continuous play of artist

[john duncan]

Hi, when I select an artist on my B2 to play I thought that when the first album was finished it would then go onto the next album by the same artist. I have tried this with a few artists but after the first album by the artist it just picks some random artist. I read in yesterdays forum about Classical Mode but that looks if it just stops playing after the album has finished. Have I got it wrong in thinking all the albums for a chosen artist would play ?

Thanks Jock

[PMB]

Hi Jock,

Just tried this myself and found it jumps to a random album after finishing the first one by the selected Artist.  Will have to ask Martin B about how this is supposed to work.

Paul

Brennan Support.

[lesliebr...@gmail.com]

Hi Paul, have had my B2 almost 5 years now. I have a vague feeling it used to allow you to play all albums by an artist consecutively. I may be wrong, but I think it was before I knew how to use playlists. Will be interesting to know if Martin can confirm this. Also,  it would be handy if he could implement/re-implement it if it was actually a function in the past, in a future update. Nice to have an artist day without having to create a playlist. 

[fred.w....@gmail.com]

Could somebody try using the original UI

Select a artist (not play just select) then go to the top right window area of the artist's albums and start playing the top one. In my thinking the B2 should then play down the album list .... Does it?I

If it does then this would be equivalent to "play artist".

I do agree that selecting "play" at the Artist level should play all works of that Artist, that is what one would expect.

Fred

Fred

[lesliebr...@gmail.com]

Hi Fred, using the original UI, I selected an Artist with 3 albums. Started playing from the 1st album in the top RH window. After the 1st album played it went to a randomly selected album next.

Leslie

[fred.w....@gmail.com]

Thank you Leslie

Your experimental results prove that the problem is a bit more deep routed than we first thought. I am sure it never was like that before!

Fred

[lesliebr...@gmail.com]

I can't be sure Fred, but I definitely think when I first got my B2 when I selected the Artist, then the first album it would continue down through the rest of them, until I hit random or chose something else. Can anyone else confirm this or an I just imagining it? We are talking almost 5 years ago and I can barely remember what I had for breakfast this morning lol. Oh yeah, Coffee.

[fred.w....@gmail.com]

I have kept a few old versions of the B2 software, the oldest I think is (B2 20180124.zip) so I suppose i could flash a card and check, but first lets see if anyone else can remember.

Methinks maybe breakfast should be Coffee + Coffee :-)) Although in my case I am forgetting where the coffee is!!

Fred

[Peter Lowham]

Hi All,

I've done some testing on this issue on a B2 with Version 'B2B Dec 15 2021' and the continuous play with one artist selected is working correctly for me.  In the Settings, 'Segue' is 'Off'.

I'll continue to look at this in the meantime.

Regards,

Peter.

[Christian Sunderland]

I have just played an album by Justin Sullivan called Navigating by the Stars (via the Artist Tab on WebUI).  The next album should have been Justin Sullivan's Surrounded.  However, an album by Adrian Sherwood called Never Trust a Hippy was played next.

It seems that the Brennan (B2b) is now playing the next album by title in alphabetical order (as opposed to a random album or the next artist's album, as it did previously).

I hope this helps in some sort of resolution in the next software update?

Christian      

[Daniel Taylor]

I wonder if the B2's internal index file has become out of sync with what's on the HDD.  Please try running the Scan Disk command (Settings menu, or in Status window of WebUI).

[john duncan]

Hi all, I have run scan disc and I have Segue in the off mode, I then played an artist but after the first album no more albums were played. I note that Peter says he has version B2B Dec 2021, I have version B2B Oct 2021 I updated my B2 but I still have the same version . Do not know why my B2 has not updated and if the updated version would solve the problem

  Jock

[JFBUK]

Hi Daniel,

I have the same issue as Christian reported and have run a scan disk just to double check. Same behaviour.

Hi Jock,

Peter is using an experimental version of the software. Not yet an official release

John

[john duncan]

Hi John thanks for letting me know that Peter is using an experimental upgrade

 Jock

[Peter Lowham]

Hi All,

First, my apologies for forgetting to mention that the software version 'B2B Dec 15 2021' is experimental.

I have flashed a card up to 'B2B Oct 22 2021' and the good news is I now have the problem that you are experiencing. Basically, it is a software bug where the B2 drops into 'Random play' after the first of the selected artist's album finishes playing.

So it looks like Martin B has fixed the bug in the experimental release, which will probably be released for general use in the near future.

Regards,

Peter.

[john duncan]

Hi Peter thanks for that am sure I will mange until the new software is released. 

   Jock

[JFBUK]

Hi Peter

Just a clarification on the symptoms I am seeing.

When the B2 gets to the end of the first album of an artist it’s not a random play. The next album to play is the next album title alphabetically

E.g In my collection.

If I start playing The Beatles then when Abbey Road finishes instead of playing Anthology 3 the B2 starts playing Abracadabra by ABC

John

[Peter Lowham]

Hi John,

In my test, I selected 'Meat Loaf' and the 'Bat Out Of Hell' trilogy.  When the first album played, the next album to play was 'Mike and the Mechanics' which is not the next alphabetic artist (11 artists further along in my collection).  Also, Mike and the Mechanics is always the artist that plays next in my collection when the selected list runs out.

