Subsonic Forum

I just upgraded to Subsonic 4.8 from 4.7. Running Java 7u21. I'm still experiencing the artists-not-displaying-in-alphabetical-order bug from 4.7. Some artists, for whatever reason, are listed at the end of the list. The "sort albums by year" option is unchecked, so it's not that. Here's a screenshot:

It's probably your file structure.

X:\Music - defined in settings

Then that would contain a folder for each Artist so that the structure would look like

X:\Music\Artist\Album\Tracks

Example:

C:\Music\Beatles\Revolver\Taxman.mp3

This is the easy way to do it.

GJ51 wrote:It's probably your file structure.

X:\Music - defined in settings

Then that would contain a folder for each Artist so that the structure would look like

X:\Music\Artist\Album\Tracks

Example:

C:\Music\Beatles\Revolver\Taxman.mp3

This is the easy way to do it.

That is essentially how I do it. My structure is as follows:

Z:\Music\%genre%\%artist%\%date% - %album%\[Disc %discnumber%]\%tracknumber% - %title%

I don't see why this would result in a non-alphabetical ordering.

If by essentially exactly, you mean completely different, then sure it is

My best guess is that it just putting them in the order that they are found. It is most likely iterating over the folders in alphabetical order by genre since that is the root folder. I imagine it probably wouldn't be too hard to do a sort at the end (famous last words for any programmer, I know), but for we shall see if Sindre does it or not

daneren2005 wrote:If by essentially exactly, you mean completely different, then sure it is

My best guess is that it just putting them in the order that they are found. It is most likely iterating over the folders in alphabetical order by genre since that is the root folder. I imagine it probably wouldn't be too hard to do a sort at the end (famous last words for any programmer, I know), but for we shall see if Sindre does it or not

Yeah, he may just not be sorting the files in each subdirectory of the root folder. If not, that should be a fairly easy fix. Each subfolder should explicitly be sorted.

- Subsonic 4.8 sorts folders in a strange way:
folders containing subfolders only (such as "Depeche Mode", with subfolders
"Violator" and "Ultra") but containing no mp3s (music) itself directly are
sorted PRIOR ANY other folders containing mp3s (such as "Bangles - Greatest Hits").

### Example sorting of Subsonic 4.8 ###

A correct order example:

[1] Bangles - Greatest Hits
[2] Cake
[3] Chris Isaak - Wicked Game (The Best) - 1991
[4] Depeche Mode

Items 2 and 4 do not contain mp3s directly, they are root folders of the
particular Artist. As introduced, subsonic is re-ordering these folders
as follow:

[2]
[4]
[1]
[3]

### Workaround ###
Added an empty.mp3 1s silent music file to each root folder to simulate
"album" style for subsonic.

Yes, I find this pretty annoying. I have a folder 'various' where I put compilations. Inside 'various' I have a variety of folders for various compilations. Those folders that have subfolders [maybe for disc1, disc2..] are at the top of the list of folders in 'various'.. I don't see why they aren't just alphabetically sorted with the rest of the folders?

What it amounts to is a 2 level sort.. first the folders are sorted based on having subfolders or not, then alphabetically. I'd like to remove that first sort.

Same exact issue here. I never upgraded to 4.7 because of this sorting issue.
My file structure is /Genre/Artist/Album/Tracks.mp3
Some of my folders have only single tracks /Genre/Artist/Tracks.mp3
Some have both album folders and single tracks. /Genre/Artist/Album Folders and Single Tracks.mp3
This is where 4.7 and 4.8 have sorting issues.
I have unchecked "sort albums by year"

Subsonic 4.7 and 4.8 sort the deepest folders first.
The folders that are in the format /Genre/Artist/Album/Tracks.mp3 sort first.
They are followed by the folders that contain single tracks or a combo of albums and single tracks.

SOLUTION - Place all of your single tracks inside a subfolder so they appear to the sorting engine as an album.
So using your Depeche Mode example to solve the problem you should have:
/New Wave/Depeche Mode/Violator/Tracks.mp3
/New Wave/Depeche Mode/Ultra/Tracks.mp3
/New Wave/Depech Mode/Single Tracks/Tracks.mp3

I just tried this with a folder of both albums and single tracks. I moved the single tracks into a subfolder called Single Tracks and now it sorts correctly.
Aparently there is a NO way to change the Subsonic sorting engine back to the 4.6 method so I'll have to spend a few hours creating Single Track subfolders in my music collection.

