I have found there is a limit on the length of the path+filename in Asset.
Had everything working really well and decided to change my directory structure (folder structure) from
/share/…/Multimedia
to
/share/…/Multimedia/Music
Basically ran a new scan and everything worked really well. So number of tracks increased but then dropped to zero.
Eventually found the total path length was too long. Max seems to be about 340 characters.
[If anyone is madly interested the problem was …
/share/…/Multimedia/Classical/Beethoven/Piano Sonatas/Complete/…etc…
and then it descends into Performers, disk1, Sonatas, movements…etc
By dropping off the first name of a performer {Stephen Bishop Kovasivich in the named sonatas, like Appassionata, all was well. I got the really long names when I ripped the CD years ago}.]
Have you tried creating a symlink to the directory instead and pointing Asset to that? i.e. structure your directories however you like but then just do something simple like
ln -s /share/blahblahblah/music /home/asset/music
And point Asset to that instead.If really struggling for length, you could even link it simple to something like /m .
I suspect the table Asset has in the internal database has a 340 byte length column on the path. I’m sure if you raise a bug with them it’s fixable in a future release.
Thanks to both of you for the suggestions. Here are my comments …
a) Setting up a link would fix stuff but I had no idea what the problem was. Asset started scanning, found 2000 tracks, I went to bed, and in the morning had 0 tracks. I would like a message saying “file+path too long”
b) A max size of 250 or 350 chars is not a problem for me. It’s just when I ripped a particular CD it produced a really long name. In fact the name was unreadable on the naim app since it has to scroll through it.
I have been using Asset for years (previously used logitec media server) and basically just access stuff through “Directory and Filename Browsing”. If I want Karajan I go to Classical/Beethoven…etc
and end up with his version of the symphonies. I never search by artist, group etc. Just go down through the directory tree.
Now that I know the limitations on file length I can deal with it.
Thanks again.
Hmm. A bit curious… the meta data displayed in the Naim app is not necessarily linked to the directory file structure of your content.
You could have a very simple file structure, but you include rich meta data in your tracks such as composer, conductor etc and your browse tree is set up based on that rather than the directory structure. Asset creates that meta data browse structure in its database. Asset allows you to create custom browse trees to suit taste and content, it’s really very flexible. Browse Tree is under the advanced tab on Asset, though the default browse tree is quite good.
So you see UPnP browsing depth and structure doesn’t have to align to directory structure. I use a very simple file structure on my NAS… of Artist, album Name, track… I structure that way to make it convenient to maintain should I need to. My UPnP browsing on my Naim app doesn’t correlate to that, and I can search and browse on many criteria.
If you turn on Asset logging you will see what errors there are and you can pin point the issue. But strongly recommend keep directory structures simple and use the meta data for browsing. You switch logging on under the Troubleshooting tab on Asset.
It might be an issue both ways though if the filename is very long and the metadata is derived from the file structure. That’s pretty normal in terms of organisation where, within the primary share directory, you then have artist, album, and track. And then use dbpoweramp to build the ID3 tags based on the above.
I believe this brushes up against the issues some people have cataloguing classical music. Manual massaging of both file name and metadata may be required to get something that the server, app, and user are all happy with.
Yeah you shouldn’t really use a file and directory structure based on your browse directory structure in UPnP., you kind of defeating the purpose of the meta data database that quality UPnP servers like Asset provide. We are not in the early 2000s anymore
Anyway computer directory structures are not designed to support that sort of rich embedded metadata structures, so you will run out of resources quite quickly if you have very long file structures… and that is perhaps what is happening… the Asset logs will confirm. The author of Asset has recommended not to exceed 200 characters, and has provided a script for his DBPoweramp ripping software, I copied above, which forces this. This is why most UPnP servers have their own database that they build when scanning,
With Asset you can create rich cataloguing structures for classical music, and any music for that matter, using its database… including your custom tags if you wish… but that necessarily bears little similarity to the computer directory structure. It works well. I can search on many attributes in my reasonable classical music collection… as long as I have put in the right metadata.
If you use the products as they are designed to be used, you almost certainly won’t have any issues, even for super complex browsing trees should you wish.
On the contrary, I find nothing beats being able to manually address the files for admin like a simple directory tree and it makes adding the metadata for things largely automated. I’m in a pretty bad mood once I have to manually adjust the ID3 tags.
You can of course do everything by ID3 tags alone and stuff all the files in a single directory or batches of directories, but then your file management has to be done through other tools and software because arbitrary file and directory names is unworkable since browsing the tree in a file manager or command line is no longer meaningful.
I’m a big believer in ID3 tags for the server, but a logical directory structure for me. Either way, EAC doesn’t write ID3 tags so you absolutely must use a meaningful structure if you then want dbpoweramp’s ID3 plugin to generate the tags for you.
