How do I search for guest artists in custom search?

[RetroGameReaper]

I'm trying to revert my tracks with Artist:Guest back to just "artist" and use ASR to remove the artists that follow after the first artist. When I try to do a custom search, it doesn't have any results despite there being plenty of songs in my collection with that field. In contrast, using custom search to find songs without a value there has results. I don't know why it's not working correctly.

I can still get the results by sorting the left sidebar for it, but it's not incredibly helpful. Especially since I also want to look for the semicolon and custom search won't even show that either.

[frankz]

This one definitely works to find artists that are tagged with the role of "Guest Artist" in the artist splitter.  

Are you doing this from the "All Artists" selection or with "Entire Library" selected?  Your full-program screenshots are too small and blurred to see what's going on there.

[Zak]

Especially since I also want to look for the semicolon and custom search won't even show that either.

The semi-colon is only used for display purposes - it isn't saved in the tag, so won't be searchable as a character.

[RetroGameReaper]

This one definitely works to find artists that are tagged with the role of "Guest Artist" in the artist splitter.  

Are you doing this from the "All Artists" selection or with "Entire Library" selected?  Your full-program screenshots are too small and blurred to see what's going on there.

It isn't working at all for me. I'm not sure what you mean by the "all artists" selection. If you mean from the sidebar, then not necessarily. "All Artists" shows on the side but pulls zero results. Also, to make sure it wasn't an issue with the "has a value" option in custom search, I tried it with genres and it gave me results. Are you able to recreate the issue on your side?

[RetroGameReaper]

Especially since I also want to look for the semicolon and custom search won't even show that either.

The semi-colon is only used for display purposes - it isn't saved in the tag, so won't be searchable as a character.

Ah. Is there any way to search for tracks with multiple artists then? I assumed a semicolon would've been the way to do it, but I guess not.

[Mayibongwe]

Is there any way to search for tracks with multiple artists then?

I've made it appear more complicated than it actually is, but what the below virtual tag would essentially do is let you know the exact number of artists tagged.
So your search criteria for instance could be <virtual_1> is greater than 1.

Code

$IsNull(<Artists>,,$Add($Len($RxReplace(<Artists>,"[^;]","")),1))

[frankz]

This one definitely works to find artists that are tagged with the role of "Guest Artist" in the artist splitter. 

Are you doing this from the "All Artists" selection or with "Entire Library" selected?  Your full-program screenshots are too small and blurred to see what's going on there.

It isn't working at all for me. I'm not sure what you mean by the "all artists" selection. If you mean from the sidebar, then not necessarily. "All Artists" shows on the side but pulls zero results. Also, to make sure it wasn't an issue with the "has a value" option in custom search, I tried it with genres and it gave me results. Are you able to recreate the issue on your side?

I did the exact search shown in your image (that I pasted into my post) against my full library and got all the tracks that have a "Guest Artist" as a role in the artist splitter.

[RetroGameReaper]

This one definitely works to find artists that are tagged with the role of "Guest Artist" in the artist splitter.  

Are you doing this from the "All Artists" selection or with "Entire Library" selected?  Your full-program screenshots are too small and blurred to see what's going on there.

It isn't working at all for me. I'm not sure what you mean by the "all artists" selection. If you mean from the sidebar, then not necessarily. "All Artists" shows on the side but pulls zero results. Also, to make sure it wasn't an issue with the "has a value" option in custom search, I tried it with genres and it gave me results. Are you able to recreate the issue on your side?

I did the exact search shown in your image (that I pasted into my post) against my full library and got all the tracks that have a "Guest Artist" as a role in the artist splitter.

Then I really don't know what I'm doing wrong. Like, I'm not doing anything different than when I look for anything else using custom search. Am I able to send a log or something?

[frankz]

Are your guest artists tagged appropriately? This is the specific tag you're searching against with the search you've constructed.

Are you searching against your entire library (a selection in the drop-down where you also select Custom Search)?

[RetroGameReaper]

Are your guest artists tagged appropriately? This is the specific tag you're searching against with the search you've constructed.

Are you searching against your entire library (a selection in the drop-down where you also select Custom Search)?

Yes, I have it (seemingly) set up correctly. That's where my confusion mostly comes from.




I was just searching the local node before, but there's no difference in results for me.

[frankz]

I'm sorry then, I'm out of ideas about why it wouldn't be working for you.

[tjinc]

Like Frankz, I cannot see why this is not working for you - the same search is working for me.

A couple of things you might like to try:
   1. Create an auto-playlist with the same rule (<Artists: Guest> has a value) to see if that gives you any results.
and/or
   2. Create a new tab - select Music node - set view to Tracks. Then Set Displayed Fields adding <Artists: Guest> (and maybe also <Artists: Artist>).

Neither of these actions will explain why your custom search is not working but may show that you have things set up correctly (which you appear to have) and may offer you a way to proceed.

[Steven]

if you are not using the store version, try using the patch version as its possibly something thats been fixed
https://getmusicbee.com/patches/MusicBee35_Patched.zip
unzip and replace the existing musicbee application files

[RetroGameReaper]

if you are not using the store version, try using the patch version as its possibly something thats been fixed
https://getmusicbee.com/patches/MusicBee35_Patched.zip
unzip and replace the existing musicbee application files

Thank you so much! Your patch worked. Still have no idea what was wrong before, but this fixed it.

I think I asked earlier, but is there a way to search for tracks with more than one artist in the artist field? I was using ASR's swap tags option to automate things, which leaves multiple artists in the field. Ex. "Artist 1; Artist 2; Artist 3"

[tjinc]

See reply #5 - Mayibongwe gave you a clever virtual tag code that you could use for this which gives you the number of artists tagged to each track.

But if you want to keep it simple (like me), you can use a custom search on the semi-colon but you have to search the <Artists: Artist> field: