Where does Sage cache music info/metadata?

[jkohn]

I had some albums by the same artist, that were not getting grouped together in the music library because of slight difference in the way the artist name was typed in the metadata tags (even an uppercase/lowercase difference was enough to cause them to be treated separately). Although I have now fixed the tags to so that everything matches up, it's still not matching up in Sage. Apparently sage has a cache somewhere, and refuses to update it. I've tried everything I can think of, including

1) Remove the directory from the list of import directories in sage. Rescan. Re-Add import directory. Rescan.

2) Physically delete the FLAC files in question. Rescan. Re-copy them to import directory. Rescan.

3) Variations of 1) and 2) above, with restart of SageTV service in-between.

There must be a file somewhere that SageTV is caching tag info in, but I've not found any way to force Sage to update the cached info. Is there any way to do this? Any file I can delete for force a full re-scan?

[mayamaniac]

I believe everything is stored in the wiz.bin, minus the video thumbnails jpegs.

I would try removing all import directories, shut down sagetv service, start it up again, check to see all import medias are gone, then re-import the folders, and rescan.

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by jkohn

1) Remove the directory from the list of import directories in sage. Rescan. Re-Add import directory. Rescan.

This should work, and has worked for me in the past, provided you wait for the first rescan to complete before adding the directory back again. There's no popup to tell you when it's done scanning, but if you look at the Songs view in the Music browser, you'll see the total number drop toward zero.

The other thing you may be running into if you use WMP to edit the tags is that WMP has its own metadata cache that it does not write back into the files themselves until you tell it to via Library > Apply Media Information Changes. If you haven't done that, the tags in the files may not match what you see in WMP, and telling Sage to rescan won't do any good.

[bjkiller]

much simple, stop sage server, add to sage.properties file, and restart sage.

force_full_content_reindex=true

[jkohn]

Originally Posted by mayamaniac

I believe everything is stored in the wiz.bin, minus the video thumbnails jpegs.

This is a poor design. Cached metadata and transient data such as EPG data shouldn't be in the same file as important stuff like recording schedule and favorites.

Originally Posted by GKusnick

This should work, and has worked for me in the past, provided you wait for the first rescan to complete before adding the directory back again. There's no popup to tell you when it's done scanning, but if you look at the Songs view in the Music browser, you'll see the total number drop toward zero.

I've tried it multiple times now, and agree it should work (and has in the past). But it's not working for these albums.

The other thing you may be running into if you use WMP to edit the tags is that WMP has its own metadata cache that it does not write back into the files themselves until you tell it to via Library > Apply Media Information Changes. If you haven't done that, the tags in the files may not match what you see in WMP, and telling Sage to rescan won't do any good.

I use Abander Tag Control, which directly edits the tags. I've also double checked the tag info in other players including foobar and Winamp. The "old" tag info that Sage still insists on using is not there in the files.

Originally Posted by bjkiller

much simple, stop sage server, add to sage.properties file, and restart sage.

force_full_content_reindex=true

Thanks, didn't know about this. It fixed one of the albums, but not the other two. That's progress at least. I've even tried making small changes to the tag info in the problem files so that they have a new time-stamp, but Sage still refuses to update them.

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by jkohn

I've tried it multiple times now, and agree it should work (and has in the past). But it's not working for these albums.

Just to be completely clear, you removed the import directory, started a rescan, and then waited until you saw those albums and tracks disappear from the Sage music browser? And only then did you add them back?

If that's the case, then it seems to me the incorrect info must be in the media files themselves, since there's no place else for Sage to get it back from once it's been removed from the Sage database. Are you sure you don't have redundant tags in different formats? Have you checked the AlbumArtist tag as well as the Artist tag?

[jkohn]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

Just to be completely clear, you removed the import directory, started a rescan, and then waited until you saw those albums and tracks disappear from the Sage music browser? And only then did you add them back?

That is correct.

If that's the case, then it seems to me the incorrect info must be in the media files themselves, since there's no place else for Sage to get it back from once it's been removed from the Sage database.

But that's the question, does Sage really remove the cached tag info from the database? It doesn't appear so.

