Music Station and Multimedia Console do not monitor changes in my collection?

[paleosonic]

Hello,

I've installed Music Station 5 because it has the option to play music trough the NAS Audio Output (HDA Intel PCH #0\ALC262 Analog) and can be controlled by the Qmusic app.
I have used Plex for many years, though the downside with Plex is that I need the television to be turned on all the time to operate it (it's distractive and an energy waste).

Anyway, Music Station has been under development for years and was worth a try.
The first problem I encountered was the use of the AlbumArtist field instead of the Artist field, hence many Unkown Artists in my collection!
The second issue is even more ridiculous. The required Multimedia Console does not watch my collection for changes! So it seems to be a static database generated on day I pointed it to the source. It will ignore all newly added content.
There are more bad design issues, but I focus on the 2 most important.

Can others confirm this is the way the software is designed? Or am I overlooking some configuration setting?

Thanks


TS-253A
QTS 5.2.0.2860 (20240817)
Multimedia Console 2.7.1 (20241202)
Music Station 5.4.2 (20240925)
Qmusic 3.2.4.0925

[spile]

I use mp3tag to remove instances where AlbumArtist has been set to “clean up” my music catalogue.

[dosborne]

Programs like this are provided to fill a marketing checkbox and are not designed for heavy use users. Most don't allow for proper backup of any metadata and you ae at the mercy of the developers to continue support, or not. Most people use 3rd party programs that offer better options, more flexibility, and portability to other platforms to increase the likelihood that they can be used in the future.

[paleosonic]

Thank you for your reply.

@spile, I use EasyTag because it runs on Linux.

@dosbone, I can't deny that for a split second I had the impression this software serves a pre-sales decoy purpose. Though as rudimentary this software is, in combination with Qmusic it does support the audio output on my nas. Something that I didn't find in other solutions like Plex.

Anyway, I chose the time consumming path to complete all empty albumartist fields to fix the unknown artist problem.

After filling all fields and no longer pushing the re-index button, I found that new albums have been added overnight. I guess I’ve been not patient enough! I might have been spoiled by Plex which has plenty settings.

[dosborne]

Keep in mind that anything you "fill in" manually likely won't be preserved if you move to something else later as it seems closed source, and won't be part of your backup.

[paleosonic]

I’m not gonna add any data into Music Station! The software does not have ways to import playlists nor a proper way to rate multiple files as a batch. The so called “smart playlists” are a laugh since there is no way to select ALL or ANY rules, nor is there a “date added”, “last played”, etc.

But at least it can play 100 random songs by default, and I settle for that during daytime.