So I'm not sure of what exactly what is happening here, but I'll have a further look.  I'll update here with more information when I have it.

Regards,

Peter.

[Mark Fishman]

Peter, John was saying that (for him) it's the next ALBUM alphabetically that plays, not the next ARTIST.. You mentioned playing "Bat Out of Hell" by Meat Loaf; what was the ALBUM (by Mike etc.) that played next?

[Peter Lowham]

Hi Mark,

Thanks for the clarification; that's very useful.  The next album to play was 'A Beggar On A Beach Of Gold (1995)'.

More food for thought .......

Regards,

Peter.

[JFBUK]

Hi Peter,

The  Musicbrainz entries for Mike and The Mechanics album have the title  "Beggar On A Beach Of Gold". The preceding "A" is only against the single/EP entries.

I'm just wondering whether the B2 is looking at the the album name as per the B2 folder name or is looking at what is loaded in the album title tag  on the tracks to get its its next playable entry ?

I must admit it does not sound that plausible and either way from what you describe the current experimental version you are running has fixed it

John

[Peter Lowham]

Hi John,

Finally!  Now I have found a bit of time to start looking into this situation.  It has been a busy day!  Thanks for the information update; that's very useful.

So, my version is the 13 track album which means that it should be named 'Beggar On A Beach Of Gold'.

I have now renamed the album, dropping the 'A' and have also re-tagged the album name so it will be interesting to see if the album remains the 'default' selection when my selected album finishes playing.  I'll update here once the current selected album finishes.

Regards,

Peter.

[AndyC]

Hi, I've been following this thread with interest and it seems to me that the current b2 software is working as intended.

The b2 uses an internal database called b2db that it builds using the Scan Disc command. This lists all the albums in pseuod-random disc order, as read off the internal HDD or SSD. (Tracks will always play in order within any given album so you don't have to worry about this.) When an album finishes, b2 simply plays the next (pseudo-random) album in its b2db database, which will almost certainly be by a different artist.

You have 2 ways of pursuading it to play things in a more logical order - 

1. Build up playlists of favourite music and it will play that music in your chosen order. The kids of today use playlists all the time in iPods and Spotify etc so this is natural to them, I suppose.

2. Alternatively, turn Alpha Sort ON (The A-Z button at the top of the central window in the UI). This sorts the ALBUMS into A-Z order and this is the order they now play in. You can see this order by selecting the Album toggle in the central window (2nd button from the left). If you instead select the Artist toggle, you'll see all your artists (and their respective albums in the right hand upper window) in A-Z order but your music WON'T PLAY IN THE ARTIST ORDER YOU ARE LOOKING AT - it plays in the Album A-Z order as mentioned above. As far as I'm aware, earlier versions of the b2 software have always worked like this - but I'd be happy to stand corrected on this one.

-----------------------------------

Neither of these 2 options appeal to me personally, so I use my 3rd way. Over 5 years ago, I realised that manipulating the b2db file was the most comprehensive way to control the order my music plays in. After a bit of email correspondence, Martin B kindly included 2 new commands (in the Settings > Maintenance menu) to export & import the b2db file. I then wrote some Windows compatible freeware that allows huge user control of how the artists and albums are reordered within b2db. (This has to be done with great care as otherwise b2 might detect a corrupt database; my freeware automatically ensures this can't happen with 100% relaibility.) Personally, I order my albums chronologically within any given artist group and that's the way my b2 plays them. Another plus to this method is that CD2 of a given album always plays straight after CD1, thus erradicating another possible irritation.

It's freeware and, if anyone wants to use it the latest version 9.1, its a free Dropbox download from this link:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/bi19ca0i62nbz8s/b2%2BBackUpSort9.1.zip?dl=0

(There are 2 ZIP files here - the main b2db sorting files and also another ZIP which utterly randomises the b2db if you feel that the RANDOM command isn't random enough for you!)

Yes, it does require a bit of effort & a few minutes to get things how you want and do the importing and exporting of b2db but I think it worth the effort. Of course, if you add a few more albums, then in due course you need to rerun the whole process to get the newcomers into their correct places. Also, to get the best results, please read the Read Me file that's in the ZIP file. RTFM!!

Incidentally, the freeware also automatically generates text files and a spreadsheet compatible .csv file of all your music, with and without track listings. If you plug a recent backup into your PC whilst the freeware is running, it will also compare the backup with the music in b2db and tell you if it's complete or not. The backup also alllows the freeware to automatically add track and album times to the text & .csv files. Plus a few other bells & whistles, such as telling me that Amarok at 60:02 is the longest track in my collection...

A small word of caution - if your music has lots of foreign language and other characters in your music artist, album & track lists, Windows converts these to other characters (seemingly as the mood takes it) when reading the backup's FAT; thus the backup comparison process will end up less than 100% complete & reliable. If you want to improve this comparison process, you'll have to manually edit out the unusual characters & rerun the program but this is entirely optional. However, the freeware's core purpose of making your music play in the order you want it to is 100% robust, as far as I'm aware.

All the best, AndyC

[JFBUK]

Hi Andy,

many thanks for your post.