Are you sure you don't have redundant tags in different formats? Have you checked the AlbumArtist tag as well as the Artist tag?

As far as I can tell, there are no redundant tags/formats. AlbumArtist tag shows as blank in the file properties in Foobar2000. Here's one example. Originally, the Artist was showing as "Demons and Wizards", but I changed it to "Demons & Wizards". The tag info is updated as displayed in Foobar2000, but SageTV is still showing the Artist as "Demons and Wizards".

[mayamaniac]

another option to try is renaming the folder that it is in, such as from "Demons & Wizards" to "Demons and Wizards" or vice versa. That should work, if not, then for whatever reason, SageTV is not updating the wiz.bin.

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by mayamaniac

another option to try is renaming the folder that it is in, such as from "Demons & Wizards" to "Demons and Wizards" or vice versa. That should work, if not, then for whatever reason, SageTV is not updating the wiz.bin.

I was going to suggest something similar myself. I believe Sage expects AlbumArtist to be filled in, and may try to deduce it from file or directory names if it's not. I don't think Sage consider Artist to be a substitute for AlbumArtist; rather, Artist is for detailed info about which individual musicians are playing on any given track.

[jkohn]

Some googling on the AblumArtist tag indicates that it's a fairly recent addition (not all applications even support it yet), and is primarily intended to address the issue of individual tracks on an album being by different artist. For instance on a compilation disc you would set the Artist tag for each individual track to the artist that recorded it, while the AlbumArtist tag would be set to something like "Various Artists". That doesn't seem to apply to this situation, and some searching here finds quotes from Opus4 indicating that Sage will check both Artist and AlbumArtist tags.

But I figured it couldn't hurt to try, so I added the AlbumArtist tag for one of the problem CD's. Now, the CD shows up under "Demons & Wizards" as it should. BUT - the album is now duplicated; it still shows up under "Demons and Wizards". The only place Sage could be getting this from is stale cache data. The string "Demons and Wizards" does not show up in any tag, filename, or folder name.

[mayamaniac]

Here's the thing, when you remove the imported folders, it is suppose to clear the cached data. But for whatever reason, it it not doing it for you.

Just to test, I suggest you stop the sagetv service, move the wiz.bin out of the sagetv folder and store it in a backup folder. Start sagetv and let it create a brand new wiz.bin and import your music again, see if sagetv gets it right this time. If it does display the tag correctly, then you have a corrupted wiz.bin. If it still screws up, then you have a messed up tag in your music file.

If its a corrupted wiz.bin, then I would go to tech support and let them figure out why.

[GKusnick]

Just what I was about to suggest, but you typed it faster than I did.

[jkohn]

Yes, I've come the same conclusion, I was just hoping there's another way. If the only fix is to delete/recreate wiz.bin it's going to be a real PITA because of all my Favorites.

[Fuzzy]

wiz.bin is pretty much a general PITA for all Sage users... many many major revision changes, and there has yet to be any change in the way wiz.bin works/doesn't work.

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

wiz.bin is pretty much a general PITA for all Sage users... many many major revision changes, and there has yet to be any change in the way wiz.bin works/doesn't work.

Actually I think it works pretty well for most users; it's just that the people who've never had problems with it have no reason to post about it. And in fact the reliability of Wiz.bin has improved greatly since the V2 days when most of the Wiz.bin horror stories originated.

[jkohn]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

Actually I think it works pretty well for most users; it's just that the people who've never had problems with it have no reason to post about it. And in fact the reliability of Wiz.bin has improved greatly since the V2 days when most of the Wiz.bin horror stories originated.

Even if it works 99% of the time for 99% of the people, mixing mission critical data (which I consider the favorites and recording schedule to be in Sage) with replaceable cache data in a single binary file is just a bad idea.

[GKusnick]

The webserver has options for exporting favorites, scheduled recordings, airing metadata for existing recordings, and more to XML files, and re-importing them again into a fresh Wiz.bin. So if you don't trust Wiz.bin to keep your mission-critical data safe, the tools exist to keep backup copies elsewhere.