Classical Mode: help needed!
- Thread starter Stephen Healy
- Start date
and what does it show in Sense when you chose "Edit Album"?
Attachments
Indeed, but what is strange is that where you would expect a track number, there is the word "Track"
Something happens in the import that deletes the track number that was in the Apple Music version... It then shows "Track when the track number is empty. No idea why your track numbers get deleted...
How do you copy the files to the Zen internal storage? Or do you use a NAS?
I notice your track titles seem to be filenames ending in m4a instead of track title in the metadata. I suspect there is an issue in how Sense reads your music. Not sure how the title is the filename...
How do you copy the files to the Zen internal storage? Or do you use a NAS?
I notice your track titles seem to be filenames ending in m4a instead of track title in the metadata. I suspect there is an issue in how Sense reads your music. Not sure how the title is the filename...
Last edited:
I said before - see the workflow in a previous post - this is drag and drop to internal SSD.
To clarify: I go to Network, find the ZENith NG, mount it on my Mac’s desktop, then drag an entire folder to it in one go.
Is the SenseOS trying to be clever and modifying the metadata as it appears on the internal drive? That would be a very major bug indeed.
To clarify: I go to Network, find the ZENith NG, mount it on my Mac’s desktop, then drag an entire folder to it in one go.
Is the SenseOS trying to be clever and modifying the metadata as it appears on the internal drive? That would be a very major bug indeed.
Last edited:
That does not happen to me and it is the same way I copy the music. But somehow your track numbers seem to disappear. That is indeed very strange. Maybe try to open the same album with dbpoweramp on the Innuos folder and compare the metadata with that when the album is on your Apple Music folder. your screenshots are all from the Apple version. See if dbpoweramps still shows the track numbers in the file copied on the Innuos drive...
Good suggestion. Will try shortly. Meanwhile, the silence from Innuos is deafening. As a new customer I am not impressed.
I've just mounted the ZENith NG volume on my Mac and am looking at the metadata in recent files. As you can see from the screenshot below the Track number is still intact, even though the Track numbers appear absent in the Sense app when I try to "Edit Album". So something weird is happening in the Sense app…
Notes:
1. The same goes for other works with jumbled track order: their metadata are correct, but "Sense" appears to have lost their track numbers (good catch, @guardajoias).
2. If I delete a handful of tracks and re-copy from my Mac, then I seem to get the correct track order - but the Track information is still missing if I opt to "Edit Album" in Sense.
3. Just updated to SenseOS 3.4.3. Same problems as before.
Notes:
1. The same goes for other works with jumbled track order: their metadata are correct, but "Sense" appears to have lost their track numbers (good catch, @guardajoias).
2. If I delete a handful of tracks and re-copy from my Mac, then I seem to get the correct track order - but the Track information is still missing if I opt to "Edit Album" in Sense.
3. Just updated to SenseOS 3.4.3. Same problems as before.
Last edited:
According to ChatGPT:
3. MP4/ALAC tagging quirks
ALAC lives inside an MP4/M4A container.
Unlike FLAC/Vorbis tags, ALAC uses MP4 atoms:
f dBpoweramp shows valid track numbers, but Innuos Sense shows the Track Number field as empty, then the issue is probably not that the track numbers are absent. Instead, Sense is failing to read the particular way they are stored in the ALAC/M4A file.
To unpack the earlier comment:
ALAC files are usually stored in an M4A (MP4) container. Unlike FLAC, which uses straightforward Vorbis-style tags, MP4 stores metadata in specialized structures called atoms.
For track numbering, the standard MP4 atom is:
Most software writes these correctly, but there are exceptions:
What may be happening is:
A useful test would be:
If the track order suddenly becomes correct, that strongly suggests a metadata compatibility issue rather than a database problem.
Another possibility is that the files were originally obtained through an Apple workflow and contain MP4 metadata that Apple software and dBpoweramp tolerate, but Sense does not parse correctly.
3. MP4/ALAC tagging quirks
ALAC lives inside an MP4/M4A container.
Unlike FLAC/Vorbis tags, ALAC uses MP4 atoms:
- trkn = track number
- disk = disc number
f dBpoweramp shows valid track numbers, but Innuos Sense shows the Track Number field as empty, then the issue is probably not that the track numbers are absent. Instead, Sense is failing to read the particular way they are stored in the ALAC/M4A file.
To unpack the earlier comment:
ALAC files are usually stored in an M4A (MP4) container. Unlike FLAC, which uses straightforward Vorbis-style tags, MP4 stores metadata in specialized structures called atoms.
For track numbering, the standard MP4 atom is:
- trkn → track number (e.g., track 3 of 12)
- disk → disc number (e.g., disc 2 of 4)
Most software writes these correctly, but there are exceptions:
- Some taggers write non-standard MP4 metadata.
- Some software writes both standard and proprietary fields.
- Some programs read a wider range of variants than others.
What may be happening is:
- dBpoweramp reads the track number successfully.
- Sense scans the same file.
- Sense does not recognize the specific encoding of the trkn atom (or encounters corruption).
- Sense therefore displays Track Number as blank.
- Without track numbers, Sense falls back to another sort order, making the album appear scrambled.