Its triggered me to go back and test my experience again.

What I found is as you described :

1. Alpha sort off in the UI

At the end of an album the B2 will play the next album as the stored sequence in your B2DB file

2. Alpha sort on in the UI 

At the end of an album the B2 will play the next album alphabetically by album title

When I looked at my B2DB I would estimate that over 90% is stored in artist order and album within artist and only my most recent additions are "out of place"

This is as you described

A few months ago I formatted my B2 HDD and then restored my files so this is why most are in the expected alphabetic order. The restore will write the B2DB in alphabetic order of the folders.

Your software is certainly more functional and time efficient than a format and restore !

What is confusing in the Web UI is that the Alpha Sort only works on Album titles and does not work when listing by Artists, Tracks or Video.

John

[Graham Smout]

Hello all

What then is the point of the Command in the Mobile App: "Play all: Artist Name" .

If it is not working why is it there?

Best

Graham

[JFBUK]

Hi Graham,

The app behaves differently in lots of ways.

E.g. if you press >> when playing a track it will jump to a different album not the next track on that album !

It appears to be completely random.

I don’t know whether the “play all” works as you would expect as I have never used it

John

[Graham Smout]

It appears to be completely random.

I don’t know whether the “play all” works as you would expect as I have never used it

John

John - "Play all" on the App does not work at all - it simply plays the first album.Same as the Web UI

Best

Graham

[AndyC]

This is getting more interesting! Graham's email got me thinking and doing a few tests.

Firstly, I'd better 'fess up: I wasn't quite right in what I said in my last posting. If you leave A-Z OFF, you can easily play all the music by a given artist; but there's a slight catch! 

I did the following:

1. Run Scan Disk to reset b2db and set everything up.

2. Turn Random OFF. Turn A-Z OFF.

3. Choose an artist in the central window (or from Artist: xxxx in the New UI view). The artist's albums are displayed in pseudo-random order (in the RH window in original UI view).

4. Play any track from an album. b2 then plays the rest of the tracks in that album in the correct order (as it always does).

5. It then plays the next album BY THE SAME ARTIST in the RH window. And so on.

6. After the last album by that artist has played, it plays the 1st track of the 1st listed album by the next artist in the pseudo-random artist list in the middle window. Then it plays all the music by this next artist.

If you leave Randon OFF but turn A-Z ON, it displays the Artist & Album lists in the middle in A-Z order. So far so good. BUT, somewhat counter-intuitively, it doesn't play all the albums by a given artist in this order. After an album finishes, it goes to the next ALBUM in the A-Z list, generally by a different artist. A-Z sorts both the Artist & album displayed lists but it only controls the album playing order. 

So, according to what I've found, if you want to play all your music by a given artist, it's very simple. Turn A-Z OFF, select the artist and play his/her/its 1st album in the list in the right hand window. That's the good news: The bad news is the albums play in the displayed pseudo-random order, usually with CD1 separated from and/or after CD2 etc. For example, this means that, to be sure that Pink Floyd's The Wall (a double album that tells a story) is played in the right order, you'd have to put it in a playlist in the right order & play that.

I've no idea if this is what b2 has always done. My software is dated Oct 22 2021.

Personally, I'll stick with my freeware. I know it's not everyone's cup of tea but it's another choice for the b2 community. It organises all my artists in A-Z order, then their albums in A-Z order. It ignores leading 'The' or 'A' by default (e.g The Beatles appears under 'B' not 'T') - this is something that b2's A-Z command doesn't do. It gives me complete control over all ordering - e.g. I can get it to ignore artist's 1st names (eg Al Stewart can be made to appear under 'S' not 'A'). Double & treble albums can easily but made to play in the right order. And so on.

AndyC

[JFBUK]

My experience is that without A-Z sort enabled the B2 will play the next album it finds sequentially in the B2DB after the one just played.

Sometimes this is the next album by the same artist  and sometimes not because of the above.

I ran a fresh test and ripped a new album on the B2 and also uploaded an album via the web UI.

In both cases the new albums were placed at the bottom of my B2DB.

I ran a Scan Disk and they are still at the bottom of my B2DB

I then ripped another album and as expected it was at the bottom of my B2DB

Another Scan Disk and somewhat miraculously this last album had been moved up the B2DB !

It seems that Scan Disk does not build the B2DB index alphabetically by Artist then Album from the folder names but uses an algorithm that appears to have a random element

John

[Mark Fishman]

As best I can tell, Scan Disk uses the physical sequence of entries in the "music" directory (and its subdirectories). If you have a FAT32 drive that is *local* (not out on the network somewhere, but directly attached to your computer, either internally or through USB), you can see the physical sequence by opening a command window on your computer and using the "dir" command. A local FAT32 drive will have its directory displayed in the physical sequence of entries.

Other filesystems, and other operating systems, usually display their directories in some sorted sequence, but that doesn't mean they cannot be trawled with low-level code to discover the physical sequence. Linux usually sorts directories for display purposes (they are not physically sorted "on disk").

