I use Plex as a server and I manage my tags by manually updating them with mp3tag. I have a Plex music library configured to prefer local tags, and to use genre info from local tags as well.
I use id3v2.4 format and multiple GENRE tags in each file.
For one specific artist, I have 3 albums, with all the tracks in the first album having 2 GENRE tags “Doom Metal” and “Alternative Rock”, and the tracks in another 2 albums having 2 GENRE tags “Alternative Rock” and “Slowcore” (the artist changed his style significantly after the first album).
Everything is configured correctly on the server side, and in the Plex web UI I can see all 3 tags under Genres on this artist page (Alternative Rock, Slowcore, Doom Metal). However, on the artist page in Symfonium I see only 2 genres (Alternative Rock, Slowcore).
I can see the Doom Metal in the list of Genres in Symfonium, so it’s not completely ignored. But when I click it, I only see a reference to the first album of this artist, and no artist reference. And if I click Alternative Rock or Slowcore, I can see both the artist reference and the album references.
It looks strange, is it a bug, or is it made like that intentionally? It might be an oversight, or it might be some logic in the code that assigns a genre to an artist only if some specific conditions are met (like the genre is used in more than xx% tracks by this artist, etc), or even limits the number of genres to only 2 per artist (?). Anyway, it would be great if it could be chaged, it’s quite inconvenient for some artists who changed their style over the course of their career and played in multiple genres.
Symfonium displays the data that the provider sends.
As you can see Plex only returns 2 genres. No idea where it gets the third one.
{
"ratingKey": "5734",
"key": "/library/metadata/5734/children",
"guid": "plex://artist/5d07bd86403c6402905f73ff",
"type": "artist",
"title": "40 Watt Sun",
"summary": "London-based 40 Watt Sun are a British doom metal power trio led by former Blistering Anal Sun and Warning guitarist, songwriter, and vocalist Pat Walker; drummer/percussionist Christian Leitch, former guitarist of the River and ex-kit man of the defunct Warning; and bassist William Spong, who is well known as a producer and engineer. The trio's music is characterized by its low-end downtuned distorted guitars, thickly layered tom-tom and kick drums, snail-like tempos, and introspective, poetic lyrics delivered through Walker's trademark natural and reflective vocals. 40 Watt Sun played their first gig supporting Wake at London's Scream Club in 2009. They cut their debut album, Inside Room, for Cyclone over three days and nights in late 2010; it was released in England and the rest of Europe during March, and in the United States during July. ~ Thom Jurek",
"index": 1,
"thumb": "/library/metadata/5734/thumb/1754497966",
"addedAt": 1754497845,
"updatedAt": 1754497966,
"Image": [
{
"alt": "40 Watt Sun",
"type": "coverPoster",
"url": "/library/metadata/5734/thumb/1754497966"
}
],
"UltraBlurColors": {
"topLeft": "1d3507",
"topRight": "3e6c14",
"bottomRight": "416b16",
"bottomLeft": "2b2623"
},
"Genre": [
{
"tag": "Alternative Rock"
},
{
"tag": "Slowcore"
}
],
"Country": [
{
"tag": "United Kingdom"
}
]
},
This is what I get by using python-plexapi script and calling fetchItem with ID 5734:
<MediaContainer size="1" allowSync="1" identifier="com.plexapp.plugins.library" librarySectionID="9" librarySectionTitle="Music2" librarySectionUUID="560e713a-1faa-44b7-836d-4b12623521ca" mediaTagPrefix="/system/bundle/media/flags/" mediaTagVersion="1754678086">
<Directory ratingKey="5734" key="/library/metadata/5734/children" guid="plex://artist/5d07bd86403c6402905f73ff" type="artist" title="40 Watt Sun" librarySectionTitle="Music2" librarySectionID="9" librarySectionKey="/library/sections/9" summary="London-based 40 Watt Sun are a British doom metal power trio led by former Blistering Anal Sun and Warning guitarist, songwriter, and vocalist Pat Walker; drummer/percussionist Christian Leitch, former guitarist of the River and ex-kit man of the defunct Warning; and bassist William Spong, who is well known as a producer and engineer. The trio's music is characterized by its low-end downtuned distorted guitars, thickly layered tom-tom and kick drums, snail-like tempos, and introspective, poetic lyrics delivered through Walker's trademark natural and reflective vocals. 40 Watt Sun played their first gig supporting Wake at London's Scream Club in 2009. They cut their debut album, Inside Room, for Cyclone over three days and nights in late 2010; it was released in England and the rest of Europe during March, and in the United States during July. ~ Thom Jurek" index="1" lastViewedAt="1754525433" thumb="/library/metadata/5734/thumb/1754497966" addedAt="1754497845" updatedAt="1754497966">