A useful test would be:
- Open one affected album in Mp3tag, Yate, or Kid3.
- Note the track numbers.
- Rewrite (not merely view) the tags and save.
- Rescan the album in Sense.
If the track order suddenly becomes correct, that strongly suggests a metadata compatibility issue rather than a database problem.
Another possibility is that the files were originally obtained through an Apple workflow and contain MP4 metadata that Apple software and dBpoweramp tolerate, but Sense does not parse correctly.
Hi,
This conversation has moved a way away from the original purpose of this thread, which was simply to gather feedback for our upcoming Classical Mode. It would be best to create a new thread in the HELP section for the support related discussion.
As mentioned previously on the forum the team is currently in Vienna for the show, so we are unavailable for support this week.
We will be back next week and will review everything then and respond via the new HELP thread created. That said, as mentioned originally, the new Classical Mode will introduce additional options in the editor and improvements to metadata fields. I believe support for this Apple specific field has already been implemented, but I cannot confirm this with certainty until we are back and able to check with the development team.
This conversation has moved a way away from the original purpose of this thread, which was simply to gather feedback for our upcoming Classical Mode. It would be best to create a new thread in the HELP section for the support related discussion.
As mentioned previously on the forum the team is currently in Vienna for the show, so we are unavailable for support this week.
We will be back next week and will review everything then and respond via the new HELP thread created. That said, as mentioned originally, the new Classical Mode will introduce additional options in the editor and improvements to metadata fields. I believe support for this Apple specific field has already been implemented, but I cannot confirm this with certainty until we are back and able to check with the development team.
That's not great, Dan. I would expect a reputable company like Innuos to be available for support all working days. Surely you have sufficient numbers to provide this?
It's certainly not a great experience for a new customer to find that there's no support available when they buy a piece of equipment. Maybe you and senior management can review this and refine the way support calls are handled.
For the record, I currently have 3 outstanding support tickets, all placed on Sunday morning (it's now Wednesday evening), and all without resolution.
Update: I appreciate you reaching out to me earlier today. I did reply with sample files, but have yet to receive a response.
Geez, give Innuos a break. They posted that they would be unavailable and while that may not be optimal, at least they are communicating. These guys have always been very responsive to me and I’m sure there was a sound business decision for them to take this week. I suppose they could hire several warm bodies (for which we customers would ultimately pay) or build a bot to reply to issues with canned responses that wouldn’t help solve the problem at hand. I’d rather wait and get the likes of Dan and Stephen to work with me personally.
We have your ticket, and the test files you've sent. It will be looked at next week and we'll look into this different metadata tagging format.
Stephen and I are actively beta testing the new Sense release, however it's not quite ready for external beta testers yet as it's a fairly big one with plenty of changes including the first release of classical mode!
We'll update the Beta feedback thread for existing testers when it's available.
Hi David,
Apologies for the late reply, we are now back an extremely intense time at Vienna HIGHEND.
We're looking into this now regarding why track numbers appear to be missing from these m4a files - we've had no other reports before of this, so I am not sure what is different about these but the current working thesis is the reading of the track number is not correct, so the order of the tracks become the sequence they were introduced or 'Added; to the library. Why the reading of the track numbers is a problem is very odd because as i say, we've not encountered this before.
As @DanCollier said, we will continue that within the existing support ticket we have with you @d.c.palmer and request this thread returns to the feedback concerning the forthcoming Classical Mode which includes features you've requested and previously commented on. Thanks to @guardajoias for the contributions in the meantime!
Apologies for the late reply, we are now back an extremely intense time at Vienna HIGHEND.
We're looking into this now regarding why track numbers appear to be missing from these m4a files - we've had no other reports before of this, so I am not sure what is different about these but the current working thesis is the reading of the track number is not correct, so the order of the tracks become the sequence they were introduced or 'Added; to the library. Why the reading of the track numbers is a problem is very odd because as i say, we've not encountered this before.
As @DanCollier said, we will continue that within the existing support ticket we have with you @d.c.palmer and request this thread returns to the feedback concerning the forthcoming Classical Mode which includes features you've requested and previously commented on. Thanks to @guardajoias for the contributions in the meantime!
Hi Stephen,
Welcome back... For what it's worth, it may be a specific issue related to the way dbpoweramps deals with ALAC files. I found this with Grok when looking into it:
- How dbPoweramp Writes the trkn Atom dbPoweramp writes track numbers to the standard MP4 trkn atom (the correct place for M4A/ALAC). However, it sometimes writes the track number in the "track/total" format (e.g., 5/12). Some UPnP/DLNA servers (including Asset UPnP, which Innuos uses) can have trouble parsing this dual-value format cleanly, especially if the total tracks part is present or if there are formatting quirks.
- Padding / Leading Zeros Issues dbPoweramp has an option to "Pad track number to 2 digits". While this helps with filename sorting, the embedded metadata can sometimes cause parsing differences across players. Sense/Asset occasionally ignores or mishandles padded values in M4A files.
- Incomplete or Partial Tag Writing During conversion or batch operations, dbPoweramp has had occasional bugs where track numbers (or the full trkn atom) are not written consistently, especially when converting from FLAC → ALAC or in large batches. Older versions were more prone to this.