Category: Updates

Schema change releases for 2012

One of the issues raised at the last summit was that our customers could use more time to prepare for schema change releases, since they require engineering effort on their part. In an effort to meet our customer’s needs we’re going to a set schedule for schema change releases. Going forward we’re going to have two schema change releases per year: On or about 15 May and on or about 15 October.

We’ve picked these two dates as dates that have the least amount of impact from holidays and people taking holidays. Most companies have normal working schedules around these dates, which should allow companies to dedicate the required resources to handle our schema changes.

However, we have one significant change that we need to push out on a more timely basis than May of next year. For that reason we’re going to plan a one-time exception to our new schedule for 12 January 2012. You can see the tickets we’ve scheduled for release in January in this schema change milestone.

We’ve already created release versions in Jira for all of the schema change releases in 2012. As we go through the year we’re going to add tickets to that milestone. Of course, we’re going to make lots of noise as these schema change release dates approach. We’re going to post a list of tickets that will be included no later than a month before the release.

Any questions? Ask them in the comments!

Search server update 2011-12-08

We’ve just updated our search server with the latest changes and bug fixes!

This update to the Search Server finally solves the search for artist “!!!” problem properly, should now be able to find just about any artist, release, etc that contain any crazy character combination. Also you can now search for number of releases in release groups and artists with unknown gender. The code base has now been updated to Lucene 3.4, which was the latest available when these changes were made (its at 3.5 now).

Thanks for your hard work on this Paul!

Bug

  • [SEARCH-33] – Search needs to find a preposterously bad label name: !"@.*!%
  • [SEARCH-51] – Searching for certain characters returns no results, even if they’re valid.
  • [SEARCH-131] – When search for Unknown country it returns <country>UNKNOWN</country> it should return nothing
  • [SEARCH-134] – Annotation search can’t filter by type for release groups

Improvement

  • [SEARCH-93] – Update Search Index Code to Lucene 3.4
  • [SEARCH-119] – Allow artist search for gender:unknown
  • [SEARCH-124] – Allow searching release groups by # releases
  • [SEARCH-128] – Make Search Server use mmap by default

Server update 2011-12-05

Another update has just gone out, a few days later than planned. This is mostly a bug fix and minor improvement release. Sadly, when deploying the update we broke the release editor for anyone who was editing during the server switches – something we didn’t anticipate. Sorry! Here’s what’s changed:

Bug

  • [MBS-2371] – Can’t type in the basic tracklist editor
  • [MBS-2785] – Release Editor messes up release artist multi-artist credits
  • [MBS-3152] – Tracklist duplication with sub-second track duration differences
  • [MBS-3428] – If seed new release with track artist ids it doesnt properly resolve the artist ids
  • [MBS-3471] – Wrong display of RG in the Edit Note tab of the RE
  • [MBS-3498] – Editing tracklists on any release which has been through an artist split fails.
  • [MBS-3601] – Incorrect "Artist as credited" displayed and impossible to edit track artist in release editor
  • [MBS-3804] – Entering "Edit barcodes" edit should not be possible if nothing is being changed
  • [MBS-3808] – Internal server error searching for edits
  • [MBS-3813] – Release editor gets stuck on tracklist tab saying there are errors when there are none
  • [MBS-3814] – Guess case broken in the RE
  • [MBS-3816] – Track parser displays "This is placeholder text" instead of instructions (or nothing)
  • [MBS-3831] – "There were one or more errors, please check the following fields: " after changing the capitalization of one letter
  • [MBS-3836] – Tracklist tab showing only the first track when importing a CD stub
  • [MBS-3849] – RE: Can’t import FreeDB releases through Add Disc
  • [MBS-3858] – Tracklist duplication with equal sub-second track durations
  • [MBS-3864] – importing a cd stub only gives you the first track in the track editor
  • [MBS-3908] – Edit numbers in edit notes should not be parsed when they are on different lines

Improvement

  • [MBS-89] – Subscribed artist e-mails should be optional
  • [MBS-2924] – timeline.js should use MB.html
  • [MBS-3239] – Subscription emails > Option to receive weekly
  • [MBS-3356] – Seeded add release (copied from existing release) doesnt link tracks to recordings of copied release
  • [MBS-3684] – Improve sorting of the "Releases with superfluous data tracks" report
  • [MBS-3743] – Move the trackparser (basic view) on the tracklist tab to the "Add Disc" dialog.
  • [MBS-3892] – Display artist disambiguation comments on mouse over

New Feature

  • [MBS-3899] – Report: Discogs pages attached to multiple release groups

Task

  • [MBS-3911] – Remove all "DeferredUpdate" code

Sub-task

  • [MBS-3733] – Add create/get session logging to release editor, to debug MBS-3379 / MBS-3590.

Server update 2011-11-21

A few days behind on this one, but we’ve got this release out. This release has one controversial change, which I want to discuss in this blog post.

Displaying Relationships on Release Pages

A lot of people want this, and we’ve shipped something that adds this functionality. However, a lot of people think this is too verbose, and to a point I agree – there’s a lot of information there that can be displayed better. However, work on this issue has been on and off for almost the past 2 years. We’ve got a solution here that while far from ideal will get this ball rolling.

This is an unpopular move on my half, but I’m asking users to please try and bear with us until the next release (scheduled in for 5th December), which is just over a week away. Hopefully having this fairly messy display so open will raise enough discussion on how exactly to move forward. If you really must see it gone, you can use AdBlock or user styles in your browser to hide the dl.ars element.