Because Scan Disk doesn't sort, but just "reads through", the directory, it builds the b2db in the physical sequence also. If you never delete or rename anything, that would be the sequence in which files or directories have been loaded or created. But a deleted entry is available for the next file whose name will fit in the same or less space in the directory, so after the usual kind of disk use new things might appear somewhere other than at the end of the list. This behavior appears "random" but is entirely predictable and detrministic (like good software should be...).

[JFBUK]

Hi Mark,

that's why I was careful in  my choice of words :)

"but uses an algorithm that appears to have a random element"

I ran a command line FIND command on my B2 which confirms your theory. The albums listed last in my B2DB are indeed listed last in the FIND command output.

The fact that the B2DB is built this way though means that playing through all albums for an artist cannot be delivered consistently if the Web UI just takes the next album sequentially in its contents.

This was the issue raised in the OP for this thread.

John

[Daniel Taylor]

Do I remember reading that the problem has been fixed in one of the experimental versions now?

[lesliebr...@gmail.com]

Have the new Software Version B2B Mar 10 2022 10:05:42  Tried continuous play within Artist and after the 1st album, instead of playing the 2nd album by the artist,  it still jumps to a different artist. I thought this was one of the things Peter thought was sorted with this new update. I choose Wishbone Ash as the artist from the Centre Window list of artists. Then selected play of their first album in the Top R-H Window. After playing that it jumped to a different artist as mentioned above. Next artist it played was Tom Rush - Wrong End Of The Rainbow. Anyone else checked it out? BTW Segue and Random play were off.

[Mark Fishman]

AndyC, earlier in this conversation, wrote this:

1. Run Scan Disk to reset b2db and set everything up.

2. Turn Random OFF. Turn A-Z OFF.

3. Choose an artist in the central window (or from Artist: xxxx in the New UI view). The artist's albums are displayed in pseudo-random order (in the RH window in original UI view).

4. Play any track from an album. b2 then plays the rest of the tracks in that album in the correct order (as it always does).

5. It then plays the next album BY THE SAME ARTIST in the RH window. And so on.

6. After the last album by that artist has played, it plays the 1st track of the 1st listed album by the next artist in the pseudo-random artist list in the middle window. Then it plays all the music by this next artist.

If you leave Randon OFF but turn A-Z ON, it displays the Artist & Album lists in the middle in A-Z order. So far so good. BUT, somewhat counter-intuitively, it doesn't play all the albums by a given artist in this order. After an album finishes, it goes to the next ALBUM in the A-Z list, generally by a different artist. A-Z sorts both the Artist & album displayed lists but it only controls the album playing order. 

So, according to what I've found, if you want to play all your music by a given artist, it's very simple. Turn A-Z OFF, select the artist and play his/her/its 1st album in the list in the right hand window. That's the good news: The bad news is the albums play in the displayed pseudo-random order, usually with CD1 separated from and/or after CD2 etc. For example, this means that, to be sure that Pink Floyd's The Wall (a double album that tells a story) is played in the right order, you'd have to put it in a playlist in the right order & play that.

I've no idea if this is what b2 has always done. My software is dated Oct 22 2021.

[Peter Lowham]

Hi Leslie,

I'm running on 'B2B Mar 10 2022'  version and I have tested the selection of one artist with multiple albums for sequential playing. 

I have had the same result as you; that is the first album plays and then the B2 jumps to another non-related artist, so I believe that there is a bug to be addressed here,.

At this point I have to admit that when I previously tested this situation, I might have run a flawed test.  I now think that I ran the test while my Sonos speakers were selected, and I just realised today that the test is not valid.  This is because when the Sonos speakers are selected, the complete ensemble of albums for the selected artist are uploaded into the Sonos speaker system at the start of play time and then the Brennan does not intervene with that play (unless 'Stop' or 'Fast Forward' or 'Rewind' are used) .

In contrast, when the Brennan speakers are selected, the Brennan is sending the music to the speakers in real time, with no buffering used.  So the Breenan is in full control of the music steam at all times.

I'll do some more testing and will provide feedback as soon as I can.

Regards,

Peter.

[Mark Fishman]

Peter,

Did you follow AndyC's instructions?
He says to turn OFF both Random AND A-Z SORTING, 

then find an Artist (unsorted) in the middle  pane of the regular UI, 

then choose a track from an album in the upper right pane.

AndyC says that his B2 then plays through that album, and follows it with the NEXT ALBUM LISTED in the right-hand pane.

Does that not work for you? NOTE that it will NOT work if the sorted view is ON -- sorting must be OFF.

[Ray Dion]

I am running the March software. I made sure A-Z was off and random was off. Selected the Carpenters and played three albums in succession as listed in the Artist list (top right). After Dinner I selected Hellen Reddy On the third album played in the same sequence someone who shall remain nameless (I married her) strongly suggested that I can play a different artist now... The test ended. Seems to work fine for me.

[Peter Lowham]

Hi Mark,

Not yet, but that is my next planned test.  I'll set this up tomorrow all being well and will report back.

Regards,
Peter.

