Not reading flac correctly

[Euronymous]

So I'm on the latest build , latest android , s22 ultra. On my note 20 ultra it read pretty much all my flac files correctly. Since I transferred everything over to my see ultra it has placed 75 albums in the unknown artist category. All of them are flac files that were properly placed on my old phone. Is there a fix for this? 

[andrewilley]

Do the problem songs show with any other tag data (title, album etc) or just as something like "filename.flac"? If just the filename, try doing a FULL Rescan in Settings > Library, or even remove the chosen folders from Settings > Library > Music Folders and re-assign them and grant permissions again. Avoid using root-level folders on your SD Card. If you copied your settings over, make sure Settings > Misc > File Access Legacy Mode has not copied over too.

Andre

[Euronymous]

20 hours ago, andrewilley said:

Do the problem songs show with any other tag data (title, album etc) or just as something like "filename.flac"? If just the filename, try doing a FULL Rescan in Settings > Library, or even remove the chosen folders from Settings > Library > Music Folders and re-assign them and grant permissions again. Avoid using root-level folders on your SD Card. If you copied your settings over, make sure Settings > Misc > File Access Legacy Mode has not copied over too.

Andre

So here's a pic of how it's reading them. No data what so ever, legacy mode is disabled. Nothing I'm doing seems to fix the problem. I don't understand why it's not reading them with all the correct data. Some other flac files are properly listed and divided into individual tracks. It's just one long file 

[andrewilley]

That's not even showing a filename (or did you scroll the display down lower than that part?). Also no file format, but that's normal for FLACs.

If there is a filename above, but nothing else, that tends to say there are no tags present in the file.

I'm assuming this is one single music track by the way. Otherwise, are you using CUE files to create virtual tracks (did you copy that CUE file over too?) or even embedded CUE data within one larger container file? If so, possibly the CUE-created versions are already visible in the Artist/Albums list and what you are seeing here are just the raw overall unsplit files? PA can be instructed not to show those pre-split master files by unticking PA Settings => Library => Lists => Show CUE Disc Image Files.

Andre

[Euronymous]

No it's not one single track, it's full albums that play as one single track. They aren't shown under the artist, they are all just under unknown artist. All I did was literally copy the folders overs to my new phone. An exact carbon copy, whether cue is enabled or not has zero impact on the results 

[Euronymous]

Disabling pars cue files actually has a negative affect, it increases the amount of unknown artists. So I have to have it enabled

[MotleyG]

Did you clear all folders from the library scanner, then add your music folders as “new” ? I suspect being at Android 12 that this is required to make sure Poweramp has full access to those files.

[Euronymous]

How would I go about doing that? I don't see anything that allows me to clear everything and start from scratch 

[MotleyG]

21 minutes ago, Euronymous said:

How would I go about doing that? I don't see anything that allows me to clear everything and start from scratch 

Settings>Library>Music Folders. Uncheck any of the Music folders and Select. Then go back in and select just the applicable Music folder and select again. Then in the same Settings>Library menu choose the Full Rescan option so that Poweramp looks for all files again.

[andrewilley]

9 hours ago, Euronymous said:

Disabling pars cue files actually has a negative affect, it increases the amount of unknown artists. So I have to have it enabled

I didn't say to disable 'Parse CUE Files' (which is in Settings => Library => Scanner).

If you are relying on CUE data (either embedded within your FLAC files, or as separate "sidecar" .CUE files) you need to have that option enabled in order to tell Poweramp to create individual "pseudo-tracks" based on the index points within the large overall audio file. Otherwise all you will see is one huge master file containing a whole album's worth of music, which from the info you've provided has no overall tag data of its own. 

What I suggested disabling was  PA Settings => Library => Lists => Show CUE Disc Image Files. This prevents PA from displaying that overall file at all - which in the above case would contain 46 minutes of continuous audio with no Title/Artist/Album data (which seems to be what you are seeing). Instead you only want to see the split contents that have been generated as individual named tracks based on the CUE sheet contents.

After changing any settings, do a FULL Rescan in PA Settings => Library.
 

