I recently added a song to iTunes (from soundcloud) and edited the metadata to add the artist name. It showed up as a separate tab in iTunes even though it was the same name artist? Then I removed the name from all songs and renamed them the same artist, now all the songs are in separate tabs?
iMac, OS X El Capitan (10.11.2), iTunes 12.3.2.35
I believe the fix is a little easier than described above, but still annoying iTunes has such issues. It's simple to do, but as with many such things, describing it clearly with caveats takes a little more effort...
If the "Album Artist" field for any track or album is explicitly set to a specific artist, then all that material will show under a single instance of that artist in Artist view. No other fields need to be set to the artist or otherwise altered to achieve this. However...
The problem is that multiple (supposedly) similar contents of any given field—even if inspected and found to be identical (similar capitalization, no extra/missing/different spaces, punctuation, etc,), even if then in-place retyped, copy-pasted or re-entered via the drop down suggestions menu that appears when you start typing—are sometimes (still) not recognized by iTunes as identical values, no matter how often you verify them or repeat re-entry. The "secret" as others above have alluded to is that the field contents have to be changed to something else, then changed back globally to the desired name, which somehow forces iTunes to acknowledge the box contents are identical. Simply re-entering the apparently correct value does NOT seem to reliably achieve any change in the way iTunes recognizes field contents, as it surely should.
So, while the only field that needs to be altered to amend this specific issue (i.e., repeated artist names in Artist view) issue is the Album Artist field, the same technique will work to correct other grouping issues (fragmented albums for one) where certain relevant fields appear to be correct, but in some hidden way, are not. There is no need to delete/restore or otherwise move any files around to do this (hahaha... for THIS issue, anyway—pre-purchase downloads present some real hair-pullers 🙂).
1. Go to Album view, and search using desired artist's name. This will bring up all whole albums by that artist, and include any tracks from Compilation or Various Artists albums that are in some way associated with that artist (i.e., artist's name appears somewhere in the track info). This also works if selecting individual or groups of albums or tracks other ways, and using the procedure repeatedly, but this is the simplest way to do it all at once.
2. Select all the tracks (click once in tracks area then Command-A, or click on first item and shift click on last, so all are highlighted blue).
3. "Get info" on all selected tracks. (Right click and select "Get Info", or Edit menu—>Song Info. This brings up info relevant to all the selected tracks at once, and allows a global change across all tracks selected, and does not allow editing of any included individual track's info.
(Note 1: If the Album Artist box is blank, or contains an artist's name, following this method will not overwrite/lose any possibly useful additional info that was unique to one or more tracks—minimal concern in proceeding)
(Note 2: If the box shows a grayed-out "mixed", this is because there are already at least two different entries in that field across all the tracks selected. For any given track, empty is counted as a different entry to text. If there are concerns re what unique info may be in the existing "Album Artist" fields, see bottom of post, "Note 3: "Checking Album Artist info, before changing it", before continuing.)
5. Start to type your artist's name in the "Album Artist" box. The pop-up should suggest the (correct version of the) desired artist's name, so preferably select that, rather than type it all manually.
6. Click directly behind newly entered artist's name so text is deselected and cursor immediately follows last character, then type any single letter (e.g., an upper case X or @, whatever).
7. Hit "OK". You may reassuringly see a progress bar pop up momentarily (or not).
8. "Get info" on all the selected tracks again, and delete the extra character (e.g., the X or @) you added in 6. above.
9. Hit "OK". Again you may see a progress bar, as per 7. above.
10. Return to Artist view and you should find all the multiple instances of the same artist have collapsed to just one.
Et voilà 🙂. It seems like it ought to be effective just to skip 6,7 & 8. In the past re-entering an already-existing value across the same field for multiple tracks worked (say to regroup fragmented albums) but it seems now changing it to something else before changing it back—even though nothing apparent was wrong with initial value—is more reliably effective.
(Note 3: "Checking Album Artist info, before changing it". If the Album Artist box shows the grayed-out "mixed" it's possible useful info is present for one or more tracks. It's more likely many are already the [supposedly] correct value and one or more tracks are blank or contain a slight variation on the correct name. Anyway, to check out the unique info:
—Deselect all the tracks in "Album" view.
—Click once on the first (top) track, right-click and select "Song info".
—Click in the "Album Artist" field once to highlight the name there (easier to monitor field contents in next step).
—Repeatedly click the right arrow at bottom left of Info window and watch for any different/interesting values in the "Album Artist" field. You can click it as fast as you can, anything different will jump out clearly.
—Back up to any different entries that arise and evaluate interest, if any. If worth keeping, a cut & paste into the "Comments" box is one option.
—Continue until all tracks have been scanned in this way.
—Proceed back to 1. above.)
vbr
Barry
Glad you sorted it... Thought the update had fixed it - sadly not, but hey, keeps it interesting 😉
Whenever you are editing meta data, newly entered media started acting weird
This helped me
1. Make sure that all Artist name is same in all songs (by editing meta date through get info option)
2. Make sure that All Albums under that artist is same without any spelling differences (by editing meta date through get info option)
3. If you using Mac, go to media location
4. It should show all albums of single Artist in single folder (If not please edit meta data again for mismatching information)
5. Copy the folder and save in different location (preferably desktop)
6. Now open iTunes
7. Delete all wrong entries (move them to trash, its must to move to trash otherwise it will not work)
8. Now in the iTunes, you do not see that particular artist (and his albums)
9. Now add the media again into iTunes (this will fix the issue)
Lengthy process but still worked for me, we need to repeat same procedure whenever we add new media (unless apple comes with permanent solution)
This did not work for me...
