Song / Artist play issues? Duplicate artists? READ THIS!! (( updated for v3.0 ))

-- Updated 11/15/08 --

Advance Warning:   This guide only applies to songs ripped from CDs using the Zune Software or another CD ripper, NOT music purchased from the Zune Marketplace.  Zune Marketplace music should already be fine in terms of being recognized on the Zune Card.

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Before reading on, you should do four things:

1) In the Zune Software settings, under "General", check the box that says "Automatically Update Album Art and Media Information".  Also select "Only Add Missing Information"  You will need this for the Zune Software to map your media to the marketplace more effectively.  If you are a stickler about your tags, you may want to think twice about checking this option, because it has a tendency to mess with custom-tagged information. It is extremely difficult for the Zune Software to find artist & album matches successfully without this option enabled.
2) Get familiar with using the new built-in Advanced Tag Editor in the Zune Software!  To use the tag editor, right click on any album or song in the Collection view, and select "Edit".  This is how to manually edit your media's tags.
3) Ensure you are Signed In to Zune.net and the Zune Software with your user name.
4) Ensure there is no Firewall active which might prevent play info from being uploaded to Zune.net.


== What Happens (in extreme, gory, probably unnecessary detail - skip to the next section if I'm boring you) ==

When you first rip / add an album and the Zune software adds it to your library, it queries information from AMG, or the All Music Guide, located at www.allmusic.com.  The Zune Software attempts to find a proper match based on artist, song, album, and genre.

Having your music information (a.k.a "tags" or "metadata") match the album entries in AMG is critical to "linking" (or mapping, as I refer to it) your song plays to "real" artists/songs/albums that are present in the Zune Marketplace - and in turn attributing your plays of those "real" artists/songs/albums on your Zune Card / social profile page.

So, once the software locates valid media information for your album in AMG, it returns the query with unique ID numbers for Artist, Album, and Song.  With this information, the Zune software embeds a series of hidden "Unique File Identifier / Zune Media ID" tags in the audio files. These tags are placed at the end of whatever previous tag information exists.  These hidden tags are not viewable from tag editing programs such as MP3Tag and MediaMonkey (at least in the case of MP3s, WMA tags are slightly different).  I've found through personal trial and error that having these hidden tags present in the files nearly guarantees they will be mapped successfully to an entry.

If a song is mapped successfully, two things should happen within a matter of minutes of a new album being added to your library:

1) It will retreive updated information and cover art to display in the Software and on your Zune device.
2) It will embed the hidden tags in your MP3/WMA audio file, and that looks something like this:

WM/UniqueFileIdentifier AMGa_id = R    612906 ; AMGp_id = P    543386 ; AMGt_id = T   5924203  PRIV   ZuneMediaID

If you are wondering, each field corresponds to:

AMGa_id = R 612906      --- Album ID Number
AMGp_id = P 543386      --- Artist ID Number
AMGt_id = T 5924203     --- Song ID Number

(NOTE:  Songs purchased from the Zune Marketplace do not contain this info - they use various other identifying metadata to map plays back to the Zune Marketplace.)

This information from AMG is used to verify the song's existance in AMG, and also to match up that same song to an appropriate listing in the Zune Marketplace.  The software will try to match with albums available for purchase in the Marketplace (track you can preview and play), but it does not always accomplish this.  In many situations the album listed in AMG - even if it is nearly identical to one offered in the Marketplace - will not link to the Marketplace album entry.  The reason for this seems to be the lack of interaction between AMG's media database and Zune's media database. This problem remains is especially true for digital Maxi-Singles and EPs.

When the query fails to locate a proper artist/album/song match, for whatever reasons that might be, it will not be mapped. As a result, the Zune software will treat some songs as if they aren't "true" song & artist plays, hence the reason you'll see some unclickable songs & artists on your card.

Now, this also ties in with the duplicate artist situation.  Upon the v2.5 release of the software and social, the Social registers ALL plays - regardless of whether they can be mapped successfully - to be displayed on one's Zune Card.  This much-applauded feature is excellent for artists / albums not present in AMG, but it also causes problems when you have music in your collection that IS in AMG, but simply isn't being mapped by the Zune Software!

