Hi Why can't I find a track by an artist that is in a compilation album using the search? Specific example I have the Paloma Faith track I 'Can't Rely on You' with the artist shown as a contributing artist in the ID3 tag on the Now 87 album. ( I am not using iTunes at all!) Indeed when playing the album the artist name appears on all the controllers (CR100, android and PC versions). But when I search the music library for the artist name it only shows a different album of the same artist but not the individual track in the compilation album.

Compilation Tracks not searchable by Artist

Hello Mike,

Sonos reads the metadata directly from the track- which is how it is encoded. If you are unable to search for the artist and it show the compilation album, it may be that the metadata is not properly encoded to place the track in that area.

You can manually alter/verify the metadata yourself via popular third party software. This will then place the songs in their desired sections. You could consider: MediaMonkey, VLC...etc

We can also take a look with you to see to verify this information with you if you'd like. You can give us a call when you have the time to troubleshoot.

There is nothing to do with metadata, the problem is in Sonos controller.

I confirm, this is not working, you can't find compilation tracks using artist search, there should be some kind of "Contributing Artists" search

Please Sonos, do something, first we can't see the contributing artists when browsing compilation album and we can't search artist of compilation, it is very very very annoying.

I agree, my multi artist compilations are tagged perfectly with the album artist set to "Various Artists" and the individual tracks have the "Artist" tag set as appropriate. I also set the compilation flag to true. When grouping by either Album Artist or by Compilations the extensive "Contributing Artists" list is ignored when searching by artist. As approximately 40% of my library is multi-artist compilations (the entire UK Now Series and many many others) I have a very long "Contributing Artists" list but the "Artists" list (album artists) just shows the artists that I have albums for. This is just how I like it as I often prefer to just browse the artists I have full albums for. Unfortunately the extensive "Contributing Artists" list is not searchable meaning 40% of my tracks are not searchable by artist, unless I painstakingly scroll through the list. This is a major, major useability issue. I can change the tags so that the album artist is left blank for my compilations but this then means that all my compilation album artists then appear under the "Artists" list. This makes the individual Artists list and Contributing Artists lists pointless. This is what I said about the other issue of not always being able to see the artists for tracks on compilations: Unfortunately the search functionality still doesn't find tracks by artists that appear on compilations. I wish the grouping functionality would look at both the compilation flag and the album artist tags. Unfortunately if you group by Compilations and you have albums by an artist that contain tracks by the artist Feat. [another artist] the album is broken out by the individual artists. For example Out of Time by R.E.M.. For this album I set the album artist to be just R.E.M. and also set Artist to R.E.M. except for the two tracks that feature another artist. The album is broken out into 2 sections by artist, rather than the single album artist. This is very annoying as I like to listen to albums in full and the only way of doing this is to search for the album by name rather than artist. I would like to see just R.E.M. in the album artist list and R.E.M., R.E.M. Feat Kate. Pierson and R.E.M. Feat. KRS-one in the contributing artists list. If I group by album artist it works like this but it then doesn't show the individual artists of tracks for multi-artist compilations. This is so frustrating. It was very embarrassing when a guest tried searching for "Poison" by "Alice Cooper" by searching for "Alice Cooper". I have this track on 3 different compilation albums but it is impossible to find it by searching for "Alice Cooper". I really can't believe this still hasn't been sorted out. Another major annoyance - I have also uploaded all my music to Google Play. When I search by artist on Google Play through the Sonos controller and go into the "My Library" section it lists all of the albums but there is no way of seeing a list of tracks by the artist in my library. If I search for "Alice Cooper" it shows all of the compilation albums that "Alice Cooper" appears on but if I go into the compilation album it shows all of the tracks on the compilation, rather than just the track(s) by Alice Cooper. This is very frustrating as compilation albums contain a lot of tracks and you can't easily see the track(s) by the artist you are searching for. Surely these useability issues need addressing as soon as possible.

I have checked on the new controller 5.2, it seems to be NOT corrected!!!!

Other threads on the same topic:

https://ask.sonos.com/sonos/topics/include_contributing_artists_in_the_artists_library_field

https://ask.sonos.com/sonos/topics/compilation_tracks_not_searchable_by_artist

https://ask.sonos.com/sonos/topics/include_contributing_artists_field_in_search

See what you're up against Darren - you get a reply that doesn't understand the problem - and then nothing.

yes, Sonos still ignore us

FYI version 5.3 still no improvement !!! (beta tested)

Sonos, please reply in a way that shows us that you at least understand this problem. Understanding is the first step in fixing it.

Martin, whenever this issue comes up 'Sonos' often replies and goes on to demonstrate that they don't understand their own system and that they believe that it must be your fault or tagging problems in your music files. I don't believe that anyone has ever come out and said either 'Yes we know about that' or 'Oh, we didn't realise you couldn't search for an artist just because they're on a compilation album.'. Even though you CAN search for an artist on a compilation album but only if you don't want to actually see who any song is by when viewing the album in your library. The lack of Sonos response and this mutual exclusivity of functionality is staggering.

