Our test server is back online and ready for you to come test Niklas’ new Collection feature!
If you’re interested in taking a look, head to our test server.
Log in with your usual account name and the password ‘mb‘
Then head to the Collection menu and give the new feature a spin!
We’re now tracking issues in our bug tracker. Set ticket component to MusicBrainz Server, milestone to Server 2008-11-XX and assign to: Niklas.
Documentation for the new feature is here — its still very basic, please help out with documentation or add your documentation comments to the wiki page. There is also documentation for the web service.
Sorry for the long wait!
UPDATE 1: There is a batch add script — stay tuned for details on this.
UPDATE 2: If you have problems logging in, clear all of your cookies for all musicbrainz.org domains.
MetaBrainz Blog 
It’s a nice idea; but I don’t see myself using it until an app comes along akin to the Last.fm Fingerprinter – one which would allow me to pick a directory on my computer / read from my media player’s library and automatically add each release to my collection.
According to WinAmp, I have 1,420 albums and 2,682 artists. According to my brain, I don’t have enough time to manually add these to my ‘Collection’ on MusicBrainz – especially since I don’t see any benefit.
If that data were to be used by third-parties though; that opens up a greater incentive to use the service. Last.fm already have the ‘My Library’ feature now – and it’s slowly cataloguing what music I own as it’s played – but 3 years ago it would’ve been ace to login / sign up to last.fm and for it to instantly know what music I was interested in based on what was in my ‘Collection’ on MusicBrainz, before I’d even played a single track.
Matt:
We’re going to post a script shortly that lets you upload the stats for your collection.
neither “mb” nor my normal account password would allow me to log in?
If I enter my collection on the test server under a new test account (though same user name)…will it eventually be copied over to the main server under my main account?
Interestingly, using “mb” doesn’t give me an “invalid password/account” type of error (which my normal password does), but neither does it let me view the secured areas of the site.
jacobbrett – probably not, no, going by previous usage of the test server. i.e. don’t use it to try and catalog your entire collection now :]
I’m having the same problem… I tried changing my password on the normal server, still can’t get into the test server…
Voice:
Does the left hand say you’re logged in? What specific error message are you two getting?
It should, but its clearly busted. Can either of you IRC?? irc.freenode.net #musicbrainz
Voice: How about now?
When I attempt to login with ‘mb’ it doesn’t log me in and redirects to http://test.musicbrainz.org/search.html
Logging in with my normal password gives: “Could not log in: Either the user name you entered does not exist, or the given password did not match the one stored on the server. Please try again”
Looks to be working now. Correct me if I am wrong, please.
Still not working for me…
jacob:
I think you need to re-read the post again. 🙂
It works now… deleted cookies… xD sorry
Still not working for me. That’s the strange thing – with “mb” I get no error message; it just says I’m not logged in. If I use a non-“mb” password it gives me an error message.
It looks to me like the authorisation check is accepting my credentials, but when redirected after login it thinks I’m not logged in again. Cookie or session problem?
yes, clear your cookies for test.musicbrainz.org. Seemed to work for jacob.
I like this – it would be nice if you could add a specific release event so that rather than adding a release I could add, for example, the 1989 LP to my collection. And yes, a way of batch adding would be nice I’m not sure I have the time/patience to add thousands of releases manually.
I just tried the webservice part and Im getting Server Error 500, has this been configured on this server ?
BTW I also also had the login problem (which Ive had before) I found deleting test.musicbrainz.org. cookies did NOT solve the issue, but deleting ALL cookies did sove the problem.
There is some sort of clash between the way cookies are handled for musicbrainz.org and test.musicbrainz.org it seems. Removing just test.mb did not fix my problem (as ijabz indicated), but removing all of *musicbrainz.org’s ones did.
Yeh, I removed all cookies ending with *musicbrainz.org also…
Maybe add an option to list all releases that you’ve edited, and have the ability to checkbox ones that you own then press ‘Add to Collections’… that would help finding releases that you might own, to an extent…
rob, are we not able to make edits on the test server? I tried to add a new artist (so I could test what happens to collections when an artist is deleted/modbotted/merged – and make sure collection preferences don’t stop artists being removed/merged) but just got redirected to a blank page (other than sidebars etc) with “editing error”?
Voice:
It *should* work, but its not. If you confirm your email it should work ok. But email isn’t properly configured on that box yet. Stay tuned.
Ahh, sweet. Will stay tuned indeed. Overall, it’s looking good! Nicely integrated and seems to work fine. Note for others; there are a few bugs with the integration that I and others have logged at http://bugs.musicbrainz.org/query?status=new&status=assigned&status=reopened&owner=~Niklas&order=priority
A couple of suggestions.
1. I agree with grange85 about the desirability of linking to specific releases to really make this useful. That would also require some way of adding a release with no known release date, as is true of most of my early CDs that were originally released as LPS.
2. I would also like to see some way of adding a comment or categorization to each entry to specify exactly why it is on your list. Things like “own physical LP or CD”, “own electronic files of the release”, “own files of some of the tracks but not all” “do not own: on wishlist” and so on.
Although I’m guessing unlikely for first release I suggest you log enhancement tickets on the bug tracker for these ideas?
I also think it’d be cool to be able to enable on ones profile “allow others to view my collection”, which would do the obvious, but also add a “Owners” button to the release in the DB where you could see any owners that had made it public. From an editing community perspective, this could be invaluable in tracking someone down that might be able to provide a scan of liners for DB entry, or extra information etc.
I’m guessing this has already been thought about as a future step, just not logged?
Agreed with voiceinsideyou, sounds good. Maybe have a message board area for each artist(>release) that notifies all owners of a release (same as x commented on edit #x emails) of posted messages, that maybe ask a general/specific question about a release…
Another idea…. Once you have the collection loaded, an option for your to “Subscribe to all owned releases”…. Therefore subscribing you for voting on edits related to the releases you own.
For me this would mean me voting more as I would have the actual releases and would be able to check details…. As opposed to subscribing to the artist and getting edits on releases you have no idea about.
Then even opens up a possible “Missing Data on releases you own” report…. 🙂
Yeah, a prerequisite for that, ramzee would probably be the ability to subscribe to releases. As I understand, we don’t have because of yet another age-old prerequisite which is that edits can be attached to more than one DB entity (i.e a track change artist edit should really be able to be found via both old and new artists as well as the release).
Just adding (I originally posted this Oct 17th, but it’s still “awaiting moderation”):
“Maybe add an option to list all releases that you’ve edited, and have the ability to checkbox ones that you own then press ‘Add to Collections’… that would help finding releases that you might own, to an extent…”