[lesliebr...@gmail.com]

Hi Mark, followed AndyC and your instructions and things played out much as you explained. As you say things are a bit counter intuitive. What I assume most people would expect is that with the Random play off and A-Z selected in the Centre Window, is to be able to select an Artist in the Centre Window with the albums showing in the R-H Window. Then on selecting play on the 1st album, it should play that followed by the next album and so on down the list of albums. I have my Artist albums in chronological order and sometimes like to play them in order. When I've put albums into a playlist I have seen on occasion the second album, and possible albums after that play all the tracks, but several out of sequence. Go figure. The B2 certainly has it's little eccentricities. 

[JFBUK]

Hi All,

I have run the following test with my CD collection and B2.

A-Z sort and Random off at all times

Software Version B2B Mar 10 2022 10:05:42

1. I ripped 5 CDs not previously loaded on my B2 directly on the B2 using its CD drive

2. 4 of these CDs were by the Eurythmics and one by another artist, Otis Grand

3. I deliberately ripped them not in alphabetical order of album name and the Otis Grand CD I ripped 4th so that not  all

the Eurythmics CDs were ripped together.

4. This screenshot is from my Web UI after the rips filtering for only the Eurythmics as artist

Note the order of the albums, not alphabetical !, even after a refresh of the webpage

5. This screenshot is the relevant part of my b2db file on my B2 after these rips

Note that all the recently ripped CDs are at the end of the file and in the order I ripped them, so no sorting

6. I played the last track on Eurythmics/We Too Are One and at the end of that track the B2 began to play the first track of Otis Grand/Nothing Else Matters
This confirms that the playback sequence is managed by the current album sequence in the b2db file.

7. I then ran a Scan Disk and looked the updated b2db file.

The Eurythmics CDs have been shifted up the the b2db , still in the order they were ripped (not alphabetic) but all together . The Otis Grand CD is still at the end.

The Eurythmics CDs are now in the middle of the "Cs" not with the "Es" as you might expect !

The sequence of albums in the b2db is therefore not derived alphabetically  when scan disk runs but by some other algorithm. 

Probably the physical sequence of the folders on the disk as Mark Fishman has suggested

8. Playing the last track of Eurythmics/We Too Are One is now followed by the first track of Eurythmics/Peace

This again supports the playback sequence being managed by the current album sequence in the b2db file.

9. I did a "Save" on the B2 but this seemed to have no impact on the b2db

10. I ripped another Otis Grand CD. As expected this was placed at the end of the b2db file

11. I ran a Scan Disk again. No changes to the b2db

12. All of the albums were still in WAV format so I ran a 'Compress Now' to convert to FLAC

No changes to b2db other that the file formats

The only firm conclusion is that the playback sequence is controlled by the sequence that albums are listed in the b2db file.

Without further info on the algorithms that scan disk uses I can't see how there is a guarantee that all albums by a given artist are together in the b2db contents list and thus will play back sequentially. 

John

[Mark Fishman]

" Without further info on the algorithms that scan disk uses I can't see how there is a guarantee that all albums by a given artist are together in the b2db contents list and thus will play back sequentially. "

John, your own experiment shows that running Scan Disk does group all albums by an artist together under that artist. (Not in alphabetical order, but it does group them under their artist.) Until you run Scan Disk, though, they are in the order that you added them to the tail end of the b2db file.

[john duncan]

Have managed to get the B2 to play all the CD's of a selected artist. I downloaded the latest software, switched off the Random Play and the A-Z (as advised by some) then clicked on the artist in the Centre Window and it played all the CD's of the selected artist. They were played in a random order but I personally do not have a problem with this.

 Thanks all for advice

[JFBUK]

I ran a further test to convince myself that Scan Disk will in fact move a recently ripped album from the bottom of the b2db list to a position next to other albums by the same artist previously ripped and

which are already in the "middle" of the b2db list.

I managed to do this with a U2 album I had not previously ripped on my B2.

Immediately after ripping it was at the end of the b2db list as expected and after a Scan Disk it had indeed been moved up the list to be next to its fellow U2 albums.

I'm still intrigued as to why the scan disk algorithm correctly groups albums by an artist but does not do a full alphabetic sort on artist/album but for now that will remain a mystery :)

John

[Daniel Taylor]

When Scan Disk goes through the HDD (or SSD) it takes one Artist folder at a time and reads every Album folder within the Artist folder before it goes on to the next Artist it encounters.

[Mark Fishman]

> "I'm still intrigued as to why the scan disk algorithm correctly groups albums by an artist but does not do a full alphabetic sort on artist/album but for now that will remain a mystery :)"

When I was a snotty little brat at college, we used to describe obscure answers to arcane questions as being "intuitively obvious to the most casual observer." I think this one falls into that category. :^) Daniel's explanation is correct, but doesn't explain why the list isn't sorted into some kind of alphabetical order just like a directory listing. What follows is my technical speculation.

Keep in mind that in Unix (on which Linux is modeled) a directory is just another file, albeit one of "special" character. As such, it can be opened and read in much the same way that an "ordinary" file can be opened and read, OR an application can ask the operating system for the file contents, and in the case of a directory file, the OS will usually sort the contents for you. (Warning: TMI -- the "dir" or "ls" commands are actually part of the command shell, which is actually Just Another Application running on top of the OS kernel.)