The CUE sheet data (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cue_sheet_(computing) ) will internally look something like this, providing the necessary information on index points, lengths, song titles, etc for each required "track":

TITLE "Discovery"
PERFORMER "Electric Light Orchestra"
GENRE "Rock"
FILE "ELO_Discovery.flac" WAVE
  TRACK 01 AUDIO
    TITLE "Shine a Little Love"
    INDEX 00 00:00:00
    INDEX 01 00:02:00
  TRACK 02 AUDIO
    TITLE "Confusion"
    INDEX 00 04:42:00
    INDEX 01 04:44:00
  TRACK 03 AUDIO
    TITLE "Need Her Love"
    INDEX 00 08:26:00
    INDEX 01 08:28:00

... etc ...

Andre

[Euronymous]

1 hour ago, andrewilley said:

I didn't say to disable 'Parse CUE Files' (which is in Settings => Library => Scanner).

If you are relying on CUE data (either embedded within your FLAC files, or as separate "sidecar" .CUE files) you need to have that option enabled in order to tell Poweramp to create individual "pseudo-tracks" based on the index points within the large overall audio file. Otherwise all you will see is one huge master file containing a whole album's worth of music, which from the info you've provided has no overall tag data of its own. 

What I suggested disabling was  PA Settings => Library => Lists => Show CUE Disc Image Files. This prevents PA from displaying that overall file at all - which in the above case would contain 46 minutes of continuous audio with no Title/Artist/Album data (which seems to be what you are seeing). Instead you only want to see the split contents that have been generated as individual named tracks based on the CUE sheet contents.

After changing any settings, do a FULL Rescan in PA Settings => Library.
 

The CUE sheet data (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cue_sheet_(computing) ) will internally look something like this, providing the necessary information on index points, lengths, song titles, etc for each required "track":

TITLE "Discovery"
PERFORMER "Electric Light Orchestra"
GENRE "Rock"
FILE "ELO_Discovery.flac" WAVE
  TRACK 01 AUDIO
    TITLE "Shine a Little Love"
    INDEX 00 00:00:00
    INDEX 01 00:02:00
  TRACK 02 AUDIO
    TITLE "Confusion"
    INDEX 00 04:42:00
    INDEX 01 04:44:00
  TRACK 03 AUDIO
    TITLE "Need Her Love"
    INDEX 00 08:26:00
    INDEX 01 08:28:00

... etc ...

Andre

Ah ok gotcha ,well I checked those settings and they are disabled. I noticed that some folders did not have a cue file in their directory and idk why or if that's necessary. But I did also find even some folders with the cue file still have no data tagged to them. I'll be up front and say I'm not too knowledgeable to this stuff. I just know I copied all my music folders over completely and this wasn't an issue on my note 20 ultra, and I didn't mess with any of the settings back then 

[andrewilley]

11 hours ago, Euronymous said:

Ah ok gotcha ,well I checked those settings and they are disabled.

First, to reiterate as a quick DL;DR : 

1. PA Settings => Library => Scanner => Parse CUE Files must be turned ON
2. PA Settings => Library => Lists => Show CUE Disc Image Files must be turned OFF
3. Go to PA Settings => Library and do a FULL Rescan

If this still shows the long files without artist/album info, please upload a sample CUE file here for checking.

A longer more general explanation is given in the Tags, Albums & CUE sheets FAQ which I mentioned a few posts back, but to apply it to your specific folder example:

• "Wormed - Planisphaerium.flac" - This file contains the music content only. In this case it has no cover artwork, no album title, artist name, track details, durations, etc. It's just 45 minutes of continuously playing audio - presumably ripped from a whole CD.
• "Wormed - Planisphaerium.cue" - This is an index file which tells players how to break up that long CD-ripped file into smaller, more manageable, chucks - aka Tracks. It's a bit like the Chapter Index page at the front of a book telling you on which page each new Chapter starts. The file says (for example) that Track #1 of your CD should be named "Tunnel of Ions" and it begins at the start of the audio file and lasts for 3'29". Track #2 then starts at 3'33" into the file and lasts for 3'39" and it is named as "Geodesic Dome", and so on. It can contain album title, artist, track details, etc - but not cover artwork. You can load CUE files into any text editor and take a look at the contents if you like.
• "Wormed - Planisphaerium.log" - Ignored by PA. This is most likely a text file of technical notes about the CD ripping process and can be deleted.
• "Scans" - This subfolder most likely contains photos of the front and back cover of the CD, and sometimes the booklet pages. PA does not read this either, its up to you whether you want to keep it on your phone or not.