For non-mapped songs, the song title/artist displayed on your profile page just reflects whatever your tags are for that song.  You can't click on these songs or the artists that are generated from them.  For example, say you have 2 different "Pearl Jam" artists in your Top Artists for the month. If one Pearl Jam has an artist image, and clicking on it brings you to the official profile page for Pearl Jam, some of your plays are obviously mapped to the "real deal" Pearl Jam.  If the other Pearl Jam has no artist image, I suppose you can say it's "your own" Pearl Jam plays that haven't been mapped to anything.  That Pearl Jam with no artist picture belongs to you, and you alone.

Now that you know this, it's time to check your current media and see what songs/albums are mapped, and which are not!


== Check to see if if a song is mapped to an entry in the Marketplace ==

1) New for v3.0:  Right-click on the album in your Collection view and select "More About This Album" from the context menu.  If this option is NOT available, the album has NOT yet been mapped to a Marketplace entry.  If the option IS available, select it, and ensure all tracks are labeled as "IN COLLECTION".  If only some tracks are marked with "IN COLLECTION", give the Software some time (10-15 minutes) to sort out the rest of them.  You can also right-click on a single song and select the same "More About This Album" option - this will show you exactly where a particular song is mapped. (In some rare circumstances, the Software will split up an album and map individual songs to different albums.  Don't ask me why, it just does.)

2) This second method is going to seem complicated, but it is a fool-proof way to check.  Drag and drop one of your mp3/wma files into Notepad (yes, the text editor!), from a file explorer window.  (Be sure to disable Word Wrap in Notepad first - it reads the file a lot faster!)  At the end of the ID3 tag (the first few lines or so, unless you have high-res album artwork embedded in your mp3/wma file, then it's probably farther down) should be the embedded Unique File Identifier information as discussed earlier. > Click here for a screenshot of where to look. < If its not there, that particular song is most likely NOT mapped to anything. (The only exception here being Zune Pass music and Marketplace purchases.)


== Fix the mapping problems by changing your tag info ==

There's two ways to go about this.  Option one is far easier than option two.

1) The hard-working folks at Zune have created a convenient way to search AMG's database right from within the Zune Software.  How?  In the Zune Software's Collection view, right-click on an album and select "Find Album Info".  Then perform a simple search, find the right album match, and the Software will auto-tag everything for you!  Awesome, isn't it?  From the information obtained here, the Software will map it to the best entry it can find (which, mind you, is not always the best entry...but there isn't much you can do about that).

2) If the "Find Album Info" feature isn't working for you, chances are you'll want to try and manually tag it yourself. Get into the Zune Software's Advanced Tag Editor as stated earlier (Right-click a song > Edit), and start editing your tags to match the artist/song/album information for that album on www.allmusic.com EXACTLY.

Helpful Tips when using the Advanced Tag Editor:
- The Album Artist field is more important than the Song Artist field!  For an album of the same artist throughout, it's best to keep these fields identical to one another.
- For a compilation album with many different artists, put Various Artists in the Album Artist field, and the artist of that particular song in the Song Artist and Composer fields.


After performing all of the above, most artists/songs/albums you modified tags for should now be mapped properly on your Zune Card.

Anyways, that's it!  Those are the specific technicalities behind how the Zune Software tags your media and sends play info to the Zune Card. I hope this information might assist other frustrated people out there who have been having trouble with their Zune Cards, and confusing play / duplicate artist issues.

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Corey Shuster
2009 Microsoft Zune MVP

My responses come only from personal experience.

Great, helpful post! I'm making it sticky. Thank you!

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Jessica Zahn, Zune Social Program Manager ~ This posting is provided as-is with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Thanks for the tips that will help.  There is still a small problem.  What about CDs that are not listed in AMG?  I have official fan club CDs from the Supersuckers, these are not listed in AMG, but they are from the artist.  Is there any plans for something for music put out by the artist, but is not listed in AMG? Such as fan club CDs, internet only releases (ex. the Supersuckers released a live album through their web site), etc. AMG is a great resource, but they don't cover everything.

I know this is kind of Supersuckers centric, but I know other bands have fan club only releases and some have internet only releases (mc chris does this a lot).  Additionally prolific bands like KMFDM who release songs everywhere and with multiple remixes will not have everything listed on AMG.

And lastly what about indie bands that are not in AMG at all?

