Any updates on metadata handling?

[Siguchi]

Two months ago, I made a post about how Audirvana handles FLAC metadata poorly, especially when multiple tags are involved (e.g., multiple composers or genres, etc.). I also sent an email to Audirvana support about the issue.

My email was totally ignored and they didn’t bother to reply. @Damien3 from Audirvana replied to the post and said that they are working on enhancing how metadata are handled. Two months later, zero updates and I have this product I paid 100€ that I can’t use…

Can we get a serious update on the issue? Otherwise, I will be forced to open a claim with PayPal to get a refund… This is unacceptable and poor support.

[PerttiS]

I’m researching that Audirvana database and it seems to be just one column for at least for genre, it seems that the database model needs to be changed to some extent in order to handle multiple genres.
It is comforting to hear that they are working on this shortcoming, even though no timetable has been given for the correction.

[Siguchi]

The problem is not the database. The problem is that Audirvana will write to the files directly and in the case of multiple tags it deletes them.

[PerttiS]

Yes, Audirvana should leave files intact, unless specially asked to to write to files. But the fundamental problem is the Audirvanas database, it is not designed to handle mutliple genres.

[Siguchi]

Yet, it does handle multiple artists impeccably… All the rest gets deleted, which is a strange “coding” choice…

[o99]

Hi to different people, who are waiting for a better library management
Audirvana is an extraordinary good solution for audiophile reproduction of music.
On the other hand there are different requests and difficulties in the library management of A.
My proposition to @Damien3: I suppose, that the majority of users would like to use A as their only music app. Unfortunately there are different problems, which make A sometimes difficult to use.
Furthermore I suppose, that the developers have the same goal: many happy users, who buy their product.
I’m using A for a longer time and can say that the big bugs have been solved as the time went by. On the other hand things mentioned in this thread happened also: it’s a feeling of not being taken realy serious, because the answer to requests is sometimes realy foggy.
Wouldn’t be an offical roadmap of development be a good solution? Something like a list of bugs / enhancements and a horizon of time, when things will be implemented?
That’s at least in my opinion for both sides a good solution, because everybody can see, that complaints are recognized and are on the way to be solved.
If the the developers don’t want to implement something, it’s also good to know that, so everybody is free to choose an other app.
I’m curious to hear, what the developers think about my proposition.

[Siguchi]

@o99 A clear and transparent road map to which Audirvana can be held accountable is all I am asking for. I reported the problem two and a half months ago. Since then, there were absolutely zero updates to Audirvana. For a software, this sucks (good software tend to be updated quite frequently). What if the update comes only in Audirvana 4.x and they will ask for an update fee to have it?

FYI, I asked support for an update about the issue and this is how they replied. I let you be the judge of how they value their customers. They outright lied back at the time when they insinuated that they will work on metadata problems.

I had to escalate things with the company handling purchases in order to be taken more seriously.

Basically, if you don’t intend to address a bug in your software, let people know and offer them a way out (refund them and let them go elsewhere). Also, in software engineering, a bug’s criticality is not measured based solely on its visibility( cf. here). The bug I reported is medium at the very least, major if Audirvana were really serious (it leads to data loss/corruption).

[o99]

Because many users don’t go too deep into working with the app, they don’t find these bugs.
The development team posts the seldomly mentioned problems in their summary mail, to see if anybody responds. If not, it seems that they rate problems as low priority. That’s regrettable.

[Laurent69]

In fact, it’s bug that suffers a bad combination of characteristics

• hard to fix because it needs a redesign of the database.
• low value for most users.
• with workarounds since you may manage multiple composers with other tools.

for the first reason, I think this kind of bug will not be adressed in a 3.5.x version but in the next major release.

[Siguchi]

@Laurent69 There is no real workaround… You can manage multiple composers with other tools (I use both Kid3 and Tag Editor) but the moment Audirvana touches the slightest metadata in the file, it will delete every single additional composer. Let’s say you miss-click on the like button or a rating, well too bad the track’s tags get deleted. The only “workaround” is to go out of your way and encode multiple composers in a unique tag…

I understand that it’s “low value” for most users. But in that case, let me just have my money back and I will go look elsewhere.

[o99]

True for this bug.
But if we see all the problems of A with handling the library, they point in the end to the solution, that the database must be built in another way.
Every problem is a problem for certain users, for others not. Is it intended to solve the problems or not?
There I expect more transparency of the developers: a roadmap of development would be helpfull