If you do not have 'Parse CUE Files' enabled, the CUE file will be completely ignored and all you will see is that one huge 45-minute Planisphaerium.flac audio file, which has no artist/album/track/etc info.

If you do have 'Parse Cue Files' enabled, you will instead see a pseudo-folder containing all of the tracks from the CD, which are created based on the information in the CUE sheet. These individual songs will also appear in the Albums, Artists, etc categories.

'Show CUE Disc Image Files' simply means that in addition to seeing all of the individual songs (created from the CUE info) you'd also like to see that big 45-minute master FLAC file in your folders list too. In your case, the Planisphaerium.flac file has no tag data though, so it can only be shown in the Unknown Artist / Unknown Album areas in lists. Most people don't want this so by default the feature is turned off.

Andre

[Euronymous]

12 hours ago, andrewilley said:

I didn't say to disable 'Parse CUE Files' (which is in Settings => Library => Scanner).

If you are relying on CUE data (either embedded within your FLAC files, or as separate "sidecar" .CUE files) you need to have that option enabled in order to tell Poweramp to create individual "pseudo-tracks" based on the index points within the large overall audio file. Otherwise all you will see is one huge master file containing a whole album's worth of music, which from the info you've provided has no overall tag data of its own. 

What I suggested disabling was  PA Settings => Library => Lists => Show CUE Disc Image Files. This prevents PA from displaying that overall file at all - which in the above case would contain 46 minutes of continuous audio with no Title/Artist/Album data (which seems to be what you are seeing). Instead you only want to see the split contents that have been generated as individual named tracks based on the CUE sheet contents.

After changing any settings, do a FULL Rescan in PA Settings => Library.
 

The CUE sheet data (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cue_sheet_(computing) ) will internally look something like this, providing the necessary information on index points, lengths, song titles, etc for each required "track":

TITLE "Discovery"
PERFORMER "Electric Light Orchestra"
GENRE "Rock"
FILE "ELO_Discovery.flac" WAVE
  TRACK 01 AUDIO
    TITLE "Shine a Little Love"
    INDEX 00 00:00:00
    INDEX 01 00:02:00
  TRACK 02 AUDIO
    TITLE "Confusion"
    INDEX 00 04:42:00
    INDEX 01 04:44:00
  TRACK 03 AUDIO
    TITLE "Need Her Love"
    INDEX 00 08:26:00
    INDEX 01 08:28:00

... etc ...

Andre

Ah ok gotcha ,well I checked those settings and they are disabled. I noticed that some folders did not have a cue file in their directory and idk why or if that's necessary. But I did also find even some folders with the cue file still have no data tagged to them. I'll be up front and say I'm not too knowledgeable to this stuff. I just know I copied all my music folders over completely and this wasn't an issue on my note 20 ultra, and I didn't mess with any of the settings back then 

[andrewilley]

43 minutes ago, Euronymous said:

 I noticed that some folders did not have a cue file in their directory and idk why or if that's necessary.

CUE files are only needed if you want to split one big file into smaller chunks (such as songs/tracks on a CD) for more convenient listening.

If your music files have already been saved as individual songs, each containing their own title/etc info, CUE files are not necessary. That is the most commonly used system for ripped or downloaded music, so rather than one big file with a separate CUE index, you'd have "Tunnel of Ions.flac", "Geodesic Dome.flac", and so on.

Andre

[Euronymous]

6 minutes ago, andrewilley said:

CUE files are only needed if you want to split one big file into smaller chunks (such as songs/tracks on a CD) for more convenient listening.

If your music files have already been saved as individual songs, each containing their own title/etc info, CUE files are not necessary. That is the most commonly used system for ripped or downloaded music, so rather than one big file with a separate CUE index, you'd have "Tunnel of Ions.flac", "Geodesic Dome.flac", and so on.

Andre

Ok gotcha I'm following you there completely, but then why the big files with a cue file show up with no data then? Some of files have been separated as songs but are missing all the other data. 

[andrewilley]

As I said, post that sample CUE file here (they are plain text) in case the CUE file is not correct.