<Image alt="40 Watt Sun" type="coverPoster" url="/library/metadata/5734/thumb/1754497966" />
<UltraBlurColors topLeft="1d3507" topRight="3e6c14" bottomRight="416b16" bottomLeft="2b2623" />
<Genre id="32928" filter="genre=32928" tag="Alternative Rock" />
<Genre id="32931" filter="genre=32931" tag="Slowcore" />
<Genre id="32932" filter="genre=32932" tag="Doom Metal" />
<Country id="546" filter="country=546" tag="United Kingdom" />
<Style id="4350" filter="style=4350" tag="Doom Metal" />
<Style id="2005" filter="style=2005" tag="Alternative Metal" />
<Style id="1022" filter="style=1022" tag="Heavy Metal" />
<Guid id="mbid://24c841f0-d058-439a-8afb-766e2b7d0e7a" />
<Mood id="633" filter="mood=633" tag="Intense" />
<Mood id="996" filter="mood=996" tag="Literate" />
<Mood id="767" filter="mood=767" tag="Bleak" />
<Mood id="1130" filter="mood=1130" tag="Uncompromising" />
<Mood id="2985" filter="mood=2985" tag="Elegiac" />
<Mood id="1374" filter="mood=1374" tag="Yearning" />
<Mood id="1483" filter="mood=1483" tag="Brooding" />
<Mood id="3827" filter="mood=3827" tag="Weary" />
<Mood id="1401" filter="mood=1401" tag="Dark" />
<Mood id="1480" filter="mood=1480" tag="Wintry" />
<Location path="D:\Music2\40 Watt Sun" />
</Directory>
</MediaContainer>
As far as I can understand, this is the raw output from the Plex server API call. You can see that all 3 Genre items are present in the output, so not sure where the difference between this script output and Symfonium log comes from. If you can suggest how to debug this case better, I can try it.
Yes, it’s weird - indeed the Plex server returns only 2 genres when listing the whole Artist directory, I guess they have a hardcoded limit for this API call or something like that. Knowing how Plex support works, I doubt it will be fixed anytime soon, or ever. But anyway, thank you for taking your time to look into this.
I also noticed that the Plex server doesn’t return any Style or Mood tags in this case (when you’re listing the whole Artist directory and not getting individual artist info using their IDs). That’s probably the reason why I don’t see any Style info on the Artist page is Symfonium, even when I enable this information in the app settings. I sent you an e-mail about this before I registered here, but I think you can ignore it now, the cause of this issue looks clear.
An example with the same artist, this is what returned as a part of the whole Artist directory:
<Directory ratingKey="5734" key="/library/metadata/5734/children" guid="plex://artist/5d07bd86403c6402905f73ff" type="artist" title="40 Watt Sun" summary="London-based 40 Watt Sun are a British doom metal power trio" index="1" lastViewedAt="1754525433" thumb="/library/metadata/5734/thumb/1754497966" addedAt="1754497845" updatedAt="1754497966">
<Image alt="40 Watt Sun" type="coverPoster" url="/library/metadata/5734/thumb/1754497966" />
<UltraBlurColors topLeft="1d3507" topRight="3e6c14" bottomRight="416b16" bottomLeft="2b2623" />
<Genre tag="Alternative Rock" />
<Genre tag="Slowcore" />
<Country tag="United Kingdom" />
</Directory>
And this is what returned for an API call to get a specific artist info:
The difference is clear, the first method returns limited information compared to the second one. I wonder if you’d like to slightly redesign your artist sync code in order to overcome Plex server limitations? As you’re not only missing some part of Genre info here, but all the Style and Mood info too.
OK, understood. I wanted to keep using Plex as I’m also using it for my movies/shows collection, but it looks like it’s too limiting for music (and many features are paywalled). What would you recommend to use as a media server with Symfonium? With the best possible tag support (multiple genres, multiple artists, etc). I checked Navidrome and Lightweight Media Server and frankly their web UI leaves a lot to be desired, but if the server features are good I might switch from Plex. And any other recommendations are also welcome.
