You need to enter your original purchase reference into the Illustrate website - I always find the relevant place tricky to find - and download the latest file. Then go into Asset on the Qnap and you will see an update option. Navigate to the file you’ve just downloaded and install it. It’s very easy. The Illustrate website has the instructions too.
Thanks was able to sort it out with a little hit and miss navigating. Appreciate the responses.
I have the default browse tree and only really use a small fraction of it. Will study the browse tree editing procedure and see if I can figure it out.
I have Asset on my Synology NAS. I found in my setup I had to make sure that any fields that are common to an album are filled in identically (i.e. Year, Album, Artist, Disc No. - even if using ‘&’ or ‘and’ or ‘And’, etc). Having the ‘Album Artist’ field filled in helped as did making sure the album cover image was identical across all tracks.
I used a combination the BlissHQ app running on my NAS to identify issues (note the scanning is free but you pay for fixes) and EasyTAG (a Linux app) tag editor mainly for the bulk fixes (like assigning a Genre or Album Artist to an artist across multiple albums at once). I’ve also used MP3Tag on Windows in the past and it’s also very good.
It can seem a time-consuming exercise to correct all the tags, but worth it and only has to be done once.
That is a fair comment. I did have lots of problems with other server apps until I installed MinimServer but I agree that consistent tagging (I too use mp3tag) is the logical first step.
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It’s not Minim or Asset or whatever media server, all will have these problems if the metadata is incorrect or incomplete.
The OP needs to focus on the CD rip software and the metadata
The albums wound up on my PC by various means; my CDs copied via Itunes so I could play them on my Ipod in the car and on holiday, purchased FLAC files from CD Baby, rips from UTube. All tracks and albums play perfectly using the Naim app and the UPnP that came with windows 10 EXCEPT that all album tracks play in alphabetical order not in the order on the original album. If I play straight from the PC and do not use UPnP they play in the correct sequence. It was suggested that Windows UPnP was poor and that Asset UPnP might solve the problem - as currently configured Asset has multiplied the problem. One odd thing is that when Asset first begins to scan my PC music library it works perfectly. Only after several thousand tracks are scanned do the problems occur.
I have now configured Asset exactly as Paul _C suggested 2 days ago and I am rescanning the library
I hope it does the trick but like many I think the tags/metadata may be the issue. I await your update.
Sorry but I have no idea how to check tags/ metadata
OK Step by step -
- Do you use a Windows or Mac PC.
- What did you use to rip the albums? (if you used dBpoweramp you will have ID-Tag editor).
Windows 10. Most tracked were ripped with ITunes, some with Anyburn and some are downloads.
Downloads in many cases have poor or no tags. I don’t know Anyburn’s or iTunes’s tag quality, but your description suggests that tag quality may be all over the plac - “The albums wound up on my PC by various means; my CDs copied via Itunes so I could play them on my Ipod in the car and on holiday, purchased FLAC files from CD Baby, rips from UTube”.
In any case you should check the tags as has been suggested before, using e.g. the Musicbrainz Picard or mp3tag software.
Well that’s a different result! Asset counted up to some some 14000 tracks then displayed “counting albums” before displaying 0 tracks, 0 albums. Naim app plays nothing. Clearly changing the Asset parameters had an effect although not the right one.
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Are the albums stored on the PC?
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Is each album stored in a separate folder on the PC?
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Using Windows File Explorer go to a album folder (choosing an album that is not working properly) and display the files (the music tracks) for the folder/album. You can change the columns at the top to show the important tags esp, “Album”. See example.
You can also right-click on a track and select Properties/then Audio properties.
These are the tags/metadata. Can you see anything strange/suspect? A downloaded file/folder might be a good comparison. -
You will then need an editor to change/correct tags that are wrong/missing.
(if you click on the examples you will see them more clearly).
- Clearly you have issues with the background of your files.
I suggest you try Musicbrainz Picard software as this will sort out the tags for you.
see MusicBrainz Picard
MP3Tag (which is highly rated) requires knowledge of tags which you say you do not have. - You could also set up a test server on your PC and copy a couple of downloaded folders, point Asset at the test folders and see what you get. Working with 50 files is much easier and quicker than 14,000.
- BEFORE YOU START MODIFYING YOUR MUSIC FILES MAKE SURE YOU HAVE AN UPTODATE BACKUP.
- Make sure you keep restarting your Naim App to pickup the latest indexes.
The albums are on the PC in a folder called music. The following example is in a sub-folder called FLAC.
This is the album that I mentioned earlier in the thread when Asset created 13 “albums” out of 1
Two things-
What is the album artist for the album shown (you can add that to the explorer window)?
What folder is asset pointing to for music (in the config settings for the audio library)?
Normally Album and AlbumArtist are the tags that determine “an album”.
Album artist is Adam Nitti. Asset is pointing to the library shown in my last folder. However things have changed somewhat. Asset completely locked up and I ended up deleting and downloading it again. Interesting results; some albums are perfect, some albums are playing in alphabetical order only, some albums are displaying with each track as a separate album. On 1 album track 1 is duplicated as track 2 and all other tracks play correctly but there are now 11 tracks on the album not 10. Some album artwork is incorrect but most are fine. Look at the photos - 3 different pieces
of artwork for the same piece of music! Time to lie down in a dark room…
I have some iTunes rips in my library and asset handled them fine. I’m assuming you’ve kept the same artist/album folder format that iTunes used. It sounds like you have some work ahead of you cleaning up meta data. As others have said, dbpoweramp is the way to go.