[hurricane51]

Here's the problem. My Music library was in perfect condition under 15.1. I was meticulous in tagging all my files, the artist info was all correct, the album info was correct and the tracks were correct. The scraper is TheAudioDb Artist Scraper and TheAudioDb Album scraper. I went to the website and tried a few artists and every time it returned correct information. My internet connection is fine.

After upgrading to 15.2 the following happened:

1. Compilations were handled differently and every artist on a compilation had an entry under artist, even though the setting for "include artists who only appear on compilations" was disabled, and had always been disabled. The artist album listing now included albums where the artist appeared on even a single track. This was different from the way 15.1 handled things.

2. As I was scrolling through my artists I noticed that some artists had completely different info for their bio -- from another artist in the library! Aaron Goldberg had the bio for Bill Evans, Abby Lincoln had the bio for Aerosmith, etc.

3. The artwork for many artists was wrong, even when the bio was correct. When I tried to change it manually, all I got was the local image. All other thumbnails were black.

4. After several attempts at these incremental approaches, I decided to start from scratch, I disconnected the hard drive that contained the music source and cleaned the library, to no effect. The library was still intact. I then removed the Source and that emptied the library, but when I reconnected the drive and rescanned the source I got no bios at all. I tried to Update the library to no effect. So now I'm out of ideas.

Can anyone help?

[hurricane51]

UPDATE:

I've found that if I go through each artist manually and refresh the info it succeeds. Still haven't found a way to do the entire library, though.

[DaveBlake]

Not sure how the move to 15.2 got your library in such a mess, but as you discovered the way to empty and start again is to remove the source, then add it and rescan.

Scanning creates the library using the tag data in the music files, it does not populate the additional info such as artist biogs or album reviews. To populate the biogs etc. you need to scrape from an external source. The context menu from artist and albums views will include a "Query info for all" item. Do this for artists and it should populate all the biogs (for the artists the scraper recognises).

[hurricane51]

I've done all that, but it just refuses to display the bio info unless I manually go through each artist and refresh. I don't even need to click the refresh button, just getting to the detailed info screen will initiate the scraper and return with the data. But nothing does this on the entire library. I don't look forward to doing this for each artist.

[whitebelly]

You maybe should have deleted your old MusicDB file before adding back your source. I don't think Artist info is deleted when cleaning the db.

[mrfattbill]

I've done all that, but it just refuses to display the bio info unless I manually go through each artist and refresh. I don't even need to click the refresh button, just getting to the detailed info screen will initiate the scraper and return with the data. But nothing does this on the entire library. I don't look forward to doing this for each artist.

I noticed the same problem when making the move to the new version. I don't have that may artists to take care of but it is rather annoying all the same.

Bill

[DaveBlake]

Humm...... removing the source will remove the artist, including biog data, as long as there are no other sources left with music from that artist. But however you got there you are where you are, and want to move forward as quickly and easily as possible.

I don't even need to click the refresh button, just getting to the detailed info screen will initiate the scraper and return with the data.

Yes in Isengard simply looking at the info dialog caused it to scrape, irritating when it is something that the scraper can't find. Jarvis does not do that.

Moving forwards...
The delete the database and start again suggestion is actually quite sensible. If Kodi can't find any music databases to update it will create a new one. The other approach is to do some manual changes using SQL, not sure if you are up to that or not? It sounds like the last scraped date is set so Kodi is not requerying the scraped data. I can advise if you are interested in trying that.

Ironically someone else has the opposite issue - makes manual changes to artwork selected and they keep getting overwritten. Seems this area needs some revision when I have time!

[hurricane51]

I've been trying different things. The last was removing access to the music media, doing a clean of the library (to no effect), removing the source, cleaning out all metadata (artist.nfo) files, then essentially adding the music files back in. At the end of this I still had the problem. As you pointed out, I'm dead in the water when it comes to an artist that the scraper database can't identify. I can create an artist.nfo, but KODI doesn't seem to read that when it updates.

I'm definitely not up to modifying SQL. At this point it looks like a complete reinstall of KODI. I only dread getting the add-ons reinstalled and configured. I have back-ups of the metadata files so I can re-apply and not lose any edits I did to the libraries. Maybe I'll just live with this until the next version is released and that's when I'll do a reinstall.

Thanks for your input.

[Martijn]

you can just move the music**.db file out of the way

[hurricane51]

Do you mean move it out of the userdata\database directory? Would I then just do what I did before to rebuild the music database?

[DaveBlake]

What you have done before should have cleared out the music database for you to start again (without uninstalling Kodi etc.). But, since you still have issues, then yes move all music**.db files out of the userdata\database directory. When you restart Kodi it will create a new empty database.

Then check your music settings, so that "fetch additional data on update" is disabled, we want to scrape manually, and that your scraper settings are what you want. Add your music source(s) and scan to library. Now go to artists and from the context menu click "Query Info For all", same for albums, all the right data should scrape into the right place (I hope)

[hurricane51]

I don't see a "Query Info For All" anywhere.

[DaveBlake]

I don't see a "Query Info For All" anywhere.

I guess I had better add "in Confluenece", not sure what other skins may do.
"Query Information For All" is an item that appears on the context menu (hit "C" on the keyboard) when you are looking at either a list (or wall of thumbnails) of artists or a list of albums.

[hurricane51]

I installed a clean copy of 15.1 in the default configuration so it's using the Confluence skin. When I tried to scan the source files KODI immediately crashed. Over and over. I upgraded to 15.2 and succeeded in scanning into the library.

The content of the Artist reads like this:

View: List
Sort: Ascending
Library Mode: [Yes]
Filter: [No]
--------
Misc Options
Search
Party Mode: [No]
--------
Actions
Update Library

[DaveBlake]

Not sure why 15.1 would crash? Without a debug log I am not even going to try and guess.

What you are describing is the side blade, not the context menu. Try hitting "c" on the key board when on the artist list with an artist highlighted, or right click.