Problem importing multiple disc albums

[mellowjello]

I'm new to Jellyfin and feeling my way around at the moment but i'm a bit surprised by the approach used for album grouping. I have a large music collection and after importing, loads of albums got split by disc because they're all in sub-folders named 'CD1', 'CD2'... Upon reading a few forum posts and the user guide section on Music > discs I tried renaming some test albums so each sub-folder was 'Disc 1', 'Disc 2'... But it didn't fix the problem. I also tried 'CD 1', 'CD 2'... The albums i've tried all have ID3 metadata for disc number and total # discs. They also get grouped without issue in every other media manager i've ever used (VLC, Foobar2000, JRiver, Plex, etc). Generally with a metadata based grouping priority of: Album Name > Disc # > Track #

Is it true there's a naming format I can use for disc sub-folders that will ensure they get grouped correctly within a single album? The idea of piling all my disc tracks into one folder isn't appealing. I would need to re-number all the files or they'll be a jumbled mess as they all start 01. 02. 03. etc. Most music ripping tools default to numbering tracks and files in this way. Although it's still a lot of work, renaming the folders seems like my only option.

Aside from looking for a solution, i'm curious to understand why the Jellyfin devs are ignoring tag data and deferring to folders for grouping? It seems like a departure from the more commonly used method, possibly increasing problems when users try to migrate.

Server version: 10.8.13 
Operating System: Linux
Architecture: x64

[TheDreadPirate]

Here is how I have multi-disc albums organized in addition to the metadata tags.

Code:

chris@rat-trap:/media/library/Music/Florence & The Machine$ tree Ceremonials/
Ceremonials/
├── Disc 1
│   ├── Track 01.flac
│   ├── Track 02.flac
│   ├── Track 03.flac
│   ├── Track 04.flac
│   ├── Track 05.flac
│   ├── Track 06.flac
│   ├── Track 07.flac
│   ├── Track 08.flac
│   ├── Track 09.flac
│   ├── Track 10.flac
│   ├── Track 11.flac
│   └── Track 12.flac
└── Disc 2
    ├── Track 01.flac
    ├── Track 02.flac
    ├── Track 03.flac
    ├── Track 04.flac
    ├── Track 05.flac
    ├── Track 06.flac
    ├── Track 07.flac
    └── Track 08.flac

It sounds like you are doing this already. Did you rescan after making any file/folder changes?

[mellowjello]

Yes I did rescan the music library. I also tried moving the test album/s out completely and rescanning before moving them back in and scanning again. Strangely, when you look at each disk/album grouping one has 'Disc 2' at the top, the other doesn't. I also have an 'Album Art' folder in each album folder. Do additional folders also mess things up? For example, I noticed on one of my albums which had a 'Bonus Disc' subfolder but main album tracks in the album's root folder, only the bonus disc tracks appeared. None of the tracks in the root.

[mellowjello]

I am suspecting the 'Album Art' folder confuses it. I have another album with 3 discs as sub-folders along with an Album Art folder. This time the folders are called CD1,CD2 and CD3. Jellyfin creates three album groupings, one for each disc sub-folder but one is called 'Disc 3' at the top, next has no disc #, the third has 'Disc 2'. Weird!

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Edit: I removed the Album Art folders from my test albums. Removed the whole music library. Recreated / reimported and still the same outcome.

[TheDreadPirate]

I found a multi-disc album in my library that didn't get labeled properly. Disc 1 does not have a disc number designation, but disc 2 is listed properly. Ultimately I had to manually edit the metadata to get it right, even though I ran my entire library through Musicbrainz Picard for auto tagging.

[mellowjello]

Literally all my multi-disc albums have done that same thing. Interesting point here... one thing i've done before importing my content is turn off all Jellyfin's auto-tagging agents for that music library. My music has already been carefully tagged and it's fine in every other manager I use.

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Edit: I think I misunderstood, you were talking about your music tags having been applied outside of JF? If you look at the metadata on those tracks you fixed, what are the Disc # and Total Discs ID3 field names? Also, is there some reference guide detailing what embedded ID3 tag names JF is expecting / looking for?

[TheDreadPirate]

When you make changes to the metadata of a file in Jellyfin, AFAIK, it never applies it to the file. Not that it could on my setup since Jellyfin has read-only access to my files.

[mellowjello]

Same, after tangling with Microsoft's Windows Media Player mess years ago I never give anything write. When I click '...' > Edit Metadata on an album I see nothing relating to Disc # or Total Discs. What field/s did you update?

[TheDreadPirate]

You have to edit metadata for each song.  The disc and track number will be in there.

   

[mellowjello]

All my 2 and 3 disc albums have the correct disc numbers being reported in Jellyfin's 'Edit Metadata' form for each track. Yet they're still grouped into separate albums and the disc numbering behaviour is as follows... With a 2 disc album, Disc 1 will be blank, Disc 2 will be shown at the top. With a three disk album, Disc 1 is blank, Discs 2 and 3 will be shown. Aside from the fact that all the discs are grouped into duplicate albums, it's always Disc 1 which is blank. All my albums are tagged consistently for disk numbering. Something strange going on here. Given that i've never seen this behaviour before with many different media managers, I suspect JF is doing something odd.