It appears that Scan Disk does not ask the OS for the sorted directory contents. Instead, it crawls through the "music" directory and builds a list of the filenames it encounters, in the order that it encounters them. When it stumbles across a name that is actually for a special file that is another (sub) directory, it pauses in crawling through the music directory, opens that special file, and crawls through that one. Repeat as necessary until you run out of subdirectories, go back up a level, continue until  etc., go back up to the music directory and continue until done. This is called recursion. Since the music directory contains Artist directories, each of which contains Album directories, each of which contains track files BUT NO DIRECTORIES, that's what you get: artists in the physical order they are in music, and within each artist the albums in their physical order, and within each album the tracks also in their physical order (yes, I have seen track numbes out of numerical sequence in a b2db, even though the B2 will sort and play tracks in alphanumeric order).

Presumably either building the list and sorting it in memory before writing it back out to the b2db was considered unnecessary. Oddly, though, half of that is what is sort of done when you turn on the A-Z sort: the artist list is all sorted, and the album list is all sorted separately, so you can search alphabetically for artists or for albums, and you can play ALL of your albums (not grouped by artist) alphabetically. IMHO, what is needed is a way to save the sorted order, with the albums grouped AND SORTED within their (sorted) artists.

For anyone who found this tl;dr (too long; didn't read), yup, it's still a mystery, AND it appears to be working as designed. It's not a bug, it's a feature.

Cheers -- m.

On Thursday, March 17, 2022 at 10:17:40 AM UTC-4 JFBUK wrote:

[lesliebr...@gmail.com]

Been playing around with adding an Artist to a playlist. This is what I tried. All via the Original UI. and Software Version B2B Mar 10 2022 10:05:42

Turned Random Playoff.

Left A-Z on. Makes it easier to find an Artist via Centre Window.

Selected an Artist with numerous albums (In my case albums are by year ie  1972 - Argus, 1973 - Wishbone -4, etc) and dragged if into a free playlist.
Selected play the Artist in the Playlist.

Because it would take too long to have to listen to the sequence progression through the Albums I clicked  >> (Next track). 

The first Album seems to proceed in general through the tracks in the right sequence. However, the second album, and following albums regularly have the tracks out of the correct sequence. Examples of track sequences

Album      Tracks

No. 1         1,2,3,4,5,6,7 Ok

No. 2         2,3,4,5,6,7,1

No. 3         Sequence ok.

No. 4         2,5,3,6,8,1,4,7

No. 5         2,3,4,5,6,1

No. 6         3,5,4,6,7,8,1,2

No. 7         3,4,5,6,7,8,9,1,2

N0. 8         1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10

Only discovered this because with some albums the track sequence is ingrained in your head, and you're expecting a particular track to start and something else does. 

This seems to agreed with Mark saying he has seen track numbers out of sequence in the B2db. Curious to know if anyone else has found this?

I have tried this with different Artists with multiple albums and have had similar out comes with album tracks out of sequence. Even jumping to a different album before having accessed all the tracks for an album in whatever sequence. 

So still can't get an Artist to play all their albums in a chronological order with the tracks in the correct order. No big deal, but it would be nice to be able to do that. My B2 seems to work fine in all other respects

[Daniel Taylor]

Ah, Mark - thanks for the disertation.  ;o)  Could not have said it better myself - and in fact, I didn't.

I especially appreciate being reminded of "intuitively obvious to the most casual observer."  That's a blast from the past.

Leslie:

With regard to the tracks being played out of order:  I started to write down why I thought that was happening, but as I typed, I realized that my explanation didn't hold up.  I am curious though, as to how those albums found their way onto your disk in the first place.  I suspect that that may have somthing to do with it.  Or not.  (You're welcome for the dubious help that may have been. ;o)  I wonder if Mark has any thoughts about that.  

Surely, if the album was ripped on the B2, it would have written the tracks in the order they appeared on the CD.  But what if the disc had become slightly fragmented?  When the tracks were compressed, they were written to new areas on the disk before the original WAV file is deleted.  Still scratching my head.

[Mark Fishman]

I've not particularly noticed tracks being *played* out of order, just that sometimes they aren't in order in the b2db. In my case, I think that does indeed have something to do with how they got onto the B2.

I usually rip on my Windows machine, using Exact Audio Copy [EAC]. I have EAC configured to rip to tracks, and as each track is ripped, the FLAC compressor is started in the background. When that track has finished compressing, the corresponding WAV is deleted. So, from a directory perspective, what happens is that the first "slot" gets a WAV file -- let's call it Track01.WAV -- and the FLAC compressor creates a temporary file, which gets slot 2. EAC starts ripping Track02.WAV, which gets slot 3, and because compression is a background task, Track01.FLAC gets slot 4, Track01.WAV is deleted, the FLAC compressor creates a temp file in slot 1 for Track02, and onward. Ripping can take less or more time than compressing, so at some point one or more files end up getting written to a directory slot that is out of order.

Then I Bulk Upload the directory from the Web UI. It takes the directory entries as they happen to be, so they get sent to the B2 out of sequence, which writes them to disk that way. So they're out of sequence in the b2db.