Andre

[MotleyG]

@Euronymous I just noticed in one of your screen shots, it looks like your data was moved from a separate SD card, and now resides in the internal memory of the phone. Further, I don't see a clearly defined folder for "Music" per se, but more of a nested "Download" folder. Is all of your music in this same folder, or are there many? While I know there are many different ways to manage this, the most common is generally something like Music/AlbumArtistName/AlbumName/Disc#-Track#-TrackName, where you can simply point Poweramp to look at the Music folder and all files in any subdirectory would then be indexed to the library. Without having access to your device I can't say this is definitely the issue, but using Download folders isn't a good approach, especially with the scoped storage requirements that Google has introduced for Android 11+. This is a likely the issue after moving to your S22.

[andrewilley]

@MotleyG  I doubt that's the issue here either, but yes it is not generally good practice to use a system (Download, etc) folders for music - especially on Android 12. Better to have one overall 'My Music' location and keep everything else in subfolders below that. Keep the app on internal device memory, and the music content should be fine on an SD Card.

Also there are some non-ASCII characters in the referenced directory paths, which could be confusing CUE file reading if it is specifying an absolute path rather than just a local-folder filename.

Andre

[6b6561]

Has the flac files been renamed, if so then the FILE tag in the cue might be wrong in case Poweramp checks it.

[andrewilley]

Poweramp certainly ought to be checking the FILE line in the CUE sheet, as it's perfectly within spec to have one CUE file reference multiple audio files. Some ripping software does that, to allow you to build individual audio files for each track, but still have the necessary index data to write everything back to one CD again if you wish.

Andre

[MotleyG]

3 hours ago, andrewilley said:

@MotleyG  I doubt that's the issue here either, but yes it is not generally good practice to use a system (Download, etc) folders for music - especially on Android 12. Better to have one overall 'My Music' location and keep everything else in subfolders below that. Keep the app on internal device memory, and the music content should be fine on an SD Card.

Also there are some non-ASCII characters in the referenced directory paths, which could be confusing CUE file reading if it is specifying an absolute path rather than just a local-folder filename.

Andre

Given the somewhat abstract nature of the file/folder structure, I was more thinking that perhaps there is an issue with the folders that have been given permission for Poweramp to have access. This folder structure doesn't really follow the norm, so my concern was more in that regard. If Poweramp can see all files and they are correctly found, that may not be the case here. But at the same time, perhaps the cue files are using a specific path for the flac files that has changed with this move, that Poweramp cannot restore.

[Euronymous]

3 hours ago, MotleyG said:

Given the somewhat abstract nature of the file/folder structure, I was more thinking that perhaps there is an issue with the folders that have been given permission for Poweramp to have access. This folder structure doesn't really follow the norm, so my concern was more in that regard. If Poweramp can see all files and they are correctly found, that may not be the case here. But at the same time, perhaps the cue files are using a specific path for the flac files that has changed with this move, that Poweramp cannot restore.

Ok so to clarify the folder location, everything was in one specific folder on my sd card. This folder directory was created when I did a USB file transfer from my original Note 20 ultra to my Current 22 ultra. I selected this folder only for PA to access , although I could absolutely make a different folder at the root location. Sorry for the delay in response, work and no signal. I'm going to now open the cue file and take some pics and send it on here for analysis. Let me know if I should change the music location, but since the s22 doesn't have external storage, I don't think that would help?

[Euronymous]

So this is the text for cue file for the wormed album, I'm new to this so hopefully I can learn to catch whatever is causing the issue if there is any here 

[MotleyG]

Line 6 says the file it is looking for should be wav. Did you convert to FLAC later?

[andrewilley]

That looks like an auto-generated file created by EAC (Exact Audio Copy) during the process of ripping a CD to an overall WAVE format audio file.

However as @MotleyG  has pointed out, the actual music file on your phone is in FLAC format, not WAVE. So the CUE file is referring to a file named "Wormed - Planisphaerium.wav", but that file isn't present on your device as it has been converted to "Wormed - Planisphaerium.flac", so it will fail at that point. If you edit the CUE file in your text editor to point to the correct filename, it should work.

One other potential issue I can see is that the information for each individual track has the PERFORMER tag (i.e. Track Artist) set as "01", "02", "03", "04", etc. This is probably not how you intended to see the Artist names in Poweramp, so either delete those erroneous lines or just change them to the same as the Album Artist, "Planisphaerium".

Andre