Track Number being interpreted from filename, even when Track# tag is deleted

[andrewilley]

I forgot to revisit this topic after we moved on to a new build release thread, and I just noticed the issue again while testing the new smaller View format in build 877, so I thought I'd make a proper topic for it now.

The problem was the way PA interprets its own track numbers based on the beginnings or ends of filenames if there are no valid ID3 tags in files. This is useful for poorly tagged files of course, but in cases such as a folder full of Singles which are not meant to have track numbers, and where all the files have been deliberately edited to tidily remove them, you can inadvertently end up with results like the following:

 

I wonder if a simple option in Settings > Library > Scanner might resolve this, allowing the user to specify whether they want PA to try to create its own track numbers based on filenames, or for it to only use actual track numbers as provided in tags? (Presumably changing such a setting would then need a rescan for it to take effect)

 

The original discussion was back in build 856's thread:

 Andre

[andrewilley]

A related issue in the same thread was with disc numbers being shown as '1' even when the Disc# tag has been manually deleted from the file as it is not part of a set. Three examples, where (1) and (2) are as expected but (3) should ideally not show any Disc Number.

1) Where a file contains both a Track# and a Disc# tag, both numbers are shown correctly:

 

2) Where there is neither a Track# nor a Disc# tag present (such as in a Singles folder) the Disc Number field is correctly left blank, and the Track Number contains just a place-holder dot (although it might be tidier to just leave it empty?) :

 

3) When there is a Track# but not a Disc# tag, the Disc Number field is filled with '1', whereas it would seem more logical and tidier to leave the disc field blank as per example (2) above, as there should be no disc number to show:

 

Andre

[andrewilley]

I was just doing some tag tidying up a few days ago, and that reminded me of this minor bug which still seems to be present as of build 893.

All of the songs shown below have valid tags for Title, Artist, Genre, Year, etc - but they deliberately do not have any Track# or Disc# tags because the songs are all singles rather than belonging to any album. Yet Poweramp is still trying to parse the filename in an attempt to find a track number - either using the start of the song title, or the end of the artist's name - creating the following bizarre results: 

 

My suggestion would be either to make this functionality optional via a Settings switch, or perhaps a more elegant solution would be to only automatically parse the filename for track# digits when there are no normal tags (Title/Artist/etc) embedded in the file at all. The assumption being that if several other tags are correctly populated but Track# and Disc# are not, then that is probably by design.

Andre

[MotleyG]

2 hours ago, andrewilley said:

All of the songs shown below have valid tags for Title, Artist, Genre, Year, etc - but they deliberately do not have any Track# or Disc# tags because the songs are all singles rather than belonging to any album.

The other option (for now at least?)  is to include the track# tag, and use 1 for side A and 2 for side B, so that tag is always populated. It would be far more elegant of a display than what is currently happening when PA pulls arbitrary numbers from other tag values in an attempt to display something relevant.

[andrewilley]

2 hours ago, MotleyG said:

The other option (for now at least?)  is to include the track# tag, and use 1 for side A and 2 for side B

Yeah, it would be possible to insert an (admittedly incorrect) '1' value for all such tracks, but the other 800 or so songs in that grouping do show correctly with the Track# field empty, and having '1's for some songs probably isn't all that much better than random 2s, 17s, 40s and 99s. And of course the same would apply to other types of music with no meaningful track numbering: radio shows, one-part dramas, single concerts, theme park background music loops (yes, that's a thing  ), etc. I did try saving a fake placeholder character into the tag (a fullstop or bullet symbol for example) but anything other than a valid numeric value (1-999) is ignored when parsing the Track# tag contents.

And if you happen to prefer the 'Title Prefix' list mode for displaying track numbers, PA elegantly omits missing track numbers as you would expect (see second half of list below) which only makes the randomly parsed values from filenames look even stranger:

Andre