LyricsReloaded (Latest)

[Mayibongwe]

But after more testing and fine-tuning, I now don't find it to have much added value any more.
And what is very bad about it, most lyrics it returns have long listings of webpage code beneath them, making things very ugly.
(that might get resolved by tuning the yml, but considering the added value of Letras, I am not going to bother with that myself)

That's alright. The less built-in providers, the better for me.
I now notice that it also has a high incorrect lyrics percentage...a provider like that should be left optional.
About the extra html code, I will see if I can find a song that returns such (but it'd be a lot quicker if you could remember a song or two that I can test out).
And thanks a lot for all the testing you've been doing. It's very much appreciated.

(#92 if you are logged-in)

For me, it's also in post #91 while logged-in.

[hiccup]

About the extra html code, I will see if I can find a song that returns such (but it'd be a lot quicker if you could remember a song or two that I can test out).

[sveakul]

A yml for Metal Archives has been added to the providers zip file. You'll also need to re-download the plugin to get it working.

Metal Archives fails to return a single hit on tracks it definitely has lyrics for, even as the only provider selected in the retrieval options.  Am using the yml just posted and the 1.1.15.6 dll with a mod date of 8/9/2022 (4:52 PM) and size of 232,960.

[sveakul]

From what I can see the search expression in the Metal Archives yml is missing the song title parameter and using album only.  Here is the search expression that will return a hit on the track title ("song title")/band name and produce it in a list with an option to show lyrics, regarddless of album title, in case that helps.  Because the DLL part is unknown to me, sorry if you already are aware of this.

Code

https://www.metal-archives.com/search/advanced/searching/songs?songTitle=<Title>&bandName=<Artist>#songs

[Mayibongwe]

Strange, what's the log file saying? I tested it using the album tracks showing in your previous screenshot.

I just modified the yml to include songs with bracketed contents (e.g the Portishead cover from your screenshot).
I also upped a v1.1.15.7 (replaced the built-in Letras with Lyrics Freak) - in terms of functionality, it's the same as 15.6

But none of that (the changes associated with 15.7) will help with "fails to return a single result". The log entries will give me clues...

[Mayibongwe]

The url that the yml is using leads to this page for Frayle's The White Witch album: https://www.metal-archives.com/albums/frayle/The%20White%20Witch
Then from there, it grabs the ID for whatever song is being requested from that album.

Tomorrow, I will look at using the url you've provided. It seems straightforward.
But it should already work in its current state. I'm curious to see what the log's saying.

Edit:

Tomorrow, I will look at using the url you've provided. It seems straightforward.

Actually, the results from that advanced searching are no good for what we're after.
So it looks like there's no other way to get to the lyrics other than through the method which the yml is currently using.

In the screenshots:
#1 is when I've got my mouse over the lyrics button.
#2 is the link that the button accesses.


Look at #2 here. There's really nothing of use in that "link".


Whereas here, #2 has this song's unique ID showing in that link.
That number is later on used by the plugin to access the lyrics from this url: https://www.metal-archives.com/release/ajax-view-lyrics/id/4568597

[sveakul]

Sorry for not checking the log first--the answer is indeed there.  The search may be assuming that the track title is an album title.

I use the plugin almost exclusively when listening to radio streams, so that when the stream metadata sent includes band name and track title I can see the lyrics (if found) for the playing song.  Stream metadata almost NEVER includes the album title, just artist and track title.  This works perfectly fine for all the other sources the plugin retrieves, just not this one.  An example from the log for the song "Starlight" by the band "Waterland":

09/08/2022 03:26:39 [DEBUG] Lyrics request: Waterland - Starlight -  - Metal Archives
09/08/2022 03:26:39 [INFO] Metal Archives tries to load the lyrics...
09/08/2022 03:26:39 [DEBUG] The constructed identity URL: https://www.metal-archives.com/albums/Waterland/
09/08/2022 03:26:39 [DEBUG] gzip compression detected
09/08/2022 03:26:39 [WARN] The identity pattern Starlight\n</td>.*?lyricsButton(?<identity>.*?)" didn't match!
09/08/2022 03:26:39 [INFO] No lyrics found.
09/08/2022 03:26:39 [FAIL] no lyrics found from Metal Archives

If I'm interpreting this right, it's looking for a list of albums from the band Waterland, and then trying to find the title "Starlight" therein which fails because it's a track title not an album title.

I'm not surprised this site is a tough nut to crack.  If it helps at all, there is a source plugin for Foobar's "lyric show panel" just for this site that still works fine after 4  years.  If looking at how it works might help (it's also a DLL so opaque to me), it's downloadable at https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php?PHPSESSID=olto6kq35b21uv73jjal04vumh&action=dlattach;topic=108084.0;attach=11999 .