The sad truth.

We just have to hope the fix is not into the GUI but it is in the device software which was not updated I guess (this was only a GUI fix I think).

Hello Mike,

Sonos reads the metadata directly from the track- which is how it is encoded. If you are unable to search for the artist and it show the compilation album, it may be that the metadata is not properly encoded to place the track in that area.

You can manually alter/verify the metadata yourself via popular third party software. This will then place the songs in their desired sections. You could consider: MediaMonkey, VLC...etc

We can also take a look with you to see to verify this information with you if you'd like. You can give us a call when you have the time to troubleshoot.

I am using a Samsung Note 10.1 running Android OS 4.4.2 and Sonos app version 5.3 and the issue I initially reported is now resolved. That is if I search for the artist Paloma Faith it now shows me both her individual album as well as the track she sings on Now 87. Result!

I am using a Samsung Note 10.1 running Android OS 4.4.2 and Sonos app version 5.3 and the issue I initially reported is now resolved. That is if I search for the artist Paloma Faith it now shows me both her individual album as well as the track she sings on Now 87. Result! It also works on the CR100 controller.

Mike, go to Now 87. Next to the song does it tell you who it's by? No. That's the issue - you can have one or the.other.

Stephen, with all due respect, the issue i reported when I started this thread - note the title - was that i couldn't locate tracks by a specific artist using the search facility. This issue has been resolved as i can now do exactly that. Your requirement of listing the artist next to the track name is not the issue i raised. I too would like to see the actual artist listed, particularly as nowadays it seems to be commonplace for albums to include other contributing artists on some tracks. This information is clearly available as when the track is playing the artist's name is displayed. I believe your issue should be a separate thread.

That issue does have a separate thread:

https://ask.sonos.com/sonos/topics/show_track_artist_when_viewing_the_tracks_in_compilation_album

(and some others, mentioned in the right column on that page)

Stephen, with all due respect, the issue i reported when I started this thread - note the title - was that i couldn't locate tracks by a specific artist using the search facility. This issue has been resolved as i can now do exactly that. Your requirement of listing the artist next to the track name is not the issue i raised. I too would like to see the actual artist listed, particularly as nowadays it seems to be commonplace for albums to include other contributing artists on some tracks. This information is clearly available as when the track is playing the artist's name is displayed. I believe your issue should be a separate thread.

Mike, with all due respect the issues are linked. You have always been able to do what you said you couldn't do - it hasn't just been fixed at all. I can only say that when you couldn't do the search for artists on compilation albums you had the controller set to group by itunes compilation. If you do that you can't search. If you don't group by compilations you can search - but no longer see contributing artists listed against the track. Zero change in functionality in this or any recent release as far as your issue goes. Because Sonos themselves don't seem to even understand the issue it's little wonder there appear to be so many threads about basically the same thing - it's very poorly managed. For info, try it and you'll see. Change the sorting and try searching again.

I have 4.3 on Android 444. If I search for "pink" hoping to find an album where artist is "various artists" and contributing artist is "pink", the track is not found. So for me this problem seems not to be fixed as well. Camillo

Stephen, with all due respect, the issue i reported when I started this thread - note the title - was that i couldn't locate tracks by a specific artist using the search facility. This issue has been resolved as i can now do exactly that. Your requirement of listing the artist next to the track name is not the issue i raised. I too would like to see the actual artist listed, particularly as nowadays it seems to be commonplace for albums to include other contributing artists on some tracks. This information is clearly available as when the track is playing the artist's name is displayed. I believe your issue should be a separate thread.

agree with Stephen (still not possible to search artist songs from artist name in compilations albums when group by compilations) nothing improved....

Hello Mike,

Sonos reads the metadata directly from the track- which is how it is encoded. If you are unable to search for the artist and it show the compilation album, it may be that the metadata is not properly encoded to place the track in that area.

You can manually alter/verify the metadata yourself via popular third party software. This will then place the songs in their desired sections. You could consider: MediaMonkey, VLC...etc

We can also take a look with you to see to verify this information with you if you'd like. You can give us a call when you have the time to troubleshoot.

Hello Dominique Z, can we have an official response from Sonos on this topic ? (just read the thread, please)

I too, find it strange that contributing artists are not searchable on compilation albums.

My music library is on a synology NAS which comes with an app called DS Audio.

This app is able to find tracks by contributing artist name.

So the problem is not in the metadata (which is corrected for all tracks via musicbrainz)

Please, after years and many forum threads , build in the feature to index the contributing artist so it can be searched...

this is a joke

such a simple thing to do

nice to blame the metadata

i assumed that sonos cared and listened to the community. oh well, it's not like we've spent hundreds of hard earned dollars on their products or anything

is there any way to turn a topic into a Poll ?

Poll Options:

- Sonos should allow Searching by Contributing Artist

- Id rather Sonos spend their time on other things they consider more important despite this being a basic feature of digital music management

Poll can only be created by the author (or moderators) in the topic's original post

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