iPod 5G + Database problem

[Toxikator]

Why does Database think it's so much smarter than me?

I have a recurring problem with Rockbox; it's not that the database gets "stuck", because when I put on new tracks it finds them right away. But whenever I change or update any tags on songs that are already on Rockbox I have to battle the sonofabitch for like 5 hours trying to get it to work.

Case in point, I tagged a bunch of songs (accidentally) with track numbers (it was a multi-disc, so the track numbers caused an unwanted ordering of tracks). I put them on rockbox, stupid me, and the realized the issue.

So I attached rockbox to my computer, fired up Foobar, removed all of the track number values; no big deal, right? I've got plenty of tracks w/o number tags and Rockbox just sorts them alphabetically by name. And since these were all named by their Disc and number (to make multiple disc sorting easier) I figured there'd be no problems, right?

hohoho, wrong.  

As usual, Rockbox didn't recognize the changes. It saw NEW tracks that I had added but didn't catch the tag changes.

Okay, so I navigate over to "Update Now", click it, wait patiently for several minutes, power it down, reboot, and lo, nothing has changed.

Okay, so this time I try the initialize database command. Still no luck.

In desperation I attach the iPod to my computer again, enter the .rockbox folder, delete all the database files (except the tagnavi stuff), reopen it, reinitialize the database, and try again.

The reinitialization is successful, it even goes through the "committing database" process, and I enter the album and THE TAGS ARE STILL INCORRECT. COME ON.

I double checked the tracks, there are no tags written into the files. They are DEFINITELY gone.

This happens every time. At this point I triple-check my tracks for tagging errors before adding them to the iPod just to avoid this who goddamn process.

Come on guys. What the hell.

Tox

[Llorean]

Feel free to fix the bug.

Seriously, do NOT "what the hell" at us. It's completely unacceptable.

If you want something fixed, FIX IT. Otherwise, be polite. None of us get paid, and everything we do is in our spare time.

If you know what exactly in the database code causes this behaviour, we'd love to hear it from you so that we can track it down more easily. But consider that we're not getting paid, we don't charge any money for our software, and we do this as a hobby.

I mean, I could be just a clear to you: Why didn't you file a proper bug report with exact steps to replicate it? You're fine with complaining, but you can't even take a few simple steps to either verify that there's an existing bug report and add to it, or file a proper one? Come on guy. What the hell.

[Toxikator]

 

About thrice I wrote out a long response here, but decided there weren't really adequate words.

I apologize for my tone, Llorean, but you've got to admit this is a little ridiculous. It's sort of like "oops, the play button doesn't work". It's not some minute thing with a tedious but feasible workaround. It's an error with the entire file management system that, at this point, I think only a complete reinstall is going to solve. And after about the 9th reboot-reconnect-redelete-reinitialize-re-reboot, my attitute has soured.

  For the record this has been reported, and it's come up in the past, and AFAICT no one ever really got any kind of response at all, short of "delete a bunch of stuff and try again" or "I think it just does that".

even if I pissed you off, at least I maybe called it to someone's attention.  

[Llorean]

We've known about it.

We've told people: The database will NOT properly recognize tag changes.

It doesn't even look for them.

That being said, if you properly delete the database, there are no records of the previous files for Rockbox to know what the old tags were, so if you delete it and re-initialize it (the only way to get it to recognize new tags) it should work.

The database is a nice feature, but it still requires TIME for someone to work on it. And there are FAR more significant bugs, and people will work on what they're interested in anyway.

I don't see how you can say it's "ridiculous." What is ridiculous? Do you even know what part of the code causes the problem? Do you know that it's an easy fix, or that it's even fixable without a huge rewrite? Why is it ridiculous that someone getting paid NO money does what THEY want to do instead of what YOU want them to do? Especially when it's a non-essential feature in question?

Just because you feel the need to use the database doesn't mean you have to. Rockbox works perfectly fine without it.

So while you may feel it's a big deal, as I said, please be respectful of the fact that devs have put in thousands of hours working on this software, and you really have no right to make demands of them, or state that the fact that they haven't fixed the most important bug to you is ridiculous.

Believe me, it will get fixed, but the assumption is that people will properly tag their files. If you want to make sure the new file gets read, move the file entirely off the device, update the database so that the file is missing from it, THEN put the tagged file on the device, and see if that works.

The database is designed with the assumption that your library is properly tagged, because improperly tagged files are rather pointless for databasing anyway. Code to handle poorly tagged files will surely work its way in with time.

[Toxikator]

Okay. I do apologize. Really.

We've known about it.

We've told people: The database will NOT properly recognize tag changes.

