Various Artists listed by first artist on album

[brizz72]

After a couple hours of googling, I couldn't find an answer, so I registered so I could ask this question...

I am having a problem syncing from MMW to MMA. I have inserted my phone's MicroSD card into my laptop, and I am syncing through MMW. After the sync, I replace the card back into my phone and refresh my file list in MMA.

Here's the setup: I have a compilation album of 15 artists. I have tagged the <artist> field for these files to show the individual artist for each song, while the <Album Artist> field is "Various Artists". These files are tagged correctly in MMW and in mp3tag, which I originally used to tag my entire library.

Here's the problem: When I view the Album Artists (or Albums) on my MMA, the album is not listed under "Various Artists", but as the first artist on the album.

How can I get these compilation albums to show up as "Various Artists" (i.e. using the <Album Artist> tag) in MMA?

[Lowlander]

Sync to the card in the phone instead of the card separately. With your current method you're relying on Google Media Scanner reading tags instead of MMW updating MMA with the tags.

[brizz72]

Is there a fix for this problem within Google Media Scanner?

I have a library of 25,000 files. Most are NOT compilation albums, thankfully, so I could probably follow your suggestion for these compilation albums, then sync using the card in the laptop for the others...but the process of syncing to the card in the phone takes FOREVER with a collection this large.

What other problems will I encounter by syncing with two different methods like this?

[Lowlander]

No Play History, no Playlists sync back, no changed tags synced back (this is limited anyway though) and some users have issues with Artwork using that method.

Unless you're syncing different sets of music, you'd only have a long sync the first time. You should be able to do a Sync to the card in the phone after you've synced directly to the card, but your millage may vary, at which point only changes and tags should be synced, not the whole set of files.

[Peke]

Hi,
Usually after insertation to phone an WiFi Sync (should go fairly fast as files are already on device) fixes any tag and playlist issues that arise due the direct to SDcard sync.