Music App synchronisation with Audirvana

[gtj]

I’ve tried to get A to synchronise with iTunes for a long time. Using the programs “Audio File Health Check” and “Yale” was a very important step to check file inconsistencies and reducing albums/files not being visible in A, but in iTunes.

But the duplication of albums in A is killing me. I cannot find a consistent behaviour in A. When using method 1 (not my preferred method but used as a check), monitoring the same Music folder that iTunes uses I get very different outcomes in A. For example, when monitoring the whole Music folder one album folder turns up as 14 (!) separate albums with all file paths wrong, pointing to different files and albums. The file system is alright and everything is ok in iTunes, but A messes things up big time. If I monitor only this lonely same folder everything is ok, even in A. I cannot find a solution to this problem and it should definitely not be this way.

I’m very tired of getting the synchronisation between A and iTunes to work. There’s is a lot of problem and I NEVER get the album and files count to match, even though I’ve used a lot of supplementing scripts and programs to check for inconsistencies in files and folders.

I cannot keep up checking 12.000+ albums for this shit problem! Something is really wrong with this program!

[bitracer]

Why it’s so important to you that the number of albums match? If all the albums are there, why should you care?

[gtj]

Do you want an album split up in 14 pieces?

[gtj]

And all file pointers wrong?

[bitracer]

If it’s slit in 14 pieces something’s wrong with the metadata.

You can always use Audirvana in legacy mode. You continue to use iTunes/Music for library management and just play through Audirvana.

[gtj]

There is nothing wrong with the metadata. I’ve used Audio File Health Check to verify this. The point I’m trying to make is that A outputs two different results monitoring the same folder; one as a sub-folder and the other as a single folder. This should not occur and is a faulty behaviour of A. When using A as a program reading my Music folder is a lot of duplicate albums split in pieces. In my example ALL file pointers are to wrong tracks in other albums. In iTunes all is OK. A cannot read the folder contents as it should and it’s very annoying.

I’m not a new user, I’ve used A for a long time and the discrepancies between iTunes and A reading the same files/folders has always been a serious flaw in A.

[bitracer]

It looks like the 2 issues are related somehow. There is some underlying issue that’s causing this.

Looks like you’re loosing connectivity to the path where files are stored, or something else is locking the filesystem. It’s just a guess, but worth checking.

[Antoine]

Hello @gtj,

Can you send me a copy of the “Debug Info”? You can get it in Audirvana Settings>General>Debug Info

Note: By clicking on the Debug Info Audirvana button automatically copies all its content, all you have to do is paste it in response to this message

[gtj]

Couldn’t send by mail: " The recipient server did not accept our requests to connect. Learn more at https://support.google.com/mail/answer/7720 [community.audirvana.com 51.255.44.231: FAILED_PRECONDITION: connect error (111): Connection refused]"

My Debug info:
Audirvana Mac Version 3.5.33 (3563)
macOS 10.14.5 with 16384MB RAM

Registered to Tomas Jonsson

SIGNAL PROCESSING:

Polarity Inversion:
	Globally: OFF
	Per track: ON
Effects plugins NOT ACTIVE

UPSAMPLING:
SoX not in use
SoX filter parameters
Bandwidth at 0dB = 99.5
Filter max length = 30000
Anti-aliasing = 100
Phase = 100

AUDIO VOLUME:
Max allowed volume: 100
Replay Gain: by album
SW volume control: ON

LIBRARY SETTINGS:
Sync list: 0 folders
iTunes/Music library synchronization: last synchronized on Sat Mar 21 05:39:16 2020

Library database path: /Users/tj/Library/Application Support/Audirvana/AudirvanaPlusDatabaseV2.sqlite

ACTIVE STREAMING SERVICES

=================== AUDIO DEVICE ========================

CoreAudio audio path, buffer I/O frame size: 512

Max. memory for audio buffers: 13312MB

Local Audio Engine:
Exclusive access: Enabled
Integer mode: Enabled

Preferred device:
C-Media USB Audio
Model UID:C-Media USB Audio :0D8C:0103
UID:AppleUSBAudioEngine:C-Media INC.:C-Media USB Audio :14110000:1

Active Sample Rate: 44.1kHz
Hog Mode is off

Bridge settings:
Sample rate limitation: none
Sample rate switching latency: none
Limit bitdepth to 24bit: OFF
Mute during sample rate change: OFF

Selected device:
Local audio device
ID 0x5e C-Media USB Audio Manufacturer:C-Media INC.
Model UID:C-Media USB Audio :0D8C:0103 UID:AppleUSBAudioEngine:C-Media INC.:C-Media USB Audio :14210000:1

2 available sample rates up to 48000Hz
44100
48000
Audio buffer frame size : 14 to 4096 frames
Current I/O buffer frame size : 512
Volume Control
Physical: No
Virtual: Yes
MQA capability
Auto-detect MQA devices: No
Not a MQA device, user set to not MQA
DSD capability: Unhandled
Device audio channels
Preferred stereo channels L:1 R:2
Channel bitmap: Ox3, layout:
Channel 0 mapped to 0
Channel 1 mapped to 1

Audio channels in use
Number of channels: 2
Use as stereo device only: No
Simple stereo device: Yes

1 output streams:
Number of active channels: 2, in 1 stream(s)
Channel #0 :Stream 0 channel 0
Channel #1 :Stream 0 channel 1

Stream ID 0x5f 2 channels starting at 1
4 virtual formats:
2 ch Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32 little endian Signed Float 48kHz
2 ch Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32 little endian Signed Float 44.1kHz
2 ch Non-mixable linear PCM Interleaved 16 little endian Signed Integer 48kHz
2 ch Non-mixable linear PCM Interleaved 16 little endian Signed Integer 44.1kHz