It doesn't even look for them.

That being said, if you properly delete the database, there are no records of the previous files for Rockbox to know what the old tags were, so if you delete it and re-initialize it (the only way to get it to recognize new tags) it should work.

Well that's fine... But it doesn't, which is why I'm stumped. I deleted EVERYTHING... all of the database .tcd files, the nvram file, even the tagnavi.config (which I've since had to restore). What else should I be deleting?

I've renamed the .mp3 files themselves (twice), I've changed the naming on the tags, I've moved them off and back on, and EVERY TIME those track numbers reappear like nothing's changed.

For the record I don't expect Rockbox to correct improperly tagged files, I just wish that it would let ME correct them

Also I apologize for calling it ridiculous, it just seems like there would be a command or a function or SOMETHING that caused rockbox to do a resweep of the files. If it's really far more complicated than that I truly apologize, but my forum searches sort of supported my initial feeling that it was just a bug that no one ever acknowledged.

EDIT: Rockbox wouldn't auto-generate these numbers from the filenames, would it? The .mp3s are named "Disc 1: 01", "Disc 1: 02", et al... but they appear as "01. Disc 1: 01", "01. Disc 2: 01"... is rockbox maybe inventing these tags? Would it be smarter to just renumber everything and disregard the disc number?

[Febs]

I've just conducted a number of searches in the bug tracker on Flyspray, and I can't find a report of this.  Can you please point me to the bug report that you referred to above?

[Toxikator]

Oh I just did a forum search... I don't know how to use the Flyspray.  

EDIT: Okay, the "flyspray" is just the link under "bug reports"... if really no one's reported this yet I'll go ahead.

I'm surprised, it's come up enough times...

DOUBLE EDIT: Since Llorean just said that database isn't supposed to pick up on modified tags, should I really report it?

[Toxikator]

Followup: I ended up working around this by just adding number tags. I don't know why rockbox doesn't like these songs but for some reason I just can't get it to leave the old track number info behind... so I added by own numbering info. It's not the ideal solution but at least the tracks show up in the right order this time.

[Llorean]

Flyspray is the official proper place for reporting bugs, the 'bug reports' link on the left.

[Febs]

EDIT: Okay, the "flyspray" is just the link under "bug reports"... if really no one's reported this yet I'll go ahead.

I'm surprised, it's come up enough times...

And if people just complain about it without reporting it in the proper location, it will undoubtedly continue to come up.  Not all of the developers read these forums.

DOUBLE EDIT: Since Llorean just said that database isn't supposed to pick up on modified tags, should I really report it?

That's not what he said.

[Toxikator]

DOUBLE EDIT: Since Llorean just said that database isn't supposed to pick up on modified tags, should I really report it?

That's not what he said.

We've told people: The database will NOT properly recognize tag changes.

It doesn't even look for them.

 

[Llorean]

Yes, I said it doesn't look for updated tags.

That doesn't mean it's not a feature we want to have, and that there shouldn't be a feature request for it.

It just means that's how it works right now. As Febs said, I didn't say "It's not supposed to do it" just "It doesn't do it."

I did, in my very first post, say that a proper bug report should be filed, so it's pretty clear that I see this as "not proper behaviour" of the database.

[Toxikator]

Okay... so for ultimate clarification, is this something that should be filed as a "bug report" or a "feature request"?

[Llorean]

Since "Initialize Now" seems to not work, it's a bug.

[lexicon]

If the database still shows "wrong info" after a delete/re-initialize, then the problem must be in the tags of the file, not in rockbox. i.e., How can it read something that isn't there?

Somewhere in this discussion a point seems to have been missed: what's that point you mentioned where your tracks shouldn't have track number tags / you say they showed up in the wrong order / so you gave them tags - what I mean is, if tagnavi is trying to sort them by track number, and there were no track number tags, then how did you expect them to be sorted?

I have had issues with mp3 tags before where I'd swear I'd changed something using one program, but another tag reader would show the "old data". I can't recall exact details, but completely stripping all tags "(id3v1,v2,ape,whatever) and then creating from scratch has been my only recourse. (Sorry I have no apps to condemn or recommend, but do a search on hydrogenaudio for stuff like this).

That said, I discovered early on that rockbox, and my other favorite app xboxmediacenter, won't update their database for changed tags - the "update database" function is obviously designed to look for new or missing files, and not examine every tag in every file. An understandable limitation.

So, if I need to change tags, I do exactly what was recommended - remove the files to be changed, update database, edit files and put back, then update database again. Works every time, and not an unreasonable workaround.


Hope this helps.