Does anyone know for certain just how the Core lists albums in the ‘Newest Music’ field…?
I, perhaps naively, presumed it would be a ‘Date Added’ tag that the Core applies (whether it be a rip or an import) and failing that then logically the Creation Date of the files…
But doesn’t seem to be…
I had a bunch of downloads residing on one of my Macs that I realised I hadn’t put onto the Core…So promptly dropped them into Downloads, did a bit of metadata editing etc and left as be…A little while later I went to browse and check all was OK – I use the ‘Newest Music’ tag a fair bit to browse music to play (reminds me of what I have recently added! ) and couldn’t see the recent additions at the top of the list…sure enough, they were all at the bottom of the list, as if they were the ‘oldest’ …In my mind they should go at the top as ‘recently added’ but didn’t seem as though this was the case…So I then checked the actual file dates, and they were recent and the actual dates that the import happened i.e as the Core copies in the files to the Download folder, new creation date is created…So neither of these seemed to be the criteria that the Core uses in the Newest Music…
I wondered if the Mac was reading the Unix creation date but that the Core was using some other data that was contained within the files, but what…? Tried a number of applications to try and see any other embedded info (as well as all the metadata tags) but nothing obvious…
Searched the forum for any similar posts and there was one with very similar observation, though no real solution found…A suggestion by @JonoB mentioned renaming the ‘folder’ that the files were in would likely reindex the Core, so I thought I’d give that a test on a couple of the albums…Took a little while, but sure enough, this does work and brought the albums in question up to the top of the list…Great.
But there’s still oddness. One of the albums didn’t come up to the top of the list – it did move from the bottom, but didn’t go to the top along with the other albums where I renamed the folders (and then renamed back again), it settled somewhere about 1/3 way up the list…for seemingly no apparent reason!?
So just trying to establish just what IS the criteria that the Core is using to filter the ‘Newest Music’ list…? All CD rips are accurate, exactly in the order as the ripping has been done (I guess due to the Core directly creating the files/folders) but there seems something a bit flakey with the Downloads folder…?
It’s not a huge deal I guess, though I do find the Newest Music list useful, but I’d just like to understand what is perhaps going on so I can potentially work around it…
If the Core simply went by a self-generated Date Added tag, that would be the solid solution, but it doesn’t seem to (for the Download folder anyway)…
I’ll have a look tomorrow. I suspect that it’s using file creation or modification date, not metadata. For example, I’ve got albums that have been on a share (not store) that is accessible to my core, and changing the folder name an album is in (after posting metadata within the album) will often re-index the album to the top of the list.
I’ll update In the morning after I’ve had a play around
It’s definitely not metadata based, i.e album DATE tag or ALBUM_YEAR… (when I wrote ‘metadata’ in my OP I was meaning re any additional embedded data re file creation dates etc that the Mac may not be reading as per it’s normal ‘File Info’)
AS I said, changing the parent (artist) folder name did trigger a re-index…But whilst it did bring most to the top of the list, it wasn’t 100%…SO I feel there’s something else going on…Or, a bug is at play…!
changed the name of a folder (that was second in the “newest music” list). The album stayed in
second position in the “newest music” list. Note that changing the folder name didn’t change any of the file details (last modified date, creation date etc).
I edited and saved the metadata of the same album. This meant that the “last modified” date for each of the files changed to today’s date. The album shifted to the top of the list
You need to give the Core a few minutes to spot the differences in the file details before the changes will be visible. I find that switching between metadata views in the Naim app (from newest music to artists or albums) is helpful, as it rebuilds the list of albums or artists from the Core.
Thanks for doing that.
I spent most of yesterday importing old downloads (new to the Core)…Seems a bit weird what happens and is certainly inconsistent…Even if I created a brand new empty folder on the Core and then dragged files into it, that album wouldn’t always necessarily go to the top of ‘Newest’, though sometimes they would!..And from there it tended to be a roll of the dice what seems to actually trigger a re-sort…Sometimes it would be a metadata change and re-saving the files, sometimes this would make no difference…Sometimes it would be renaming the album folder, waiting 5mins, then changing it back…sometimes not…Sometimes it would be the parent folder i.e Artist, change to some made up name, wait for it to re-sort, and then change back again…and fairly often, it had to be a combination of all of those things, often in random order, that would successfully provoke things…!
I had one album that just refused to budge to the top of the list, despite everything (folder names/dates, file save dates, metadata changes etc) being present time…I initially gave up on it, then the following day played around with the folder name yet again – 10 mins later the album shifted to the top of the Newest Music list…!
All seems a bit weird and I can’t seem to nail down a pattern…With a lot of playing around (and elapsing time per album import) I managed to get things to sort in correct ‘date added’ order…It doesn’t help having to wait 5mins or so each and every change, just to see if the Core decides if it will act or not…!
I thought about the Rebuild Database option at times, but seems a bit nuclear just to amend the correct sort order of the Newest Music list, if it would even work…?!
You dead right also re switching around views of Genres, Artist etc in the App…again, this does seem to trigger ‘action’ on the part of the Core at times…though I’m finding you have to flick into different tabs each and every time…It’s like some sort of game!
As an aside, I’ve also discovered something not quite right with the Core’s Genre handling re Sub-genres…If they are ‘layered’ more that two deep i.e ‘Pop/Rock > Alternative/Indie Rock > Dream Pop’
the Core doesn’t seem to display the 3rd genre, it only seems to display the initial sub-genre as a filter in the main genre tab…Which is strange, as the Core itself offers these 2nd (and sometimes 3rd) sub-genres when you rip CDs and add genres from the lists in the App…
) and couldn’t see the recent additions at the top of the list…sure enough, they were all at the bottom of the list, as if they were the ‘oldest’ …In my mind they should go at the top as ‘recently added’ but didn’t seem as though this was the case…So I then checked the actual file dates, and they were recent and the actual dates that the import happened i.e as the Core copies in the files to the Download folder, new creation date is created…So neither of these seemed to be the criteria that the Core uses in the Newest Music…