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"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." - Dr. Seuss

Unfortunately, AMG does not have listings for many indie bands, or even classical music.  As of right now, it is impossible to get those plays linked up correctly.  The good thing is, the track title and artist information will at least be displayed on your Zune Card.  But the plays will not be linked up to real artist or album plays.

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Corey Shuster
2009 Microsoft Zune MVP

My responses come only from personal experience.

Is there something in work to be able to add CD's that aren't listed with AMG?  I know I used to have to do this with NERO when it didn't have the information loaded with CDDB.  It was a Pain in the butt, but it worked.

 CountMonsterod wrote:

Is there something in work to be able to add CD's that aren't listed with AMG?  I know I used to have to do this with NERO when it didn't have the information loaded with CDDB.  It was a Pain in the butt, but it worked.

I don't believe there is at the moment.  There is no system for user submissions.  Though who knows; maybe there's one in the works?  That would be fantastic.

For any albums not in AMG or listed in the Marketplace, plays from those albums will still appear under Recent Plays, but will not be linked to "true" songs counting towards known artists.

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Corey Shuster
2009 Microsoft Zune MVP

My responses come only from personal experience.

okay so i did drag tha song into notepad & it has that AMG code for tha album but that's it... after that it names tha song title "Say You Will" and tha artist "Kanye West" but there is code for those areas... it's still not being tagged to any album because when i left click tha album it doesn't have tha "more about this album" link. Do you know how i can fix this?

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"la sangre pesa ma' q el agua pero midela bien existe sangre sucia fijate Cain y Abel" -DY

BoriEastSide21-
Where did you get the file?  If it's from the Zune Marketplace and has DRM, you might be unable to edit the tags.  Try right clicking the song in zune software and see if you can edit the Album.  You'll find out right away if it's locked or not.

NSILMike-

i ripped tha song & now i'm just trying 2 tag it 2 zune marketplace so it will show up on my zune card. I've edited tha information already & it's not being tagged.

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"la sangre pesa ma' q el agua pero midela bien existe sangre sucia fijate Cain y Abel" -DY

 BoriEastSide21 wrote:

NSILMike-

i ripped tha song & now i'm just trying 2 tag it 2 zune marketplace so it will show up on my zune card. I've edited tha information already & it's not being tagged.

Is it a band/musician that is already in the marketplace?  If not, you won't succeed.   If it is, it might take a few minutes (and you might have to use the find more info function too.)

CS188 & Ms. Zahn,

Okay.  I was about to post a question asking what it means if I'm listed as a "Top Listener" of a band, say, Ladytron, but the band's name has no link?  And when I look at their profile page, I'm not listed as a Top Listener there?  I'm not losing any sleep over this, but I was curious about what was up.  Then I saw this sticky post.  So would I be correct in assuming something like this was up here?

One thing that I'm puzzled about is that it seems that many of the Ladytron albums I'm playing aren't in the database.  So, for example, there are the Harmonium Sessions EP and the Witching Hour bonus disk, as well as a number of obscure-ish import singles and such.  Would I be correct in assuming that these will not be batched as (real) Ladytron listens?  Or rather, more importantly, that they can't be fixed, retroactively or otherwise?

And would I be correct also in assuming that this is why I have two His Name Is Alive listings in my list of most-listened to musicians?  Unfortunately for me, HNIA has kazillions of albums with very low print runs, or which were internet-only releases, or which were only released on cassette or vinyl originally before I digitally converted them.  Having some way of submitting that info to AllMusic would be cool, or at least to the Zune Marketplace.  Any progress on that front since this was originally posted?

 Hello Cthulhu wrote:

So, for example, there are the Harmonium Sessions EP and the Witching Hour bonus disk, as well as a number of obscure-ish import singles and such.  Would I be correct in assuming that these will not be batched as (real) Ladytron listens?  Or rather, more importantly, that they can't be fixed, retroactively or otherwise?  And would I be correct also in assuming that this is why I have two His Name Is Alive listings in my list of most-listened to musicians?  Unfortunately for me, HNIA has kazillions of albums with very low print runs, or which were internet-only releases, or which were only released on cassette or vinyl originally before I digitally converted them.

You pretty much hit the nail on the head for every question you brought up.

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Corey Shuster
2009 Microsoft Zune MVP

My responses come only from personal experience.