But the B2 is supposed to PLAY the tracks in alphanumeric order, regardless of ripping sequence, which is why if you don't number the tracks they play in alphabetic order instead of the original CD-track order.

[Daniel Taylor]

Leslie:

Do those Wishbone Ash albums have the track number as part of the track filename?  If not, were they played in alphabetical order?

[lesliebr...@gmail.com]

Hi Mark and Daniel. A lot of my music collection has been ripped to mp3s and been transferred from PC to PC over the years before I ever knew what FLAC and a Brennan B2 was. Most would have been via Microsoft Media Player way back when. Some could even have been .wma format later converted to mp3 via a number of various different free conversion software apps over the years. When I got my B2 I loaded some by ripping CDs directly to the B2, then some from my laptop via the upload facility, and most via the NAS from a PC when I managed to get it up and running. Most of the collection are mp3s. Most recently I've downloaded music as FLAC files from Bandcamp and transferred to the B2 via NAS. Also, downloaded in the past as mp3s from Amazon to the PC. A whole mish-mash of ways.

Daniel, checked several of the Wishbone Ash albums to seen if the sequence was alphabetical instead of numerical. It wasn't. I do have the track numbers in the file name. 

What I do do that is different and could possibly be the culprit in my case, is to rename the track names to look like this in MP3Tag (- 01 - Track name). Stumbled across this when renaming stuff one day. It enables the track number to be seen in the "Now Playing" window which I quite like. Peter showed me how to bulk rename in MP3Tag. There was a discussion at the time and Martin didn't recommend it. This is maybe why. Has not been a problem in any other way. Just like to see to track number displayed while it's playing. Easier to know where you are in an album. Not a software engineer, so don't know if this would have an effect? Martin, as I said didn't recommend, but I reckoned if it caused problems I would change it back. Hasn't been a bother in any other way.

[Daniel Taylor]

Well, naming the tracks as you do, I don't think it should be a problem.  When you play the album directly, without using a playlist, I would expect it to be played in the correct track order.  But the playlist introduces another variable.  I'd expect it to play the album in the correct order.  But since it doesn't, I'd call that a bug.

If I put an Artist into a playlist, I would expect the playlist to play the albums for that artist in alphabetical order and the tracks within each album in alphabetical order (which puts them in the order of the track number).  I suspect that the playlist is copying the track names into the playlist file in the order it encounters them on the disc.  Instead of that, I think it should just copy the name of the album into the list.  Then when it's time to play that album, pass the album name as a parameter to the subroutine that would play an album if you called it manually, and let that subroutine take care of the track ordering as it normally does.

[lesliebr...@gmail.com]

Do you mean Alphabetical or Alphanumerical Daniel? I would have expected the year of album to keep the albums in chronological order as the track number should keep the tracks in order.

[Daniel Taylor]

When it comes to the computer reading the hexadecimal codes for the characters, alphabetical and numerical are both maintained.  As far as the year of the album, it will only work if it is at the beginning of the album title.  I put the year at the end.  If I want to make sure the albums are in order of release date, I preface the name of the album with [1], [2], etc.  I just now looked at the picture you posted and I see that the year is first.

But the B2 is probably reading the albums in the order it finds them on the disk, so it's not attempting any sort of sorting.

[lesliebr...@gmail.com]

After remembering Martin Brennan mentioning that he wouldn't recommend my "stumbled upon" method of getting the track numbers to show in the "Now Playing" window while the track is playing ie. changing track name to ( - 01 - track name). I decided to do some more testing. This track name system works when playing normally ie in random mode or via selecting to play an album/track. However, in trying to get to play an Artist's albums continuously by dragging the Artist into a playlist it caused problems with the track sequence becoming muddled. The sequence of the albums played was fine, playing chronologically correct by my prefix of the year of release, but the track sequence was messed up. I decided to heed Martin's advice and changed one of the offending Album's track names back to (01 - track name) from (- 01 - track name). I did this using NAS and then ran scan disk. I deleted the previous Wishbone Ash test Playlist and then created a new one with the altered track names. Hey Presto, the tracks were back in the right sequence for the back to (01 - track name) album. Of course this removes the track number from the "Now Playing" window.  I checked the next album which was still my way of track naming (- 01 - track name) and it was still out of sequence. There were 14 albums in my Wishbone Ash test playlist. I reverted them all back to (01 - track name) and checked them all by >> next tracking through them and they were all back in the right track sequence. Seems I can't have my track numbers showing in the "Now Playing" window when the track's playing, and have the Artist's albums playing continuously via a playlist too at present. Decisions lol!

Still think you shouldn't have to create a playlist to get to play all albums by an Artist continuously. Surely it makes more sense to select the Artist in the Centre Window, followed by an album by them in the top R-H Window and it should play through followed by the next one in the list, and not jump to the next one in the B2db. Having said that, I still love this wee machine. 

Curiously two albums with my track naming method still had the track sequences correct, but only 2 albums out of 14. So I reverted them all back to the (01 - track name) version.

 

[Mark Fishman]

While you're doing experiments, have you tried putting the track number in twice? In other words,

01 - 01 - trackname

I would hope that would give you both correct play order PLUS the track number in the "Now Playing" window.

