Uploaded image for project: 'MusicBrainz Server'
  1. MusicBrainz Server
  2. MBS-11125

Not possible to remove track lengths when basing on previous release where they are set

XMLWordPrintable

    • Icon: Bug Bug
    • Resolution: Duplicate
    • Icon: Normal Normal
    • None
    • None
    • Editing interface
    • None

      I've got quite a few vinyl LPs which I've been adding to Musicbrainz.

      Many of them were re-issued on CD later, and so when possible it saves me quite a bit of work by basing my entry on an existing entry given existing artists may already exist and also recordings with works attached.

      For some of these, the specified track lengths are different from the CD, and it's straightforward to change these.

      However, for many such releases, there are no track lengths specified, so I just remove them. Although they are quite likely to have the same track lengths, not infrequently the track lengths may well differ for various reasons, so I don't tend to keep them as it isn't necessarily accurate and I have no way to verify it quite often.

      However when removing the track lengths, the original ones on the imported medium are actually entered into the edit. This can be seen in the edit note / edit preview pane before entering the edit, and they always end up being entered.

      I have attached a number of screenshots; note the first three are just to demonstrate the interface and I never hit the edit button while the fourth one shows the actual result, where the track lengths do get added:

      1. The first screenshot shows me having removed the track lengths in the medium I'm adding (imported from the CD release to get the associated track titles as they're the same as on the record) with the track lengths decidedly removed - they are clearly empty as intended.
      2. The second screenshot shows the track titles side by side and they clearly show question marks ?:?? etc compared to the recording. This to my mind is what I wolud expect to see as I've removed the track lengths.
      3. The third screenshot shows the edit preview and it's clear that the track lengths are preserved, which is obviously contrary to my intention.
      4. This is another album that I have just added to demonstrate the actual result, see the ommited track lengths here. This is the resulting album: https://musicbrainz.org/release/fedd0a39-e4be-4131-aef8-3dc304f6fdb9?release-group=cd7cb68f-fdae-33eb-b4be-ae1d2da201fc; the track lengths get added as described even though they've supposedly been set to empty.

      There doesn't seem to be any way to remove the track lengths (other than to add the tracks manually or by copying from the track parser, but this defeats the point of importing the existing release to a great extent). The behaviour appears to be that the track lengths always get preserved even if they are explicitly deleted. This to my mind is not the correct behaviour and it is always reproducible.

      This edit is just to demonstrate what I see, but every time I've seen this and dismissed it as a bug with the editing interface, it actually does add the track lengths. To be clear, the track lengths do get added as the editing preview suggests.

      Furthermore, it's not possible to remove the track lengths that get added to the vinyl release this way, even though there is no disc ID attached and it's not even possible to add a disc ID. The editing interface just says that no changes have been made even though the track lengths have been completely removed and show ?:?? etc in the actual track list as above. Perhaps it is related but in any case it means I can't remove the duff track lengths from the vinyl LP in screeshot number 4.

      I hope this is clear. Thank you in advance.

        1. mb2.png
          mb2.png
          303 kB
        2. mb3.png
          mb3.png
          290 kB
        3. mb1.png
          mb1.png
          301 kB
        4. Screenshot 2020-09-23 at 23.32.14.png
          Screenshot 2020-09-23 at 23.32.14.png
          363 kB

            Unassigned Unassigned
            iolomorganwg IOLO MORGANWG
            Votes:
            0 Vote for this issue
            Watchers:
            2 Start watching this issue

              Created:
              Updated:
              Resolved:

                Version Package