Unknown Artist/Unknown Album

[LouAquiler]

Hello all, I am very much hoping someone can help me with this problem.  I'm honestly losing my mind.  

Poweramp Build: 925

Android Version: 7.0

Device:  FiiO M11

I ditched my iPhone as a primary source of music listening about a year ago, picked up a FiiO M11, installed Poweramp, and have never been happier.  Not exaggerating by saying my music listening experience is so vastly improved that it has greatly improved my life.  I've experienced almost zero problems with it until recently.  

Recently, I added a couple of GB worth of music onto my micro-SD card (at approx. 500 MB at a time), ejected the disk from my computer, and re-inserted it into my FiiO.  I turned my device back on, and everything seemed normal at first: it started scanning and eventually my library populated with all my music.  But then I noticed something odd...there were random tracks missing from almost every single album I tried listening to.  They had seemingly vanished.  I cross-referenced with my Playlists, and the tracks were still there, but MANY of them were just a track title with "Unknown Artist" and "Unknown Album", with no cover art.  I scrolled to Unknown Artist and found that over 10,000 tracks now resided there.  I closed Poweramp, turned off my Fiio, and put the micro-SD back in my computer...the tracks were all still there, and all labeled correctly.  After putting it back in my FiiO, and manually forcing a Full Rescan, my Unknown Artist tally was down to 1,064.  I attempted the same maneuver, but sadly this seemed to be the lowest number I could manage.  

I found a simple fix, though: by long-pressing the song title, clicking "Info/Tags" and then "Edit Tags", I saw that all the correct metadata was still there, and as soon as I hit "Save", Poweramp filed the track away exactly where it belong, properly labeled with the correct cover art and everything.  It's like I had to remind Poweramp of who and what each track was and it was like "Oh, yeah."   It was extremely tedious doing this over 1,000 times, but it seemed to work, even after powering my device off and back on.  

But sadly, this fix didn't last.  I just added some more music today on a NEW card, thinking that maybe having 500 GB card with only ~40 GB of space left was getting to be too much to scan every time I wanted to add a couple of albums.  So I loaded about 2 GB on a fresh, brand new 256 GB micro-SD.  Lo and behold, I now have over 3,000 Unknown Artist tracks, even after multiple rescans.  

Someone please tell me what I can do.  I can't comfortably listen to any of my music knowing that there are tracks missing from almost every album I own, and I can't sit for literally hours and hours clicking through each of these tracks to right them, and especially not every time I want to add more music to my library.  

Thanks so much for reading all this, and for your help.  

[andrewilley]

Sounds like either some issues with the SD Card itself, or more likely the card hadn't finished mounting when Poweramp started its scan (or Android was doing the same possibly? Do you have a .nomedia file in your music location to prevent Android from trying to scan it too?) Whatever the reason, if you see audio filenames but no other song information, that means PA noticed the presence of the file(s) during the discovery phase, but when it went back and tried to open/read the embedded tag data into the Library it was unable to do so for that file.

Start Poweramp and allow everything that might be happening in the background to complete. Then go to PA Settings > Library and perform a FULL Rescan. If that does not fix everything, go into PA Settings > Library > Music Folders and remove all ticked items (forcing an empty library) and then re-assign access to your SD Card music folder again (granting any permissions, although Android 7 is very old now so you might not need to do much). Then try Full Rescan again.

When everything is present, it might be a good idea to go into PA Settings > Library > Scanner and turn off all auto-scan features, just in case it happens again.

Andre

[andrewilley]

This was mentioned by another user using an M11 too, possibly some issue related to the device's old (but highly modified) Android ROM?

Andre

[LouAquiler]

Thank you so much for your suggestions.  I performed a manual Full Rescan, and I'm sorry to report the number of Unknown Artist/Unknown Album files actually increased.  I was initially 3,000, and then after my first rescan it went down to around 1,000, and now after the most recent it's up to 4,398.  And information displayed is just the file name, not the song title.

I am concerned about removing the un-ticked items in my library, as far as losing all my playlists and any metadata I've edited in the app.  Will those things disappear?  Will this be akin to a factory reset situation?  

If not I'll try it immediately.  If so, is there any other solution you can think of to "remind" PA of all the data that is absolutely still there attached to the files?  

And this is clearly not because of some kind of scan happening too fast, any idea of what could be causing this?  I'm beginning to lose hope and thinking I need to find another app or device, which is extremely depressing as I searched long and hard before settling on these.  

[andrewilley]

There is clearly some issue with the way file reading is being performed on your device. Another M11 user mentioned the exact same issue, so I would learn towards it being something do with with the heavily modified Android versions that these devices use. Does this also happen if you put a bunch of your files on internal memory rather than SD Card? 

As I said above, the first phase of PA's scanning process is a simple directory crawl to find any filenames that ought to be included in the database (e.g. such as any .mp3 or .flac files in any of your music subfolders). At this stage, all of the audio files are referenced within the Library as simple filenames only - with no Title, Album, Artist, etc info. Then a much longer, and heavily storage-intensive, scan is performed to examine any embedded tag data within every single file and that is added to the Library too. It is presumably this stage that is partially failing in your case.