It looks like you guys identified the issue! That does appear to be it. The folders sorted at the top have no mp3s directly under them (only subdirectories are directly under them). It's silly to have to create a dummy directory to fix this. The proper fix is to sort directories at the current level, ignoring whatever is going on at the next level.

Supposedly it sorts faster in its current format. Very aggravating for those of us who have very large and well organized mp3 collections.

I was happy to see this pop up in the forum.
I've been wrestling with it since upgrading to 4.7 as well and never spent enough time on it to identify root cause.
It sounds like the root cause has been identified as folders containing subfolders but no MP3s get sorted first, then folders with subfolders AND random MP3s in their root get sorted second.
This leads to a rather wonky 2 tier list where users won't see their band listing unless they scroll the whole list.

I'm not sure if this is supposed to be a feature or if it's a bug.
How can we get it categorized properly and either a fix scheduled, or a feature added to revert to proper alphabetical sorting?

Thanks Sindre.. as always.. great product!

I feel that both the suggestions for workarounds are kludge fixes.

Adding a 1s mp3 to every directory? I call B.S. on that one.

Creating a separate subdirectory for "Single Tracks". I must have thousands of artists with "single tracks" due to how my collection is sorted.

No matter what directory I go into or what the structure is, I should see all files sorted alphabetically.

I have 99 artists beginning with A. How the hell do I find what I am looking for easily? This is the one true thing that is making me want to go away from Subsonic, no matter how good it is.

If anybody here besides Sindre can write code (unfortunately I can't) and can find the section within Subsonic's code where the sorting engine is located and replace it with the old 4.6 code (or just fix it ) we'd all greatly appreciate it.

There are other spinoffs of Subsonic like Supersonic and Madsonic which may have already solved the sorting problem. I haven't tried either of them yet. Have any of you guys tried them?

Is all your music tagged properly? If so I wonder if this is an issue with the tag handling by Subsonic.

ripley wrote:Is all your music tagged properly? If so I wonder if this is an issue with the tag handling by Subsonic.

In my case, yes, most, if not all the MP3s are tagged properly.
The thing is that the folders used to sort as one would expect until version 4.6.
That's when the odd sorting started.
For example, under my B:> folder, the list goes like this.


b.w.stevenson
Babyface
Babylon A.D
Bachman Turner Overdrive (BTO)
Bachman-Turner Overdrive
Bad Examples, The
....
BYU Choir

Then the listings start again with

Béla Fleck
B-52's
B.B. King
Babblefish
Backstreet Boys
Bacon Brothers
Bad Company
...
Byther Smith

What it should look like in the sort is:
B.B. King
b.w.stevenson
Béla Fleck
B-52's
Babblefish
Babyface
Babylon A.D
Bachman Turner Overdrive (BTO)
Bachman-Turner Overdrive
Backstreet Boys
Bacon Brothers
Bad Company
Bad Examples, The

It does seem to have to do with whether or not a band folder has just sub-folders under it or if there are individual MP3's in the root of the band folder.
So, for example, where the B-52s should be listed before Babylon A.D., it is not.
Here's the sub-folder and file breakdown of those two specific band folders.
Babylon A.D. only has subfolders with MP3 tracks in those folders.

Babylon A.D.
|- [1989] Babylon A.D
|- [1992] Nothing Sacred
|- [1998] Live In Your Face

B-52's has sub-folders AND several stand alone MP3s in the root of the band folder.
B-52's
|- [1980] Wild Planet
|- [1983] Whammy!
|- [1989] Cosmic Thing
|- [1992] Good Stuff
|- [1998] Time Capsule
|- The B-52's - Party Mix! - 02 - Private Idaho.mp3
|- The B-52's - The B-52's - 01 - Planet Claire.mp3
|- The B-52's - The B-52's - 04 - Rock Lobster.mp3

Hope this helps define how the sort function is working.

Thanks again Sindre for such a cool product.