[Mayibongwe]

For the same song, this is how the process should go:

Code

09-08-2022 11:22:53 [DEBUG] Lyrics request: Waterland - Starlight - Our Nation - Metal Archives
09-08-2022 11:22:53 [INFO] Metal Archives tries to load the lyrics...
09-08-2022 11:22:53 [DEBUG] The constructed identity URL: https://www.metal-archives.com/albums/Waterland/Our Nation
09-08-2022 11:22:54 [DEBUG] gzip compression detected
09-08-2022 11:22:54 [DEBUG] The constructed lyrics URL: https://www.metal-archives.com/release/ajax-view-lyrics/id/3344838
09-08-2022 11:22:55 [DEBUG] gzip compression detected
09-08-2022 11:22:55 [SUCCESS] lyrics found from Metal Archives!

Without the album name, the search will need to be 3 levels deep.
1. Search for the album using title and artist.
2. Search for the track-listing (unique ids) using the album.
3. Search for the lyrics using the song id.

I mean, that's a bit of an overkill. I didn't wanna leave 3 footprints on a website in quick succession - I think that may bring heat to MusicBee.
The search loader only dips in twice, and I don't think that's too bad. Three would be a stretch not gonna lie.
I'll sleep on it and get back to you tomorrow.

[sveakul]

Yes, it's a uniquely constructed site that's for sure.  Another foobar-related plugin that handles it successfully is at https://www.reddit.com/r/foobar2000/comments/o7ua73/lyric_show_panel_3_lyrics_from_genius_musixmatch/ .  You are probably dealing with an entirely different programming environment and of course set of different display requirements.  If it's undoable with MusicBee that's fine just forget about it, you've given us plenty of your free time as it is, and believe me it is much appreciated.

[hiccup]

Yes, it's a uniquely constructed site that's for sure.

There are some unofficial api's to be found for it. (I didn't know there could exist something like an unofficial api)
Here's one that seems to work:
https://github.com/Loki-Afro/metalarchives
I've no idea at all if this could be helpful in any way for MB though.

[hiccup]

I am noticing two instances where the Metal-Archives yml doesn't seem to function properly.

1.
https://www.metal-archives.com/albums/Helloween/Helloween/935514
has lyrics for all tracks, but the plugin returns none.

2.
https://www.metal-archives.com/albums/Carcass/Torn_Arteries/956082
only has the lyrics for #4 and #10

But songs 1-3 will get the lyrics for #4 returned,
and songs 5-9 will get the lyrics for #10 returned.

Something similar for https://www.metal-archives.com/albums/Hooded_Menace/The_Tritonus_Bell/949017
where track 1 is labelled 'instrumental', but the plugin will retrieve the lyrics of #2 for it.

edit/addition
Some hard-rock blasphemy:
For https://www.metal-archives.com/albums/Anvil/Forged_in_Fire/1906
no lyrics gets returned when e.g. playing #7
 

[sveakul]

hiccup:  on the cases when you got lyrics returned from the Metal Archives yml, they were for files containing album tags, not radio streams, correct?

[hiccup]

hiccup:  on the cases when you got lyrics returned from the Metal Archives yml, they were for files containing album tags, not radio streams, correct?

Yes. All my testing is done using locally stored files.
Are you seeing different results when streaming?

[Mayibongwe]

sveakul, re-download the plugin.
Metal Archives should work with radio streams as well now, albeit a bit slower and susceptible to time outs at times.
I realized I could just workaround the 'not wanting to conduct three searches on a site at once' issue by having google carry out the first search instead.
That ensures that the searching on the website itself is still kept at a maximum of two, as originally planned.

And to clarify a bit on my initial hesitance:

It was not that it couldn't be done with MB.
I was just worried that if I were to account for this special case, where radio streams do not have album names,
I would have had to make the plugin run three searches on the metal archives website and that's where my concern was.

I'm not really sure where we stand in terms of the legality of all this web scraping business (especially since we're dealing with copyrighted content).
But something like 3 automated searches in 3 secs, every 3 mins (average duration of a song), multiplied by the number of users,
would at some point have become an overload to the site's servers. That kind of attention should never be brought to MB or the forum.
And tbh, I doubt there are any websites that allow this kind of web access, but since "everyone does it", it's fine so long as we don't fly over the radar.

[Mayibongwe]

I am noticing two instances where the Metal-Archives yml doesn't seem to function properly.

Will look at those just now. Some tweaks in the yml should address that.
.........

As long as a user is using local files with a filled album tag, this provider should still operate just the same.
It'll only use google (become a bit slower) when the album tag is empty.