I had been using MusicBrainz Picard 2.8.5 on a Mac Mini (2018) (Monterey 12.6) to tag my files, and when importing my files into Jellyfin and Navidrome, all the metadata would be messed up. Songs would be missing, multiple artists are listed for an album when they shouldn’t be, many songs show up under “unknown album,” and even more strange – the cover art is sometimes of random files from my computer (e.g. family photos).
I had the idea to try to run my music instead through the same version of MusicBrainz Picard on an M1 Mac Mini (Ventura 13.2.1), with the same exact settings (which boxes are checked, etc.) and I was able to import all my files into Jellyfin and Navidrome with success.
Is there a known issue with the latest version(s) of MusicBrainz Picard with Intel Macs? I never had this problem when I did all this maybe a year ago, using the Mac Mini (2018) (Monterey 12.6). I will say that I am always quite low on disk space and RAM on this Mac Mini, and I noticed that the newer Mac Mini processes the files on MusicBrainz Picard much, much faster than on the older one.
I would appreciate any help as it would be much easier to use MusicBrainz Picard on my personal computer, the Mac Mini (2018) (Monterey 12.6) instead of having to use the family computer, the M1 Mac Mini (Ventura 13.2.1). I mean, it should work as it’s supposed to anyway. I’m not sure if it’s because my disk space and RAM are low, as I don’t have any trouble with other apps. This is (possibly) the first one to give me such trouble.
That sounds more like wrongly tagged files. It is very unlikely that this is caused by OS versions.
Mixed up cover art for example can happen if you have the local cover art provider enabled and your audio files are all in the same folder together with various cover art files from different albums.
Missing tracks or wrong album indicates either files being tagged against different releases or essential tags like album or album artist not being consistent. Make sure your files are matched to the proper album and the album is complete before saving your files in Picard.
Are the files on the two macs the same? What was the quality of existing tags and how were the files structured?
On both Macs I had “local files” enabled for cover art but they were lower on the priority list, underneath “cover art archive: release,” “cover art archive: release group,” and “allowed cover art URLs.” Before running the files through MusicBrainz Picard, all the audio files were in their separate album folders, with “cover.jpg” within each folder. I was very surprised to find a family photo used as a cover art photo, twice, on the Mac Mini (2018) (Monterey 12.6). I checked those respective album folders and found the original cover art in the folder, not a family photo.
I make sure the files are matched to the proper albums and the albums are complete (showing gold disc symbols) before saving the files. For this particular test I made sure the artist and album artist were the same.
The files on the two Macs are the same. I ran the same untouched, freshly ripped folder of music (sub-organized into albums) through MusicBrainz Picard 2.8.5 on each Mac and came up with results from my original post.
If there’s no solution to this, I can live with using MusicBrainz Picard on the M1 Mac Mini (Ventura 13.2.1) but I certainly would like to understand what’s going wrong with the program on my Mac Mini (2018) (Monterey 12.6).
I should add that after processing files in MusicBrainz Picard on the Mac Mini (2018) (Monterey 12.6) and then adding them to a local player such as Swinsian, all the music shows up just fine, except the mixed up cover art for some albums. It’s when I try to add this music to Jellyfin and Navidrome that I really run into problems with the metadata. Again, this problem is fixed if I use MusicBrainz Picard on the M1 Mac Mini (Ventura 13.2.1).
Perhaps when I get a chance I’ll reset all settings on MusicBrainz Picard on the Mac Mini (2018) (Monterey 12.6) and see if that fixes anything.
So if the files have all been matched properly and the cover art is inside the album folders only the first thing I would check with affected albums what the files show when you load them into Picard. What tags are shown as original and which cover art?
If that is all as expected then the problem lies somewhere else.
When I first load tracks into the program, the tags shown are pretty standard: title, artist, album artist, album, genre, track number, length, date, disc number, composer, copyright, total discs, total tracks, year. It shows the appropriate cover art.
I tried resetting all my settings then just making two adjustments which are “clear existing tags” and “remove ID3 tags from FLAC files,” but after processing a new batch of untouched, freshly ripped files on the Mac Mini (2018) (Monterey 12.6) and importing them into Jellyfin and Navidrome, the problem persists, with mixed up artist metadata, songs missing, and songs showing up under “unknown album.” No cover art issues this time.
Once again, running the same untouched, freshly ripped files through MusicBrainz Picard on the M1 Mac Mini (Ventura 13.2.1), then importing into Jellyfin and Navidrome fixed the problem.
I just tried to do that but it turned out that the album I processed on the problematic Mac actually loaded successfully into Jellyfin and Navidrome.
I will have to find some time to do a batch of music that causes trouble after processing it on the problematic Mac but is fixed after processing it on the other Mac. It will take me a few days. Thanks!