If iTunes shows multiple instances of an artist or an album then what generally works is to select all related tracks and use Get Info to add say a trailing X to each of the fields that the tracks should have in common:
Apply the change which merges things together, then remove the excess characters. Occasionally it may help to close and reopen iTunes between the two renaming operations. Part of a compilation should also be set consistently.
* If tracks are to be synced to a non-iOS device there should be a common Artist and/or the album should be set as a Compilation.
Use the songs view and display the fields Album, Sort Album, Album Artist, Sort Album Artist, Artist and Sort Artist side by side so you see whether or not it is appropriate to edit Artist and if sort values could be causing any further problems. See Grouping tracks into albums for more help if required.
One further tip for really stubborn duplicates. At one point I had three lots of Various Artists in the artists view of my iTunes Match library that wouldn't respond to the usual trailing X treatment. What I found worked was to add the trailing X to start with, but then with each group that iTunes wanted to keep separate start typing a value and let iTunes autocomplete from Var... to Various Artists. Picking from the autocomplete lists seemed to work when pasting/editing the whole value didn't.
tt2
it didn't help me!
On my side I solved this concern by doing the following.
First I choose the display by Songs. Then I click the Artist column to sort it out by Artist names.
Second I choose all the same artist, right click "Get Info". Delete fields Artist & Album Artist. I just keep an X letter in the Artist field. Then apply.
Third I click again "Get Info" on all my Artist named X. Fill Artist & Album Artist fields with the good info et voila!
Hope it helps
Much simpler solution. In iTunes group select all "songs" by pressing "select" while clicking on all the album/artists songs. Now all the songs should be highlighted in blue. Next go to edit in the menu bar and select "get info". You will be asked if you want to edit the entire selection, answer yes. In "Get Info" under artist name type "aaaaaaaaa" and hit "Okay". Now in your list of songs scroll all the way up to "a" and you will find the same group of song. Now again group select all the songs and go to "get info" and type in the artists' name and hit okay.
You should now find all the albums/artist grouped properly.
For me was helpful to remove "Artist" and keep "Album artist" only. Which forces to automatically detect "Artist".
Wow, nothing helps. I spent so much time deleting, naming, renaming, and nothing helps. Never saw this in earlier versions of iTunes and completely surprised why Apple can't seem to reproduce it then patch. I'm on v12.4.3.1 and been seeing this #$%^ issue for at least the last two builds. I can see if this is some obscure application they have and plan on obsoleting it soon, but this is a bread-and-butter application where crap like this should be addressed immediately.
The odd thing is that under Albums view all the songs are properly displayed. So at least in the metadata iTunes uses it knows that these songs are related to the same album, same artist, etc.
...and we as paying customers should not have to be playing around with hacks like this!!
Thank you! Worked miraculously!
I've been dealing with this issue for months and you are correct, nothing works. Well, that's not true. I could sit here and remove the artist for the individual tracks and replace it with the album artist name. Then go back and add the correct artist and then look who those albums and artists and copy and paste, etc. I've done that so many times and I'm tired of doing it, especially when it's a compilation or a musical soundtrack. What really sets me off is that I've yet to get any fed back from Apple via the feedback assistant. As soon I fix one album I find another. As soon as there is a new update I find another and another. I've had it!
Group select all the track's (press shift while clicking on each track) then scroll down from "edit" and select "get info".
You are now going to do edit multiple items at the same time. Change the artist's name to "aaaaaa" and hit "OK".
Scroll all the way to the top of your songs and you will find the group of highlighted songs tis time with artist name "aaaaaa".
Repeat the "group info" procedure again but this time enter the correct artist name and hit "OK".
Scroll down to find all your tracks grouped under 1 artist.
Some times you may have to do this a few times but they will group.
I don't if you listen to iTunes with Apple TV but iTunes gets screwed up there as well with multiple listings this will solve that problem as well.
Yes, this has been pointed out many times already (for me, I must have done this 15 times for one of the artist groups I set, still pi$$es me off that it's not working and the time I wasted). But Apple is no longer a true customer focused company when it comes to their software. Not like the old days. Understandably so, now Apple has a massive company to run, shifting priorities, focus on new products to appease the critics that they are still innovators, lawsuits, typical corporate stuff. But when people (not just you!) post 'hacks' like this:
"Some times you may have to do this a few times but they will group."
the team leader or sr. manager for iTunes or software development should be all over this as it is an embarrassment to their product line and the people involved in development. More importantly: it's crappy customer service!
Is this the biggest bug or priority? No. But being in tech for almost four decades I would have to believe that this indexing issue is NOT a huge problem to overcome. Heck, I bet you could have an intern find the root cause and implement a fix in a day or two. Nope. All their focus is on the new iPhone now and how to make emojis look cool.
This post by Tron2008 is fine yet you deleted mine for not being constructive? Nice double standard.
Below is what I posted:
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I'm having the same problem. Sometimes reimporting the artist works others it doesn't. Ive noticed sorting in get info is showing as Mixed despite being only one artist and it will not save my changes.
Currently I have multiple listings artists, compilations all over the place, missing/incorrect artwork. It wouldn't be such an issue had I not spent hours after the last two updates replacing; artwork, metadata and lost songs etc. On 14,319 items it's time consuming, i'm strating to lose my patience with how controlling apple seem to want to be. An update is fine when it is an improvement to the software but asetic changes should be options not mandatory.
😢😟😠
I'd appreciate solutions to these issues
Why is iTunes putting same artist multiple times?
