Double-Quote character in metadata causing library problems

[englishtim]

Hi Everyone,

If a track's metadata contains the double-quote character (", ASCII decimal 34) it seems to cause problems with displaying content in the library-views.

Symptoms:
If an item in the list contains double-quotes, clicking through it either returns a blank list or the top-level 'Network mounts' / 'USB storage' etc. library page. Specific metadata fields that exhibit this behaviour include 'Artist' and 'Album'. The 'Track Name' field doesn't seem to be affected in this way; a track whose name contains double-quotes can be added to the playback queue and played successfully.

Examples:

(Using David Bowie's "Heroes" as an example - the correct title of the album includes the double-quotes):

• Library > Album > "Heroes" > blank library-page;
• Library > Artists > David Bowie > "Heroes" > blank library-page;
• Library > Network mounts > (my NAS) > David Bowie > _Heroes_ > all tracks list correctly, and can be added to queue and played;
  (My NAS's folders are organised hierarchically as Artist / Album / Tracks. FWIW I use iTunes to manage metadata, and it auto-substitutes " with _ in folder-names)

Other examples:

• Library > Artists > "Beans" Hambone-El Morrow > jumps back to top-level library view;
• Library > Artists > David "Honeyboy" Edwards > blank library-page.

RuneAudio versions:
This issue seems to affect all versions of RuneAudio. My specific versions are as follows - I'm using them in stock unmodified form, with no add-ons:

• Raspberry Pi Model B: 0.3 beta 20141029 (i.e. the current "official" one);
• Raspberry Pi 3 Model B: 0.5 beta (janui-20180903-0)

I'm afraid I've no idea if this is an issue just with RuneAudio, or whether it's a bug in MPD. Has anyone seen this behaviour in other MPD-based music systems?

Thanks in advance,

Peace and friendship,
englishtim

[janui]

Hi englishtim,

If a track's metadata contains the double-quote character (", ASCII decimal 34) it seems to cause problems with displaying content in the library-views.

Your example is good, but it’s not just a double quote character, it is any character which is invalid in a directory name within ntfs or fat. I noticed that it also goes wrong with a ‘:’, so I tried a few other characters as well. The problem seems to occur when the metadata album name is not the same as the album directory name. I have a feeling that Rune expects these to be the same. But I don’t have a solution…
janui

[englishtim]

Hi janui,

Thanks - I wasn't aware of the other characters causing issues. FYI I don't see the problem you describe with the ':' colon character; I have a lot of classical music in my library, and the colon's used extensively in both the Artist and Album fields.

The host file-system for my Rune library is ext4, on a Synology NAS. My workflow for adding new music is a bit fiddly: I always import music to a local iTunes library (on an NTFS-formatted Windows PC) first, then edit the metadata, then copy the new folders & files onto the NAS, before finally updating Rune's MPD library. As a result the "difficult" characters are auto-replaced by iTunes before the folders & files are copied to the Rune library. I don't know if this would influence the different experiences we're seeing with the colon character.

One more related thing: the "Back" button (top-left of the library lists) seems to go to unexpected places if the library-list is empty. I've only seen this a few times so far - I'll post more information if I get a clearer picture of what's happening.

Peace and friendship,
englishtim