Yes, un-ticking the Music Folders list is close to a 'factory reset' for the Library. You should be able to restore any confused playlists later using the 'Rescan / Resolve Playlists' function - but make sure Settings > Library > Playlists > "Remove Playlist Entries on Track Deletion" has NOT been enabled though. Some other transient data that is not written back to files - such as play counts, recently added lists, and ratings - could be lost though. Info/Tag data that you have manually edited and saved back to files is safe though, as that is embedded back into each physical audio file. Downloaded cover art also won't be affected as that is cached separately (but it is accessed based on Title/Artist/Album tag data, so you probably won't see any downloaded artwork for songs that now only show as filenames). You can back everything up before you start though, using Settings > Export Settings/Data, and then restore whichever elements you find you need (there's a tickable list).

@maxmp Any thoughts on anything that could be causing this that I haven't thought of? FiiO M11 uses a modified Android 7, so already using older permissions and would be using legacy file access mode anyway.

Andre

[pessard francois]

Hello,

 

I have same problem with FIIO M7. I try:

- with new SDHC card with extFAT format.

- with old Poweramp version.

No way. I don't understand, before Poweramp install, i process to factory reset. I always process like this.

 

The result is no artist, no album, no folder. I can see my song only in "New import file", that's all.

 

At the end, i reinstall FIIO music apk and it's works.

[andrewilley]

@pessard francois So do you see all of your music shown in the All Songs list, and it is playable by filenames, but there is no metadata shown - no Artist, Album, cover artwork, etc.

Andre

[pessard francois]

@andrewilley Hello,

 

yes that's right

I buy new sdhc card and i have same problem but with 64gb sdhc card it's works

folder structure and folder into collection don't work

Strangely, when I use the FFIO MUSIC application provided by FFIO for their android player, the 256GB SDHC cards are detected.

[andrewilley]

@pessard francois Then there is presumably something wrong with the way metadata is being read from your new card on your FiiO device. FiiOs are generally based on heavily modified versions of obsolete builds of Android (e.g. Android 7 in your case, which is more than six years old now) so theoretically they should work well, but that doesn't always seem to be the case outside of their own provided software. Does your device fully support the size of memory card you are trying to use?

The PA Full Rescan process has several stages. The first (fast) crawl finds all the music filenames within the assigned Music Folders and any subfolders, and stores those filenames in PA's music database ; this phase appears to be working for you if you see all your music but as filenames-only. The second phase is more involved and can take several minutes (or more for huge collections) and PA checks each and every file to discover the metadata contained within it - Song Title, Artist, Album, Genre, duration, etc. This part is not happening correctly for you. Finally any discovered Playlists (e.g. M3U files) are resolved against the now-complete music database contents, but I doubt that is happening for you either.

Have you tried enabling just a small subset of your music folders - perhaps start with just a single folder first, and if that works build up - to see where the problem occurs?

Andre

[pessard francois]

@andrewilley

1 hour ago, andrewilley said:

FiiOs are generally based on heavily modified versions of obsolete builds of Android (e.g. Android 7 in your case, which is more than six years old now) so theoretically they should work well, but that doesn't always seem to be the case outside of their own provided software. Does your device fully support the size of memory card you are trying to use?

In fact, I have neither updated the firmware, nor changed the version of PA. One day, I did the transfer via my mac with the Android transfer application and I renamed a folder on the fly. PA had probably started scanning (I think) and, seeing that the file was not taken into account, I did a complete rescan and it started to fail. The FIIO M7 does not have WIFI and is not connected to the internet, no update could have been done.

1 hour ago, andrewilley said:

Have you tried enabling just a small subset of your music folders - perhaps start with just a single folder first, and if that works build up - to see where the problem occurs?

Yes, I tried and it works with the 256GB SDHC on folders containing MP3 albums independently. However, when in this configuration, I check all the folders, it does not work.

On the other hand, on the 64GB SDHC card, I put all the albums in a music folder, I scan music and it goes.

 

[andrewilley]

@pessard francois Try enabling the other folders one by one until you find what is causing the scanner process to fail, might help track down where the issue is.

Andre

[pessard francois]

Hello@andrewilley ,

Latest news,
I created folders for each alphabetical letter from A to Z and a folder for the numeric.
I started by resetting the scan and then re-scanning the whole thing starting with the letter A to G, then G to M, then O to R, then S to U, then V to Y, then Y to Z

By doing this method I managed to scan everything and the tags were recognized.

If you think about it, it seems logical. I filled this card as I went along and each time I entered new music in small quantities it only scanned the new files, I never had to scan the whole card which explains this.

The problem seems to come from PA who doesn't appreciate having to scan a large number of files at once.

