I’m wondering if anyone has come across this or would know why I’m left with a question mark next to the artist/title after adding it to the downloads folder in the Uniti Core- never happened before!
Was the ? there before you put the file in the Core folder? If so, you should be able to delete it. I can’t imagine the Core would have added it to a download.
No- not there at all. What’s weird about this is that I put seven releases in the downloads folder- had just pulled them down from Bandcamp. Out of the seven three showed up in the Core’s album list perfectly, as they should. The other four all have the “?” after the artist name- both when looking at the album artwork and when looking at it after selecting it to play. I’ve gone back into the download folder to look for any inconsistencies and can’t find anything different from the way other files are set up.
Are you looking at the metadata, or the artists folder name? I assume the rogue ? is in the metadata.
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In another world* - I occasionally get this when the OS doesn’t have a way to display a character or symbol in a filename or metadata entry. I suspect there is a rogue character at the end of the artists name that is causing this. If you use a metadata tag editor you can check and remove the offending character (I found it is often a CR carriage return). Paid-for downloads often have poor metadata. DGP
(*my environment is Mac, Melco, MinimServer, Audirvana, Metadatics - you mileage may vary)
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This is almost definitely the cause - a character in the netadata which the core doesn’t like. Other servers would simply strip and not display if it’s something like a carriage return or trailing Unicode space.
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I was in the downloads folder- and what everyone is saying makes sense now. I downloaded these files and dropped them into the folder as usual. When they came up in the Core interface each entry was a mile long. Each showed as “Artist-album-song number-song title” stretching across the page. I opened the downloads folder from the computer and stripped it away for appearance sake. It sounds like I need to go back and check for carriage returns? Strange how a blank space could muck this up.
@DGP @IainO - Thank you for providing insight here! It looks like I’m going to have to study where I went wrong with my editing. Is this typically an artist name thing or could it be there are others now lurking in the song info areas as well? I’ve edited downloads before but have never had this pesky ? show up.
Just pick one of the ? albums. Open up the metadata and check every item. You’ll doubtless find a funny character somewhere.
Unbelievable!
As suggested I go back to the confuser to see if I can find the odd character in the downloads folder. In each case of the ? appearing I found a “blank space” at the end of the artist name. After a few clicks and a refresh of the app the problem was solved. Unbelievable- a blank space, why does it care?
Thanks again to everyone for pointing me in right direction here!
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In computing terms there are multiple ways of “encoding” a space.
They all look the same but under the hood are different.
Obviously the Core didn’t like the “space” in your metadata.
Glad you got to the bottom of the problem quickly!
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