Auto-Tagging Questions

[ThornyJohn]

I'm having some issues with auto-tagging: namely, that it doesn't seem to work for a great majority of the CD's I try to rip. If I'm lucky, I'll get an "unable to retrieve tags" message, so at least I know something's up. If not, it will simply show me a generic track listing (track 1, track 2, track 3...) with no clue whatsoever as to why it can't auto-tag. The first few times it happened, I thought maybe the CD I was ripping was too esoteric for there to be auto tags available, but when it started to give me issues with CD's by Weird Al Yankovic, The Beatles, The Who, and U2, I figured something was amiss with the auto-tagging website or (less likely) with MusicBee.

I know there was an issue a couple of months back where Musicbrainz was not responding or some such, but that has apparently been fixed? In searching through the program preferences, I ended up with more questions than answers: should freedb be checked as a source for auto tagging? What the heck is 5.com? I can't find it on Google, which makes me a bit weary. Is it supposed to be there? Is Musicbrainz actually fixed? If not, what should I use to auto-tag?

The problem has been apparent since MusicBee 3.0 release and I recently updated to MusicBee 3 Update 2 (version 3.0.6053) but there was no improvement.

[psychoadept]

MusicBrainz is not "fixed" yet, though they are in process.  But that could very well still be the problem.

[Mr. Trev]

I've been wondering what the issue with MusicBrainz was. Usually if you keep clicking search you'll get a result eventually

That being said, I find Discogs to be the best source. I'd suggest giving it a try

[Steven]

I've been wondering what the issue with MusicBrainz was. Usually if you keep clicking search you'll get a result eventually

http://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=18286.0

[theta_wave]

When using Musicbrainz, if one sends too many requests too quickly, they can throttle one's IP

https://musicbrainz.org/doc/XML_Web_Service/Rate_Limiting

I learned this the hard way when trying to update a few albums using mp3tag's musicbrainz scripts.

[psychoadept]

When using Musicbrainz, if one sends too many requests too quickly, they can throttle one's IP

https://musicbrainz.org/doc/XML_Web_Service/Rate_Limiting

I learned this the hard way when trying to update a few albums using mp3tag's musicbrainz scripts.

This seems to be the key point: "The rate at which your IP address is making requests is measured. If that rate is too high, all your requests will be declined (http 503) until the rate drops again. Currently that rate is (on average) 1 request per second."

Maybe if you're auto-tagging by track that would be an issue?

[ThornyJohn]

I'm not sure what Musicbrainz would consider too many requests, but I'm pretty sure that tagging maybe five or six CD's per month keeps me safely out of the "too many requests" category. I've tried doing the auto tagging at various times of the day, including 3:00 AM, to no avail. I'll give the discogs plugin a try.

[theta_wave]

This seems to be the key point: "The rate at which your IP address is making requests is measured. If that rate is too high, all your requests will be declined (http 503) until the rate drops again. Currently that rate is (on average) 1 request per second."

Maybe if you're auto-tagging by track that would be an issue?

For me, it was redoing my xml request immediately after receiving the 503 errors.  The script I use downloads the entire album information in xml and parses tag fields from it.

I'm not sure what Musicbrainz would consider too many requests, but I'm pretty sure that tagging maybe five or six CD's per month keeps me safely out of the "too many requests" category. I've tried doing the auto tagging at various times of the day, including 3:00 AM, to no avail. I'll give the discogs plugin a try.

It refers to too many requests for album info during a 1 second timewindow and not the number of times you tagged your CD.