[MotleyG]

29 minutes ago, pessard francois said:

The problem seems to come from PA who doesn't appreciate having to scan a large number of files at once.

I don't think this is necessarily the problem. I use a 512GB Sandisk Extreme card in my iBasso DX160 DAP. There are almost 25k songs on it, and Poweramp can scan them all in at once. I have done this just recently after doing a firmware update to my DAP, and decided that was a good time to do a clean install of the apps as well.

I am more inclined to think that it was moving the files into the folders that forced PA to look at them all in new locations. Something a "Full Rescan" should have done as well I would think. But since you have managed to get all of your songs back, that is most important!

[pessard francois]

17 minutes ago, MotleyG said:

I am more inclined to think that it was moving the files into the folders that forced PA to look at them all in new locations.

Hello,
In fact I have already tried to put the files in the root and it did not work. What makes me say that it comes from PA is also the fact that the complete scan works perfectly with the home application of FIIO: FIIO Music (so the files are not corrupted).

 

Indeed, for the moment, I managed to recover all but it deserves to be reported to PA developers.

I retry a second scan including more files to see how far I can go in size without that bug. 

[MotleyG]

31 minutes ago, pessard francois said:

Hello,
In fact I have already tried to put the files in the root and it did not work. What makes me say that it comes from PA is also the fact that the complete scan works perfectly with the home application of FIIO: FIIO Music (so the files are not corrupted).

 

Indeed, for the moment, I managed to recover all but it deserves to be reported to PA developers.

I retry a second scan including more files to see how far I can go in size without that bug. 

Should be simple to check. Confirm on the library screen how many tracks PA had in the library now. Uncheck all folders and run a Full Rescan. Poweramp should show 0 songs. Then check your main “musique” folder only and run Full Rescan again. It should grab all songs in one scan. 

[pessard francois]

14 hours ago, MotleyG said:

Confirm on the library screen how many tracks PA had in the library now. Uncheck all folders and run a Full Rescan. Poweramp should show 0 songs. Then check your main “musique” folder only and run Full Rescan again. It should grab all songs in one scan. 

I have already done this. With no result.
However, I noticed that no matter what I do the scan blocks at more than 4016 songs.

[andrewilley]

I suspect it will be one particular song, or folder, or location that is causing the issue. PA can easily cope with many tens of thousands of songs in its library, so it's not a capacity issue. Tracking it down is trickier of course, it can only be a trial and error process.

Andre

[MotleyG]

4 hours ago, pessard francois said:

I have already done this. With no result.
However, I noticed that no matter what I do the scan blocks at more than 4016 songs.

Sounds more like a system issue then, if it isn’t the same file causing the stop. A battery optimizer or similar background analyzer may be working against you. Have you checked to seem if PA is being excluded from this to allow the scanning to run all the way through?

[pessard francois]

in fact I have deactivated all the screen saver, shutdown, sleep mode. On the FIIO except a file explorer, radio and PA, there is nothing else

[pessard francois]

Not having succeeded in making a scan of my mp3, I tried to root myself in admin in order to access the FIIO log blocked by the manufacturer with a custom firmware without result because not operational.
As this firmware installed Google play, I tried to install PA version 2 but it led to an error message on my first license as I had used the maximum number of records with this license and that it was no longer valid. Seriously.
I was told about another player, Foobar2000. It came to all scan, good and very simple. It allowed me among other things to get an error log on the files not taken into account or corrupted. I deleted them and tried to reinstall PA version 3 to see if it solved the scanning problem. Still the same problem.
In the meantime, I found another player: Musicolet and I'm impressed because it scanned my 16000 songs with tags very fast, I could edit my tags from the app. It has customizable equalizers depending on the bluetooth device and so officially I leave Poweramp which has a problem with the pre-scan and the scan.

 

Thank you all for your help. Too bad because this player is very ergonomic 

[bachankas]

Hello,

I have a Shanling M3X and similar problems. Some of my music lack tags. In most cases I see Unknown Artist, but the rest of tags are ok.
However, I have one album where random songs lack both artist and album tags and no album art. No such issues occur in other music player using both Android and Windows.

My library is almost 100% flac files, mostly 16/44, some albums 24/44 or 24/48.

[MotleyG]

23 minutes ago, bachankas said:

Hello,

I have a Shanling M3X and similar problems. Some of my music lack tags. In most cases I see Unknown Artist, but the rest of tags are ok.
However, I have one album where random songs lack both artist and album tags and no album art. No such issues occur in other music player using both Android and Windows.

My library is almost 100% flac files, mostly 16/44, some albums 24/44 or 24/48.

It is unclear exactly which similar problem you are referring to from this thread. Is it that the files do not appear in the Poweramp library browser at all? You should at least be able to browse to the folder/file location and play. But if your files are lacking any or all tags, then PA will only be able to show them as "Unknown" for those tags that are missing. If all of the important tags are missing, then the database will have nothing to work with and may end up not listing the songs at all, except under the folder/file browser.