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

Damn.  It's not often I say this, but I really wish I was wrong.

CS188 & Ms. Zahn,
I have a slightly different problem now.  I've gone and checked the metadata in the WMA's that the Zune software created when it ripped Underworld's A Hundred Days Off.  And for whatever reason, even though the metadata was supplied by the "Find Album Info" feature, the Zune software doesn't actually recognize it.  This is very strange.  The Zune software recognized the disk when it was ripped, so I didn't have to manually enter in the song titles or anything.  And I matched it up with the appropriate album on Find Album Info.  And I even checked the Metadata to make sure that it matched up with the album code and such on the AllMusic entry for the album.  And yet, it's still playing the music as if it's a fake Underworld album, making me the top listener, even, of fake Underworld.  Do you have a sense of what's going on here?  This is hardly life and death or anything, but once I start looking into a puzzle, I really want to solve it, and that's what this has become.  Any thoughts you could share would be much appreciated.

 Hello Cthulhu wrote:

CS188 & Ms. Zahn,
I have a slightly different problem now.  I've gone and checked the metadata in the WMA's that the Zune software created when it ripped Underworld's A Hundred Days Off.  And for whatever reason, even though the metadata was supplied by the "Find Album Info" feature, the Zune software doesn't actually recognize it. 

I have the same problem, Cthulhu. I even posted a separate thread about it, but nobody has responded. This is very weird, since you would think the "Find Album Feature" would only supply metadata that would properly link to the Zune database. I hope somebody notices our posts and can provide some help.

As a perfectionist this is really starting to piss me the **** off. You have no idea how many times I've used the ZUNE to get the album info and it never links to the Marketplace. I have a bunch of albums that just won't link even though ive used the search function numerous times. The issue's just got worse because i just recently got a new PC and bought over all my music and the albums which were linked to the Marketplace on my old PC are now not linked which just annoys me a lot.

I'm wondering another thing when it comes to the 'Find Album Info' tagging method. Say it tags an album for me so it's "official" for Zune, but I have an issue with one of the elements of the tag. Say it lists Paulson's "Calling On You" EP's genre as "rock" and I'd prefer to have it as "indie" (because I'm picky with my genre tags). Will that one change to the "official" tagging suddenly make it "unofficial"?

Changing the Genre tag should not "unlink" the album from the marketplace, (something I've done in the past), but what I do to be safe is copy the album to an unmonitored directory (or different drive entirely) before making the change.

If the change unlinks the album, you can change it back. Should the link not re-establish, you can copy the files from your backup, which should result in the album re-linking.

 

Q

Once I establish a link to the marketplace, do the plays get reunited if I have two top artists?

 DeeEmmBee wrote:

Once I establish a link to the marketplace, do the plays get reunited if I have two top artists?

Unfortunately not.  Any plays currently attributed to those "unknown" artists will stay that way.

But now that you've established a link, only the main artist should have an increasing play count from now on.


By the way, an update to the guide itself:  The part regarding looking for the AMG identifier tags in Notepad no longer applies.  It does not guarantee the songs are linked.  It applied more for software versions 2.5 and 2.3, before Find Album Info and the Advanced Tag Editor tools were implemented.  The "automatically update album art and metadata" feature used to embed AMG tags only when a song matched with the AMG database, and this was one of the only ways to see if the song was linked or not (There was no Mixview or More About This Album).  But this is no longer an effective way to check.  When using Find Album Info, AMG tags are embedded even if a song has no link in the Marketplace, so that is why it doesn't guarantee linkage.  I will be either removing this section or adding a disclaimer next time the guide is updated.

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Corey Shuster
2009 Microsoft Zune MVP

My responses come only from personal experience.

THANKS

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Do not waste yourself in rejection, nor bark against the bad, but chant the beauty of the good.

Thanks for the quick reply, but it makes it all the more frustrating for me. I never really paid much attention, but I went browsing my collection this morning and the exception, not the rule, is for my music to be linked. I have a fairly large collection and have tried several things just to get a link established on a couple albums. Nothing seems to work, even though the album is listed on allmusic with the exact same tag info and is listed in the marketplace. I guess this feature is never going to be fully functional for me. Therein lies the frustration. It would make purchasing a zune pass a mistake, because I would be forced to download songs already in my collection in order to use the Channels feature.

I ripped CDs with both Zune software and windows Media Player that did not link with the marketplace. I tried the "find album info" and although it does seem to find the right album, it still does not link. I've given it a few months, and still nothing. Any ideas?

 IndyR wrote:

I ripped CDs with both Zune software and windows Media Player that did not link with the marketplace. I tried the "find album info" and although it does seem to find the right album, it still does not link. I've given it a few months, and still nothing. Any ideas?

Do you have "Automatically Update Album Art and Metadata" turned on under Settings?  Oftentimes this setting needs to be enabled for most of the linking to occur.  Note that it should not modify current tags (aside from placing Unique File IDs in each song), unless you use Find Album Info to replace all the current information.

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Corey Shuster
2009 Microsoft Zune MVP

My responses come only from personal experience.