Issues with downloads of music from providers

Sounds a bit grim Bert. I hope it's not always like that.

I have had issues from time to time but it's usually pretty smooth. 

There was a time when the HDT downloader was buggy but it passed fairly quickly and they always supplied me with a direct link to the files on request. On one other occasion the DG downloader kept falling over and they gave me a refund quickly.

I'm downloading an album from Qobuz at the moment. Qobuz is the slickest provider I've used despite being in French and my schoolboy grasp of the language. But it's never failed on me. Pro Studio Masters also seem slick and efficient although I've only recently started using them, so early days.

Sometimes I forget to select the file format and sometimes it magically changes. But the bit depth and sample rate is the same and all file types are inter convertible. Sometimes I can't get the files in the format I want. So on many occasions I end up converting the file after download.

The next thing I do is strip out ALL the tags. I'm not takling about tag editing (which sometimes doesn't work), I'm talking about, in my case, dBpoweramp music converter's tag deletion facility.  A separate step from the file format conversion using a different part of the same application. I then use dBpoweramp tag editor (on a right click on my PC) to put in all the tags, and ONLY the tags which I want the files to have.

Download finished. So I'm off to do that right now.

You are most probably right that I was a bit grim, as it just happened. But I do have to say that I was recently faced with a couple of issues which are quite annoying.

Wasn't calling you grim Bert, I meant to say that what you have experienced sounds a bit grim. And in the wonderful, brightly lit vista of HiRes recordings we need these kind of stumbling blocks like a hole in the head.

What was it I said above about Qobuz? Well, looks like your issues are contagious Bert. Got the WAV files down (Replicas, Tubeway Army 24/96) and they contained no tags. And they could not be tagged. Files were not apparently protected or read only but they would not take tags in dBpoweramp. I put them on Asset and not surprisingly, nothing was displayed or searchable. 

So I downloaded the FLACs from Qobuz, found all the tags were now suceptible to editing, stripped out and added as usual, converted the freshly tagged files to WAV et voilà! I have no idea why. 

These kind of issues  have a potential to make sane, normal people run away and do something that works. Why bother when it's such an arse? I must say that this is not a particularly common thing for me - but the timing was superb!

Bert, absolutely, many of the download services offer far from "perfect" downloads.  Usually their defense is that they are just providing what the music labels have provided to them.  Whilst a truism, it doesn't excuse providing other than what's advertised, IMHO.

When I download new music, whilst it's still on my Mac, I look at the files and then use Metadatics to look at the tags.  I clean up everything as needed and THEN copy it over to my servers.  That's about the best advice I can give -- get used to needing to take an active role with respect to what goes on your server.  If you leave it up to the vendors, yes, you'll be disappointed!

Cheers,

Bart

Hi Bart,

I definitely have the good practice of first fully checking my tags and changing them if needed. Then I put it on my first NAS as all normal checks have happened. And I recheck if everything works by listening to the music, and only then I move it to the 2nd NAS and my backup.

I have had exactly one issue with a download. An album from Qobuz was tagged in French

I don't understand all of this preciousness about getting tagging right before putting files on a NAS. I just plop them and open in my management software that has a playlist with the newest at the top (based on file timestamp). It is extremely easy to spot anything that is wrong. Such as a ripped CD today that dBpoweramp had missed genre from.

Tagged in French sounds like grounds for a refund!!

The "preciousness" arises from the rescanning process and database re-building that the server must do after changes are made, if they are to be reflected in the remote app.  In practice, getting the files right and then adding them to the server means that the server need only scan once.  If you edit the files once they've already been scanned and indexed, you are then waiting for or forcing a re-scan.  And sometimes the re-scans to get catch ALL the changes.

I'm currently using Qobuz Desktop for download of the same Gould collection and it seems to work fine for me. The Gould collection is exceptionally large; for smaller albums I usually download the auto-generated zip file directly. On the Qobuz web site I can also configure the device I'm downloading for (Linn DS in my case) and then it automatically picks the FLAC version. As far as I can remember this has always worked.

Have to find out how I can do that, that would make things much easier. Is there a settings function in the account, as I have failed to see it......, I have to admit my French is not good....

That's the one I had originally a problem with but which I could with one problematic file get done on my office PC, then had to transfer and re-tag (to get the individual album title and album art). In the next hour I will transfer to my NAS and be happy - I assume.

Synology Media Server never needs to rescan for me.

I do a manual rescan with Minim and it takes less than two minutes. (20000 tracks)

So have again the fun of problems with my downloads. It's really annoying to see that after such a smooth period (from the beginning of my streaming adventure in early 2014) that I have really have been faced with ongoing issues with big downloads from Qobuz. It's quite obvious that they didn't make a great step by rolling out this new desktop version.

1. Errors with file downloads which can only be corrected by manually downloading single files (the app doesn't take care of it)

2. Issues with getting loss less while you want flac

3. Issues with tagging / problems with accesibility of files

4. Delayed discount codes...

No fun right now...

My issue with Qobuz is more fundamental, inhibiting my signing up: they simply don't seem to have a good, simple, browse facility. Yes, I can search, and can filter by genre, buta key thing I want to do is be able to browse content, allowing filtered by resolution and possibly by genre, though genres sometimes are incorrect or limiting, showing all albums sorted alphabetically by artist name then by album (dare or name). 

As for 'preciousness' about metadata, one major headache I have is to add or fix the metadata on the 1000 or so albums I've ripped from LP or CD - yes there are tools, but I still have to check every single one - so I hoped and presumed that downloaded albums would at least negate that on them, which I gather from this thread is not necessarily the case...

The selection of for instance high resolution files is possible by using the drop down, while it could be improved. Under 3GB I refer back again to the old downloader as it's flawless.