4 physical formats
2 ch Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 16 little endian Signed Integer 48kHz
2 ch Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 16 little endian Signed Integer 44.1kHz
2 ch Non-mixable linear PCM Interleaved 16 little endian Signed Integer 48kHz
2 ch Non-mixable linear PCM Interleaved 16 little endian Signed Integer 44.1kHz

Local devices found : 3
Device #0: ID 0x32 Built-in Output Manufacturer: Apple Inc. Model UID: AppleHDA:88 UID: AppleHDAEngineOutput:1B,0,1,2:0
Device #1: ID 0x5a HDMI Manufacturer: Apple Inc. Model UID: AppleHDA:88 UID: AppleHDAEngineOutputDP:1B,3,1,2:0:{2D4C-0902-00000000}
Device #2: ID 0x5e C-Media USB Audio Manufacturer: C-Media INC. Model UID: C-Media USB Audio :0D8C:0103 UID: AppleUSBAudioEngine:C-Media INC.:C-Media USB Audio :14210000:1

UPnP devices found : 0

[Antoine]

@gtj can you check the metadata of the file you are talking about in Audirvana? You can do it by selecting the track and click on the label icon on the right side of Audirvana window.

[jpauid]

Thanks for chasing this. I have suffered this identical issue for years. I build my library in iTunes (now in Music) and Sync to Audirvana. It was the only way I could get proper Artwork displayed plus access scripts I have 7,000+ albums and you cannot track which ones are missing or why. It is deeply frustrating. Audirvana is sonically excellent but deeply frustrating in this respect.

[gtj]

Hi, I made som screen shots of the problem:

The album in question is Miles Davis, Live in Europe 1967: The Bootleg Series Vol. 1. It is split as 14 albums with all file pointers wrong. Here’s on example:

Clicking on the file gives this result:

Another more interesting example:

This one is pointing to a (in iTunes) nonexistent artist (msng):

This msng artist:

When monitoring the same folder as a singel folder this doesn’t occur, all file pointers (file paths) are OK. In both cases I run from scratch with empty database files.

Yesterday I did a iTunes sync from scratch and all abums and files did show up in A! (For the first time ever!) It seems like the A database file get corrupted over time when syncing with iTunes.

But what is happening when running monitor from scratch and these fault file pointers occur? It should be less error prone since A is looking at the files/folder directly instead of using iTunes database. Do you have any daemons running?

I’m using a Mac Mini as a media server and a network connected (by cable only) Qnap nas holding the files.

[Antoine]

Look at the artist in your file, iTunes put a different folder for each artist, that’s why you have different results. Note that the Artist of the Album can be different of the artist of the music file.
In your case Miles Davis is not in the artist section of the metadata of the file but is here on the Album.

[gtj]

I use Miles Davis as both album artist and artist in iTunes. All music files and albums are tagged with Miles Davis only. There should be no discrepancies. The tagging in iTunes is correct. I do not have an artist or album artist called msng in iTunes.

[gtj]

I’ve put in a lot of time and effort in getting the iTunes tagging correct and checked for album and file doubles using different scripts, mostly Dougs Applescripts and the built in ones in iTunes. I have also checked all files for inconsistencies using different programs, mostly Audio File Health Check and Yale. For example, if the file size is not correct A won’t read the file but iTunes still does. That’s why some files don’t show up in A. I cannot see this problem as a iTunes problem.

In iTunes:

Track 3-11 (the msng artist) does not even exist in iTunes or in the filesystem!

[Antoine]

The problem is from iTunes file structure itself, take a look at it bellow:

iTunes created two folders for the same album because there is two different artist in it. I know this is a PIA but if you put all of those file under the same artist folder you will get all of them in the same album.

[gtj]

No, they already are! iTunes only have one folder for this album. This is not the problem. Check my latest mail with file system screen shot.

[gtj]

There is no way iTunes could or should affect the way A reads the exact same folder/files! This is a faulty behaviour of A.

We are talking about two problems at the same time: 1) Using monitor folder show different results reading the same folder as a) a lonely folder or b) as a subfolder of the folder Music (the same folder iTunes uses). Problem 2) is the gradual corruption of the A database when syncing with iTunes. Please read my first message.

[Antoine]

The issue comes from iTunes that duplicates the audio files when importing them, unless a setting in its advanced preferences is unselected:

The solution is then to either only synchronize the iTunes library, and not the folder that contains the original audio files (before being duplicated by iTunes in its iTunes media folder), or to synchronize only the folders containing the original audio files. (Options in the Library page of Audirvana preferences)

[gtj]

If this were the case I guess I would have a lot more duplicates. Why just some? I always rip my files with XLD into a specific folder, then imports (adds) them into iTunes which copies them into the iTunes Media/Music folder, so the files are accessible to both iTunes and A. Why would this result in a duplication in Audirvana when there is none in iTunes? One would expect the fault to be in A, not iTunes. The only synchronization mechanism I use is A:s method 2. If it is a iTunes generated problem it should show up in iTunes database file and/or XML file. Is this the case? Have you verified this? (I cannot check this myself since I don’t have a copy of the iTunes database with the faults.)

Your suggestion would implicate that I have to move the files myself into the iTunes folders and then import (add) them to iTunes without the copy function, and keep the iTunes Media folder organized myself. This obliterates one of the upsides of iTunes; the automatic organization of the music library in artist folder/albums. Is this something you found out just now?

This also does not address the other issue; A’s inconsistent behaviour when reading the same folder. How can this be a problem that iTunes generates when it is not in use or interferes in A’s monitoring the folder?