Tracks playing in the wrong order

[A0]

Hi,

I've been using Music Bee for years and I think this has only just started happening.

Please see the screen image. These are FLAC files, playing locally on a Windows 10 PC.

On the left are the tracks in an album, displayed in the correct track number order. On the right is the actual order in which they are playing. In this case they are playing backwards, but in other albums, the playing sort order (on the right) appears to be random.

In my preference settings for Sorting / Grouping, everything is blank - no user defined sort order.

Each album has its own Windows folder, with the "track titles" as ripped (apart from a few edits) and the filenames are the track titles preceded by 01, 02, 03, etc.

In this album there is only one disc, so the track tags are all: discnumber 1, disctotal 1.

The album name, album artist and track artist are all identical across all the tracks too.

What would cause Music Bee to re-sort the tracks like this?

Thanks for your help

[hiccup]

Welcome to the forum A0.

1. Are these files tagged properly in regard to their track numbers?
    I am asking since I get the impression you may be relying more on file names and folders than on metadata (the latter being the essential one when using software such as MusicBee)

2. Perhaps you have (accidentally) activated shuffle play or Auto DJ?

[phred]

2. Perhaps you have (accidentally) activated shuffle play or Auto DJ?

My money is on this.

[A0]

Thanks for your replies.

Shuffle:
Sorry, I meant to mention this. I’m as sure as I can be that it’s switched off – the icon in the bottom right corner of the MusicBee window shows two right pointing arrows and the popup text seems to confirm that it’s off. So I assume all shuffle settings in the preferences are therefore irrelevant? Or could shuffle be enabled anywhere else?

But if shuffle was on, wouldn’t all the albums play in a shuffled order, not just some of them? As it is now, some (most, I think) definitely still play in track number sequence.

Tags & track numbers, filenames etc:
The files are definitely tagged properly in regard to their track numbers. I’ve just checked all the tracks in the example album (using Mp3 Tag) and the track numbers are 1,2,3 etc. Not 01,02,03, which is what I use for the filenames.

I’m not intending to rely on the filenames at all in MusicBee. I just want it to display the track titles and play the tracks in track number order.

The filenames only contain the track numbers so the tracks display in the right order when I’m browsing the folders on my NAS. MusicBee is playing locally on the PC, but with an identical copy of the FLAC Play data.

Thanks for your help

[A0]

Mp3tag view of this album (track 16 plays first in MusicBee)

[MotleyG]

In mp3tag, while any of those tracks are highlighted, press Alt-T and screenshot that. It will show if you have other tag formats that are conflicting.

[A0]

Is this a more useful view? In the left panel, the tracks are correctly sorted by track No.

In the centre panel, the “Disc-Track#” column shows that MusicBee has correctly read the track numbers, but the “#” column shows that it has decided to play them backwards.

[A0]

In mp3tag, while any of those tracks are highlighted, press Alt-T and screenshot that. It will show if you have other tag formats that are conflicting.

Thanks - here are the Extended Tags:

[A0]

Extended Tags 2:

[phred]

Is this a more useful view? In the left panel, the tracks are correctly sorted by track No.

In the centre panel, the “Disc-Track#” column shows that MusicBee has correctly read the track numbers, but the “#” column shows that it has decided to play them backwards.

What happens if you click on the Disc-Track # column header. That will reverse the sort order. Does the # column reverse also, or stay the same?

[A0]

Is this a more useful view? In the left panel, the tracks are correctly sorted by track No.

In the centre panel, the “Disc-Track#” column shows that MusicBee has correctly read the track numbers, but the “#” column shows that it has decided to play them backwards.

What happens if you click on the Disc-Track # column header. That will reverse the sort order. Does the # column reverse also, or stay the same?

Thanks phred - here is a screen copy. But after I've sorted by Disc-Track# and I right click on the album & select play now, it goes back to how it was before and starts playing track 16 (the real track 16, Adagio for Strings)

[A0]

Just a thought .... I've only just remembered this, although this might be a complete red herring.

This album is a recent rip from a brand new CD to FLAC  (using dBpoweramp). The first time I ripped it, I was getting errors when converting from FLAC to Mp3. So I checked the FLAC files and also found errors.

But after a complete re-rip, it was perfect all the way through. From Rip files, to FLAC edit files (Mp3tag), to Mp3 conversion - and I did lots of checks al the way through the process with no errors.

If you think it's relevant I can post some of the FLAC check errors and the Mp3 conversion errors but this is not the data we are looking at now

[MotleyG]

Extended Tags 2:

Both screen shot images look fine, I don't think this is related to the tags.
But I can't replicate this "reversing" on my side, any album I right-click and choose play from anywhere shows up in the Now Playing tab with the correct song order and starting at track 1 every time.

[MotleyG]

Is this a more useful view? In the left panel, the tracks are correctly sorted by track No.

In the centre panel, the “Disc-Track#” column shows that MusicBee has correctly read the track numbers, but the “#” column shows that it has decided to play them backwards.

What happens if you click on the Disc-Track # column header. That will reverse the sort order. Does the # column reverse also, or stay the same?

Thanks phred - here is a screen copy. But after I've sorted by Disc-Track# and I right click on the album & select play now, it goes back to how it was before and starts playing track 16 (the real track 16, Adagio for Strings)

When you sort using the Disc-Track# column and the albums is displayed as expected, right-click anywhere on the list, and in the menu that appears drill into List->Update Play Order. That should reassign the tracks in the "#" column and restore the original album order.

[A0]

Extended Tags 2:

Both screen shot images look fine, I don't think this is related to the tags.
But I can't replicate this "reversing" on my side, any album I right-click and choose play from anywhere shows up in the Now Playing tab with the correct song order and starting at track 1 every time.

ok, thanks for checking the tags and trying it on your system