Here are some comments …
a) I started with a squeezbox and used EAC and put everything into directories. So …/Popular/Pink Floyd/DSOTM
b) Moved to dbPoweramp
c) Got an NDX and Asset and had to get help to turn on “Filename Browsing” in the settings.
d) After that was quite happy but changed from …/Popular to …/Music/Popular and it stopped working [I have other stuff on the QNAP and did not like to see non music directories when browsing]
e) The problem was the following …
./Classical/Beethoven/Piano Sonatas - Complete/Beethoven - Complete Piano Sonatas - Bishop-Kovacevich/Beethoven; Piano Sonatas - disk 04 - 12 [Funeral March], 13 [Quasi una fantasia], 14 [Moonlight] and 15 [Pastoral]/Stephen Bishop Kovacevich - 08 - Piano Sonata No. 12 in A flat major (‘'‘Funeral March’'’), Op. 26; 3. Marcia funebre sulla mort.flac
f) Once I figured out the problem I just renamed things and it was OK.
g) The really long name was produced by (I think) dbPowermap rather than EAC
h) I accept the idea of putting everything into a single directory but I don’t trust the metadata. If I want Pink Floyd its …/Popular/Pink Floyd/…
But if I want Beethoven with Karajan no idea how the metadata will work. I just go …/Classical/Beethoven/Symphonies Complete/Karajanxx (I have three different versions from different years).
Ahh so that is where I would compromise. I utterly hate manual tag editing but it needs to be done for compilations and classical music.
I let EAC place in folders of simply [artist]/[album]/[track No.] [title] and then dbpoweramp creates tags from that and all browsing in Asset is based on the tags, not the directory structure. The structure is for me. This works for about 99% of my collection. I don’t worry about year and genre. They can be tag only added later. I don’t need that for managing things at the file level.
But then I need to manually add new tags to cope with classical music and compilations. There are separate ID3 tags available for Composer, Orchestra, Key etc. And I really detest this but it is not often. This is also where metadata services (and I used to pay for access to a couple) still let you down as they can create non standard tags that aren’t how Asset is sorting the rest of your collection, or more likely, cannot find any tags for your rare release at all.
Yes I wouldn’t put in a single folder, that makes it hard to manually administer, I put in composer-band-artist name-name of album,/track name.
Compilation alnums use the composer-band name of ‘various’
I use meta data tags for everything else so I can browse and search on what ever way I want in UPnP. You can create custom tags in Dbpoweramp, you could create a tag ‘alternate name’ and fill with values like Karajan, Funereal March, Wedding March, Eroica etc… so when searching you can select composer, or orchestra, then ‘alternate name’ and you will the album versions you have.
The supporting file structure could be simply composer/album name/track number…
I am starting to get a better idea of how asset is supposed to work. I should really use the metadata rather than the filesystem to access stuff.
But a lot of my metadata will be in a very bad state. I started ripping CD’s when EAC did not have any sort of metadata add-on. So I would get Track01, Track02 etc. and rename them. I was using WAV at the time but eventually converted to FLAC. Some of these early files will only contain tags for ALBUM-NAME, TRACK-NAME and TRACK-NUMBER. I also had problems with obscure albums that EAC did not recognise, and some CD’s that a friend made for me by digitising some of my LP’s. Again these files will be missing a lot of metadata. (Occasionally when using EAC and its metadata I would get listings in French or Spanish). Lastly, when I started using dbPoweramp I was not particularly careful distinguishing between ALBUM-ARTIST, TRACK_ARTIST etc. In the case of Beethoven/Karajan the ARTIST could be Beethoven, Karajan or Berlin Philharmonic.
Initially I tried to make my storage an exact copy of the CD’s on my shelves. So Beethoven Symphonies would be CD1, CD2 etc. Later I changed the names to “CD1 - Symphonies 1, 5” etc. Later still I split the Symphonies up into 9 files (Symphony 1, Symphony 2 etc). I did the opposite with Mahler and combined maybe two CD’s into one directory when a symphony was spread over 2 CD’s.
I think I am probably stuck with my present setup unless I go back and rip everything again. At the moment all my J.S. Bach recordings are in …/Classical/Bach. I don’t have any stuff by his sons but if I had I would put it into a new directory called (say) Bach, J.C.
With compilation albums I either put it under Classical/Compilations or, if I bought it for a particular work, I put it under the composer of that work.
Thanks for the suggestions. But I won’t rush into anything. I will investigate the dbPoweramp batch processor but I think it would have to match the *.flac files I already have against its various databases rather than just load in metadata based on the filenames etc.
I think the dbPoweramp company already has a separate application to do that called PerfectTunes. I ran the trial version basically looking for Album Art and it did not improve things for me (It shows you what it can do but you can’t save it).
At the moment I am quite happy that I have things working again. Changing from /share/…/Multimedia to /share…/Multimedia/Music stopped everything working. Once I figured out it was a filename+pathlength that was too long and changed it everything is working again.
It’s annoying that asset starts a scan and increases the track count and then (when I get up in the morning) it has gone to zero but with no error message.
I am able to dump the tags from a file, edit them and reload them but it’s really tedious.
Anyway thanks again but for the moment I will just investigate options.
Yes, this is whete you need patience editing and curating… or use something like Roon.
So there is nothing in its log file where you would expect such error messages? If that is the case you might have found a bug, and worth contacting the author.
This is my reaction to hitting even one compilation or non standard album that just makes me need to manually do metadata for one disc:
I might feel differently once I retire.
When I was getting the problems I did not know there was a logfile I could check so I did not see any errors. Since I shortened some of the file names everything is working again.
