them first, in the hope of helping other users afflicted with issues of this kind.

I'm glad to hear the problem is solved now.

Quote:Understandably, MinimServer did not take kindly to two folders with identical content. With the rogue copy removed, all works normally.

This shouldn't have caused any problems for MinimServer. It should have included the duplicate tracks under '>> Disc 2' of the album when viewed by a control point. I'd be interested in finding out why this didn't happen.

[DavidHB]

(27-10-2013 15:33)simoncn Wrote:  

(27-10-2013 14:07)DavidHB Wrote:  Understandably, MinimServer did not take kindly to two folders with identical content. With the rogue copy removed, all works normally.

This shouldn't have caused any problems for MinimServer. It should have included the duplicate tracks under '>> Disc 2' of the album when viewed by a control point. I'd be interested in finding out why this didn't happen.

I'd be happy to help, but I have tried to reproduce the problem without success.

The 'correct' folder is '...\Music\Classical\Beethoven\Piano Sonatas [Kempff]\Piano Sonatas [Kempff] (Disc 2)' The rogue folder was (so far as I recall) '...\Music\Classical\Beethoven\Piano Sonatas [Kempff] (Disc 2)'. I have re-created this situation (2 identical folders in different locations; Group tags populated in all files) in my PC music folder. No error is generated, and only the one set of files shows up in Kinsky. It is as if the 'rogue' folder I added did not exist. I did restart MinimServer after making the change, and then I rebooted and restarted MinimServer just to be sure. The result was the same.

David

[simoncn]

(27-10-2013 17:39)DavidHB Wrote:  I'd be happy to help, but I have tried to reproduce the problem without success.

The 'correct' folder is '...\Music\Classical\Beethoven\Piano Sonatas [Kempff]\Piano Sonatas [Kempff] (Disc 2)' The rogue folder was (so far as I recall) '...\Music\Classical\Beethoven\Piano Sonatas [Kempff] (Disc 2)'. I have re-created this situation (2 identical folders in different locations; Group tags populated in all files) in my PC music folder. No error is generated, and only the one set of files shows up in Kinsky. It is as if the 'rogue' folder I added did not exist. I did restart MinimServer after making the change, and then I rebooted and restarted MinimServer just to be sure. The result was the same.

David

I don't understand why you're not seeing the duplicate files. I tried this myself (by copying the "disc 2" folder of a 2-disc album), and the duplicate files are visible in Kinsky as expected.

Edit: What happens if you browse by "folder view"?

[DavidHB]

I couldn't respond sooner, as I was tied up in a somewhat complex metadata and file tree cleanup of my music library. At one point, this left me with a large folder temporarily duplicated on the server, so I took the opportunity to fire up Kinsky to see if the duplicate albums and tracks were visible. Lo and behold, there they all were (and all neatly grouped, too).

I feel that there is only so much time one can sensibly spend chasing weird phantoms. If you now want to put my previous reports down to some unidentifiable user idiocy, that's fine by me. As an engineer friend of mine says, "Every time I make things foolproof, they go and invent a new fool".

David