It does add an extra 4 or 5 characters to the length of the name, so you'd have to worry about long names a little sooner, but that's usually only a problem for classical music.

[JFBUK]

Hi,

Is another alternative to put your “displayable” track number in a different format?

It may stop the the B2 software getting confused.

E.g. wrap the track number in parentheses 

[01]

[02]

…

I suppose you could do something similar with release year for album names

John

[lesliebr...@gmail.com]

Hi Mark, tried your 01 - 01 - trackname idea, and yes that allows both the correct order of play and the track number showing in the "Now Playing" window. Thank you for that. A few extra characters shouldn't be a problem, only have a small number of Classical albums. Mainly Rock, Blues, Prog, Jazz and Country. The release year as a Prefix to the Album name seems to retain the Album order too. The double track number in the Album/Track window looks a bit odd, but not a problem if it achieves the results I want. See screenshot.

Will try John's idea to see what it does.

Is another alternative to put your “displayable” track number in a different format?

It may stop the the B2 software getting confused.

E.g. wrap the track number in parentheses 

[01]

[02]

Regards, 

Les.

[lesliebr...@gmail.com]

Hi John, tried your suggestion with the Parentheses [01] - trackname etc.  While it did show the Track number with the parentheses around it in the "Now Playing" window, it still messed up the track sequence when the Artist was dragged in to a playlist. Only tried an Artist with two albums, but the track sequence messed up in both. So Mark's double number suggestion 01 - 01 - trackname works for number showing in the "Now Playing" window and maintaining the track sequence in the playlist, while looking a little odd in the album track window by showing the track number twice. Now I understand while Martin said designing UI software is not straight forward lol. Thanks for the suggestion though John. Was worth a try. 

[Mark Fishman]

I think I can cope with odd appearance a little more happily than with odd (read: incomprehensible) behavior. I'm glad we've found a workaround that keeps things in the desired sequence and also doesn't force you to look in two parts of the screen ("Now Playing" plus album tracks) for the current track info.

[JFBUK]

Hi,

my previous post was not crystal clear but in retrospect Mark's solution is probably better as it looks more natural on the front panel display.

What I meant was....

John

[Daniel Taylor]

Hi Leslie,

You might be able to shorten things up a little bit by removing the hyphens and an adjoining space for each, like this:

from this 01 - 01 - Vas Dis

.....to this 01 01 Vas Dis

I don't use hypens there and the B2 doesn't seem to mind.  Or maybe it's not worth the effort to change.

[lesliebr...@gmail.com]

Hi folks, a while back I stumbled upon a way to allow the track number to display in the "Now Playing" window while I was renaming tracks. 

This was    - 01 - Trackname  and gave 01 - Trackname   in the "Now Playing" window ie.  01 - Throw Down The Sword.  I like having the track number in the "Now Playing" window as it lets you know where you are in an album and seems more info complete. It has never given any bother until a recent post where people were discussing wanting to be able to play all albums by an artist continuously. When selecting an artist via the Centre Window. Then when choosing to play the 1st album on the list, when it came to the end of that album it would jump to a completely different album by a different artist. You would have expected it to continue playing the next album on the list. It didn't. Some folks suggested pulling the artist into a playlist and this may have been straight forward if I hadn't renamed the Trackname to get the track number to display in the "Now Playing" window.  When I did this the track sequence got messed up. It would play all the tracks of an album and then move on to the next album on the list, which was good, but it played these out of sequence too, and so on down the album list. At least the albums were playing in the correct order. The hyphen and space before the 01 in the trackname seemed to be causing the problem. Here are some of the forum guys suggestions to a work round, and how they turned out. By the way I'm on Software Version B2B Mar 10 2022. Random play was off and A-Z is on. All these variations displayed the track number in the "Now Playing" window . Kept the track sequence within the album, and continued to play down the album list, which in my case is chronological order as my albums are prefixed with their year of release.

Mark's  01 - 01 - trackname version gives 01 - trackname in the "Now Playing" window ie.  01 - Throw Down The Sword

John's  01 [01] trackname version gives [01] trackname in the  "Now Playing" window ie.  [01] Throw Down The Sword

Daniel's  01 01 trackname version gives 01 trackname in the  "Now Playing" window ie.  01 Throw Down The Sword

Think I like Mark's version, as I like the hyphen separating the track number from to track title. Think it looks best. Personal preference and as long as it works, which it seems to. I've sussed how to change the trackname in an album in mp3tag for this version too. Don't know what parentheses might do in mp3tag. So won't go that route. Daniel's suggestion should work too in mp3tag with a bit of tweaking, but I like my hyphen separation. No offence Daniel lol. Just personal preference.

So I can now play all my Wishbone Ash albums in chronological order continuously if I so wish by dragging the Artist into a playlist. So what about my other 400 or so artists? A lot of the are single albums, so that reduces the load a little lol.

[Steve Ellis]

In the early days of my B2 I decided on how I wanted the tracks to appear uniform by retyping them all.

I then discovered when playing an album, tracks were playing in random order despite the random button being off.

I found out it was because I had included a hyphen between track number and track name.

All mine now appear as follows:

01 Brown Eyed Girl (with a single space between)

No problems since..