$discogs_albumid field not updating in database

[endcredits33]

My aim is to be able to run queries with Discogs Release IDs. Running beet fields tells me there is a field called discogs_albumid, however if I populate this tag and update the database, nothing happens.

What tag should I be populating for the database to pick it up? Or does this only work with the modify command?

Running the latest version of beets.

[henry-oberholtzer]

Beets does follow a database-first model, so updates to file tags won't be automatically recognized by design.

Using the modify command will update the database, and then can be applied to the files with write. You could also re-import the album, and give it the intended discogs release id, letting both the album and file have the correct tag from the jump.

By queries do you mean like specifically for looking up an album in beets by discogs_albumid?

[endcredits33]

By queries do you mean like specifically for looking up an album in beets by discogs_albumid?

Yes, exactly.

I tend to use external tag editors to populate tags and then run the beet update command to update the database. This works for most common tags but I can't seem to figure out which ID3/Vorbis tag corresponds to discogs_albumid

At the moment it appears that the only way to populate this field in the database is to either use the autotagger or beet modify

[semohr]

I think this is the same issue as #6036.

@arsaboo While we’re at it, I believe #6064 could also include a fix for this. Would you mind taking a look, please?

[snejus]

discogs_albumid is a field in the database, so this is separate from #6036 @semohr.

I think the title of this issue is slightly misleading since the database field is being updated as designed, as @endcredits33 acknowledged here

At the moment it appears that the only way to populate this field in the database is to either use the autotagger or beet modify

@endcredits33 can you confirm that your intention is to write discogs album id to the music files?

[endcredits33]

@endcredits33 can you confirm that your intention is to write discogs album id to the music files?

The opposite. I don't use the autotagger when importing into the beets database normally. After importing, I will often change/add tags to my music files and run beet update to push these changes to the database. This works for most fields but seemingly discogs_albumid can only be populated in the database if I use the autotagger or beet modify

I'm not sure if this behaviour is intended or not but certainly not all fields in the database work like this so I would expect them to be consistent.

What I am expecting is that the discogs_albumid field in the database should correspond to an ID3/Vorbis tag, changes to which can then be picked up by beet update

[arsaboo]

discogs_albumid is not a standard ID3 tag, so I doubt it will work like that.

[endcredits33]

Well to be fair neither are some of the other database fields and yet they still work in that way. For example LABEL

Personally I think it would make sense if all the fields listed under beet fields interacted in this way with an ID3 tag

[snejus]

See the list of fields that are writable to media files:

>>> Item.writable_media_fields
{'acoustid_fingerprint',
 'acoustid_id',
 'album',
 'albumartist',
 'albumartist_credit',
 'albumartist_sort',
 'albumartists',
 'albumartists_credit',
 'albumartists_sort',
 'albumdisambig',
 'albumstatus',
 'albumtype',
 'albumtypes',
 'arranger',
 'artist',
 'artist_credit',
 'artist_sort',
 'artists',
 'artists_credit',
 'artists_sort',
 'asin',
 'barcode',
 'bpm',
 'catalognum',
 'comments',
 'comp',
 'composer',
 'composer_sort',
 'country',
 'day',
 'disc',
 'disctitle',
 'disctotal',
 'encoder',
 'genre',
 'grouping',
 'initial_key',
 'isrc',
 'label',
 'language',
 'lyricist',
 'lyrics',
 'mb_albumartistid',
 'mb_albumartistids',
 'mb_albumid',
 'mb_artistid',
 'mb_artistids',
 'mb_releasegroupid',
 'mb_releasetrackid',
 'mb_trackid',
 'mb_workid',
 'media',
 'month',
 'original_day',
 'original_month',
 'original_year',
 'r128_album_gain',
 'r128_track_gain',
 'rg_album_gain',
 'rg_album_peak',
 'rg_track_gain',
 'rg_track_peak',
 'script',
 'title',
 'track',
 'tracktotal',
 'year'}

Unfortunately, discogs_album_id is not present in this list. In order to support it, we will need to adjust mediafile, I think.

[henry-oberholtzer]

I think adding support for discogs_albumid could be great, then we could make headway on stopping the discogs plugin from being obliged to write the discogs albumid in place of MB ID.

[arsaboo]

@snejus if it is a question of updating mediafile, we should consider adding other identifiers/fields. I, for one, would like to save rating

[henry-oberholtzer]

I think there'd be a lot of merit in making as many database fields as possible writable.

It would make how the application works more intuitive, and give the tagged files more utility outside of beets's ecosystem too. I'm happy to take a look at Mediafile when I have time.

[arsaboo]

We have to be careful though. Do we want to write everything in the tags?

[henry-oberholtzer]

by default, probably not! However, I don't think it'd be a far stretch from how modular and configurable beets already is to build in a system to let users get granular with what tags to write to files, especially since we all have slightly different use cases & preferences.

[endcredits33]

Perhaps a use case for the zero plugin?