Removing artists from Library list?

[phunkysai]

Hope someone knows how to do this...

I scanned my music library so that I could use the "Library" function of XBMC, but when I switch to Library mode and select "Artists," some artists are displayed that I don't want to see there (such as artists on a compilation soundtrack). Is there a way to edit some file somewhere to remove unwanted artists from that list? I still want their name to show up if I play a compilation soundtrack - I just don't want them clogging up my artists list (which is already huge).

I tried doing the Advanced Settings.xml trick from the wiki, using the code for not displaying compilation artists (since the description is exactly what I wanted), but it didn't work as far as I can tell. I'm not sure if maybe I did something wrong, but I followed the instructions to the letter.

Any thoughts?

[C-Quel]

re-tag your files then scan again

[phunkysai]

Originally Posted by C-Quel

re-tag your files then scan again

Um, re-tag my files to what?

I originally did all my tags in iTunes (that was where I collected my music until XBMC came along). I had them obsessively tagged too, and I also had all the compilation music tagged as 'Compilation', but as I said that was an iTunes tag so not sure if the compilation field carries over to XBMC.

[jmarshall]

It's possibly due to you screwing up the advancedsettings.xml - at least that is the first point of failure. Perhaps you could post exactly what you did?

You can also check in the db itself as to whether an artist is a compilation artist, by loading the db up in sqlitespy or similar. Any artist that appears only in the strExtraArtists column of the songs table is considered compilation only.

Also: An artist is regarded as a compilation artist if they are not bound to an album. i.e. the AlbumArtist field has to be filled with something else, the compilation flag set, or all songs from the album must be in the same folder with the same album tag.

Post your db if you want someone to analyse it for you (including the name of an artist you think is compilation only).

Cheers,
Jonathan

[sho]

Please do an search on these forums on how exactly XBMC handles compilations, it's been discussed to death.
You "may" solve your problems by having "Various Artists" in the Album Artist filed, but I just can't be arsed to search myself right now.
(Edit: apparently not since the master himself didn't suggest it)

[jmarshall]

As long as there is something else in the albumartist field it should be OK, yeah. Doesn't have to be "Various Artists" though that is the way (other than the compilations tag itunes gives) XBMC identifies compilations for the "Compilations" node. For instance, artists which feature on just one song on an album won't get shown in the artists list if you turn compilation artists off - only artists assigned to an album (whether primary album artist, or secondary artists).

Cheers,
Jonathan

[phunkysai]

When in Library mode, if I click on "Compilations" XBMC correctly lists all the albums I have tagged as compilations from itunes, so it appears it is at least reading the tags correctly. Just thought I'd post that before showing what I put in the advanced settings XML, which I'm sure I screwed up!

Here's what I have in my advancedsettings.xml file:

<advancedsettings>
<musiclibrary>
<hidecompilationartists>true</hidecompilationartists>
</musiclibrary>
</advancedsettings>


And I placed it in my Application Support/XBMC/User Data folder, was that correct? Or does it need to be in the main app folder?

Thanks guys...

[sho]

Not sure what you mean by "Application Support/XBMC/User Data folder" but it should be in Q:\XBMC\UserData\ where Q: is your installation path (and should also be visible as a virtual path in any ftp app you use to connect to XBMC), the rest I will leave to JM.

[phunkysai]

The MAC version stores user settings (like sources.xml) in "Library/Application Support/XBMC" (at least that is my understanding, ELAN can chime in here), but I'll try it in the main app folder to see if it works...

[sho]

In that case you are probably right.. I did not check what subforum I was poking my nose in.