WiiM Amp USB Album Artist / Compilation issue

[Djinn]

Yet the browse hierarchy appears to be fine. Could you browse the Ultra with BubbleUPnP/mconnect to confirm?

Here you go, a little video showing the discovery of the USB disk contents. As you can see, only one album is displayed (ok), whose artist is the same artist as the first track (Nat King Cole).

5.2.703434 mentions changes related to the APE format. It might be worth converting Absolute Unforgettable to APE to see what happens!

This issue also occurred with tracks in APE format. The format has nothing to do with this issue.

I would appreciate it if you could help me with this problem by telling WiiM Support all the details you have found out, so that they will have less difficulties in solving it.

Thanks a lot for your efforts.

 

[simbun]

All tracks are in FLAC format. The format has nothing to do with this issue.

What I meant was, by implementing changes for APE they could have broken compatibility with other formats.
If APE works then we have our smoking gun

 

[Djinn]

What I meant was, by implementing changes for APE they could have broken compatibility with other formats.
If APE works then we have our smoking gun

Noo, please re-read the end of my post, I have edited it. The issue is present with BOTH formats (I tried both), it has nothing to do with the track format.

Please keep me posted with any news. Thank you.

 

[goodmore]

I use the same music files on different usb sticks for my cars. They all read differently. The ball was dropped years ago on standardization.

 

[WiiM Team]

Hi All,

We’ll resolve this issue this month by implementing alternative solutions to index the albums on the USB. Stay tuned for updates!

 

[Big Greg]

Hi All,

We’ll resolve this issue this month by implementing alternative solutions to index the albums on the USB. Stay tuned for updates!

saves me logging an issue as well, been doing my head in...

 

[simbun]

Hi All,

We’ll resolve this issue this month by implementing alternative solutions to index the albums on the USB. Stay tuned for updates!

Hi @WiiM Team,

Whilst it's great that you've acknowleged the problem, "alternative solutions" doesn't fill me with any confidence - unless you mean an alternative to the current, which is the previous.

The members of this forum have a wealth of experience, so feel free to tap into it.

 

[d6jg]

As this is confirmed as a MiniDLNA issue whatever workaround WiiM come up with will be just that - a workaround.

I don't understand why people think the WiiM implementation can ever be expected to do all the things that a proper separate Music Server will do at the drop of a hat. It was, after all, something of an afterthought.

IMHO there is a very large risk that by trying to be all things to all men WiiM will take their eye off their real point of differentation - the low cost but high quality physical streamer with DSP, EQ etc.

IMO WiiM should cease trying to make their MiniDLNA implementation any better than it is now. Say that they are doing so and point people towards a proper solution if they want local music file streaming. There are plenty of far better solutions. Just my 2p.

 

[simbun]

As this is confirmed as a MiniDLNA issue whatever workaround WiiM come up with will be just that - a workaround.

This is a bug that WiiM have introduced.

The current "solution" uses the Artist tag instead of the AlbumArtist tag to group albums - or the WHA interface does, not the external one.

 

[d6jg]

This is a bug that WiiM have introduced.

The current "solution" uses the Artist tag instead of the AlbumArtist tag to group albums - or the WHA interface does, not the external one.

I stand corrected but my overall point remains.

 

[Djinn]

IMO WiiM should cease trying to make their MiniDLNA implementation any better than it is now. Say that they are doing so and point people towards a proper solution if they want local music file streaming. There are plenty of far better solutions. Just my 2p.

I disagree, because the goal of the WiiM development team is, if I am not mistaken, to create an all-in-one product that is as easy to use as possible without having to use third party solutions (other music servers). In my case, I bought the WiiM Ultra so I wouldn't have to install Lyrion Music Server on a computer (yes, I don't want to depend on having a computer or a Raspberry Pi on 24/7).

I think the modifications the engineering team has to make will be very minor: for example, it could give preference to the Album Artist / AlbumArtist fields in the Album View of the app when any of these fields contain a value other than an empty string on all tracks, and then it should show as the artist of the compilation the value of one of these fields instead of the artist of the first track of the compilation as it happens now when browsing the content of a USB disk through the DLNA protocol with an app like BubbleUPnP.

My 2 cents.

 

[Djinn]

Hi All,

We’ll resolve this issue this month by implementing alternative solutions to index the albums on the USB. Stay tuned for updates!

Thank you very much indeed, but please make sure that the solution you are going to implement shows the value of the ALBUMARTIST or ALBUM ARTIST field when the album is a compilation of several artists instead of showing the artist of the first track of the album as it happens now when browsing an USB disk through DLNA.

 

[Burnside]

I’m with @d6jg on this - as he and I have often said, the use of the USB media server is best suited to more modest, static libraries for the less demanding user. If you want flexible media management for a larger dynamic music repository, you really should look at a NAS and a media server such as those often mentioned in the forum. YMMV of course..

 

[Steve Woodhouse]

I don't understand why people think the WiiM implementation can ever be expected to do all the things that a proper separate Music Server will do at the drop of a hat. It was, after all, something of an afterthought.

So, playing devil's advocate for a second.

What can a 'proper music server' do, that most people would commonly use, that the WiiM can't?

 

[Burnside]

So, playing devil's advocate for a second.

What can a 'proper music server' do, that most people would commonly use, that the WiiM can't?

I think that was gone over (and over ) on the folder browsing thread. A link to that should suffice

 

[simbun]

So, playing devil's advocate for a second.

What can a 'proper music server' do, that most people would commonly use, that the WiiM can't?

Stop asking the same questions over and over folder boy

Ignoring the current issues, WiiM's indexing is no worse than that of Sonos, and they were doing ok.

 

[Burnside]

Stop asking the same questions over and over folder boy

Ignoring the current issues, WiiM's indexing is no worse than that of Sonos, and they were doing ok.

Indexing for the Sonos market about sums it up

 

[Steve Woodhouse]

I think that was gone over (and over ) on the folder browsing thread. A link to that should suffice

I think it was all a bit ad hoc, I was thinking of a more definitive explanation.

Is there anything more than 'extra tags'? I mean what this latest thread looks like is that WiiM only uses one tag for artist and album artist, but they're hoping to split that.

Anything else? Or just that sort of thing? Or something completely different?

 

[d6jg]

Probably the biggest advantage is the fact that you don't need to remove the USB stick to add more music and can schedule an automatic reindexing on an overnight basis. After that it is all about the flexibility of being able to view and search your library in multiple different ways that you simply cannot achieve with simple folders or the basic options presented by MiniDLNA - yes there are occasions when folder view is the most optimal. Advanced queue management is also an often overlooked benefit.

 

[Steve Woodhouse]

Probably the biggest advantage is the fact that you don't need to remove the USB stick to add more music and can schedule an automatic reindexing on an overnight basis. After that it is all about the flexibility of being able to view and search your library in multiple different ways that you simply cannot achieve with simple folders or the basic options presented by MiniDLNA - yes there are occasions when folder view is the most optimal. Advanced queue management is also an often overlooked benefit.

Cheers, that's what I thought.

It's important to ask, otherwise you might miss things ; there could have been a golden vat of functionality I was missing out on.

You're right, of course. Plugging and unplugging the drive is a pain. Fortunately, it's not something I need to do too regularly.

As for the extra searching, I can certainly see how it looks great on paper. I presume the added flexibility is that you can search something completely bespoke like reggae tracks lasting between 3m30s and 4m00s from May 1975, or something. Is that just about it?