Synology - Randon-ish Music Tag Bug?

Posted by: Nick Lees on 15 October 2014

I use a Synology 214, latest DSM version with Media Server.

 

It works fine. Mostly. However, I've a few downloads (RSO Live, and today a download from Clay Pipe) that, despite having full tags when viewed by Windows or edited through dbPoweramp, when they download to the Synology are stripped of Artist and Album Artist. What's worse, neither File Station nor Audio Station will allow me to update anything on the tags.

 

I've checked permissions on the file and folder, both on my PC and on the NAS and nothing seems remotely out of place. 

 

It seems so random, as everything I download to the NAS from elsewhere either retains the tags and allows me to edit them.

 

I've scoured the internet for possible solutions but come up with a blank (oh, apart from  "wipe everything and start again" which isn't going to happen).

 

Any ideas?

Posted on: 15 October 2014 by Foxman50

Use an app called mp3tag. Its free and great at editing tags. Not just for mp3, its on ver 2.64

 

http://www.mp3tag.de/en/

 

Graeme

Posted on: 15 October 2014 by Nick Lees

I've sort-of sorted it. I re-downloaded the album directly to the NAS, and this time it retained the tags. Bizarre that it works 99% of the time going to PC then NAS. Oh well. Cheers!

Posted on: 16 October 2014 by Mike-B

I just had something similar; downloaded an album from Qobuz into PC

& then into NAS.  As always it was a .wav format (yes I know, but it was not a .wav issue as I always download .wav)

It jumped the 1st track (nothing new there then !!!)  but also skipped tracks.  Also when it was loaded into playlist (loaded to play after another album)  its track number display was not right - the first album showed a double number column (01-01) in the track number columns,  this album only showed as single (01) column.

I looked for any errors in tags & looked especially at the track numbers but nothing appeared wrong.

Re-downloaded from Qobuz, this time in .flac, but it was just the same.

Looked into the PC files & noticed both .wav & .flac did not show track numbers in the "#" column. 

I went to work on the .wav file in the PC with tag editing & saw it did have numbered tracks,  but even so I went over these & re-entered them. They still did not show in the PC file # column.  Then picking up on a tip from a computer forum, using dBpoweramp I "converted" .wav to .wav & the # column appeared in the PC file.  I loaded that into the NAS & it runs perfectly. 

Posted on: 16 October 2014 by Hmack

I too had a similar problems with downloads of 2 albums (out of a large batch of downloads) from Qobus. I always download in lossless FLAC.

 

Although I couldn't identify what the problem was - both the track downloads and tags looked fine - many of the tracks from the albums were not displayed as available for play in either of my streamers. The advice I received from Qobuz was to download the albums again. This time, everything was fine.

 

I have no idea if this was a download problem or a problem created by my Synology DS212 (using the latest DSM version of the Synology Media Server.  

Posted on: 16 October 2014 by Mike-B

Hi Hmack,  no its not a Synology problem & (IME) DSM-5 works perfectly.  

After I realised it did not play correctly from the NAS,  I looked into & found the problem in the original download file in the PC & at that point I deleted the NAS file.     

I did download again to the PC only; both .flac & .wav, & the same problem was in both.  I edited & corrected the problem in the PC file & then checked it played correctly from the PC before I reloaded it to the NAS.  

I informed Qobuz & I got an email this morning from the technical dept thanking me for pointing out the problem, but they  didn't go on to say they agree the problem or if it had been fixed,  but it kinda admitted they could see the same problem. 

Posted on: 17 October 2014 by Huge

This sounds to me like an issue with the XML fragment not being correct 'well formatted XML'.

 

This will result in different symptoms occurring depending on the tags being read and the effects will also vary between different parsers.  There may even be effects occurring dependant on the physical order of the tags (unless the 'sequence' element is used).

Posted on: 17 October 2014 by Mike-B

???  eerr....  if you say so Huge  

Bottom line for me is it now plays correctly - I'm dun 

 

The thing that bugs me & still don't understand (in laymans terms) is I worked on the file in my PC & saw it did have numbered tracks in the edit program, but track numbers did not show in the Windows folder "#" column.  

I re-entered the track numbers in tag edit & they still did not show in the Win folder. Then picking up on a tip from a US computer forum, using dBpoweramp I "converted" .wav to .wav & they then appeared in the Win folder "#" column & after that the album played OK. 

Posted on: 17 October 2014 by Huge

Mike,

 

dBPoweramp is a very clever bit of software written by a near genius.  It uses a very tolerant XML parser that can sort out most of the mess created by other people's applications.  When you ask it to save the files, it takes the data it has in memory and it writes the files out in full (rather than just amending the data 'in situ'). When it writes the files it writes them out using well formatted XML.

 

Voila, other applications (with less good parsers) can now read it correctly, even though superficially the data don't appear to have changed!

Posted on: 17 October 2014 by Mike-B

Thanks Huge, sounds like the same as I read in the US www.  

Might keep that one in the memory bank