Changes in this Release

  • [MBS-2067] – CDStub not displayed in the "Matching CDs" section on CDTOC lookup page
  • [MBS-3668] – all edits including "Auto-edits" are being tallied as "Accepted" edits in editor profile
  • [MBS-3688] – Wrong coverart on all-zeros barcodes
  • [MBS-3718] – Inline search has problems with search terms with " (double quotes) and colons in them (and maybe others)
  • [MBS-3734] – Google indexes MusicBrainz search result (and some other) pages it shouldn’t
  • [MBS-3754] – Splitting an artist shouldn’t be an auto-edit
  • [MBS-3755] – Importing from FreeDB puts the artist name in the wrong field
  • [MBS-3759] – Auto-editor election isn’t showing own vote (instead: private)
  • [MBS-3764] – Typo on artist merge page
  • [MBS-3768] – Error when editing URL into one that already exists
  • [MBS-3777] – Musicbrainz breaks https://secure.wikimedia.org link in edit notes
  • [MBS-3786] – Entities with tag count on top of tag view page is incorrect

Improvement

  • [MBS-2979] – Enable CORS (Cross-Origin Resource Sharing)
  • [MBS-3105] – Country/Language/Script statistics should include a statistic for those with none set.
  • [MBS-3752] – Making edit note for "Add release" mandatory
  • [MBS-3767] – Distinguish between Discogs master and release URLs on release pages
  • [MBS-3778] – Separate release group links from release links on release pages

New Feature

  • [MBS-496] – Display recording relationships on a release page
  • [MBS-3761] – Add songfacts to the sideboard

Server update 2011-11-14

It’s been a while, but we’ve finally got a new server release out! This one didn’t go perfectly smoothly, and we had (more, i’m afraid) troubles with the release editor. We’ve got a fix for this out, so editing should be at least as stable as it was before. As always, please do continue to report any bugs you find. Here’s what’s changed:

Bug

  • [MBS-761] – Release has ASIN but no cover art ("No cover image available.")
  • [MBS-1169] – Musicbrainz website is missing HTML escaping on user entered data
  • [MBS-2529] – Orphaned release group and recordings after rejecting or cancelling a release/medium
  • [MBS-2590] – Unused URLs not being removed
  • [MBS-2847] – Merging artists moves the comment from the old artist to the new one
  • [MBS-3102] – Changing release artists automatically changes all track artists
  • [MBS-3305] – Artist missing in edit medium edit
  • [MBS-3451] – Unterminated link on CD Stub page causes "Overview" and "Edit" tabs to display incorrectly
  • [MBS-3466] – otherlookup for non-existent MBID throws ISE
  • [MBS-3522] – Bad gateway errors in Add Missing Entities trying to add large VA releases without locking down artists
  • [MBS-3656] – Clicking text (Yes/No/Abstain/None) on the most recent open edit changes votes on all edits in that page.
  • [MBS-3657] – Medium order not allowed when merging releases
  • [MBS-3675] – Modbot failing edit relationship edits with "This relationship has already been deleted"
  • [MBS-3677] – Recording page doesn’t highlight releases with pending edits or show disambiguation comments
  • [MBS-3689] – Tagger button on tag lookup for recordings confusingly leads to "non-album tracks"
  • [MBS-3715] – Fix the wording for YouTube videos on the sidebar
  • [MBS-3719] – Format/display of recording search results is broken for standalone recordings
  • [MBS-3741] – Incorrect artist_credit.name

Improvement

  • [MBS-1766] – Display lyrics and score links in work sidebar (in the External link section)
  • [MBS-2478] – Pages for releases should also show ARs from the release group they are contained within.
  • [MBS-2942] – Warn users that FreeDB indexes are only updated monthly
  • [MBS-3192] – Display release group URLs also on release pages
  • [MBS-3495] – Make IMSLP links look like the Wikipedia ones
  • [MBS-3508] – Indicate if a release group contains only one release in release group
  • [MBS-3713] – Add JS autoselect for the SoundCloud relationships
  • [MBS-3714] – Add cleanup for YouTube video URLs
  • [MBS-3747] – Create script to split arranger relationships

New Feature

  • [MBS-71] – Add auto-editor elections

Task

  • [MBS-3697] – MusicBrainz needs to comply with new changes of Amazon Product Advertising API taking effect on October 25, 2011
  • [MBS-3710] – Tranclude "People" instead of "MusicBrainz_Bio"

Server update, 2011-10-10

With the summit arrangements this release has become delayed, but we’re happy to announce that we have just finished releasing this version (live from the summit!). Here’s what’s been fixed in this release:

Bug

  • [MBS-1868] – Historic move disc id appears oddly
  • [MBS-2001] – Some AddReleaseLabel edits have no entity_id
  • [MBS-2196] – Can’t delete unused relationship type
  • [MBS-2429] – External links don’t appear for last.fm URLs
  • [MBS-2467] – RE: Add Missing Entities problems with caps
  • [MBS-2539] – Inline tag edit : forbidden characters are not removed form the edit box
  • [MBS-2682] – [ws/1] track-list offset is incorrect
  • [MBS-2699] – Merging works always add titles of merged works as aliases of target work
  • [MBS-2938] – Cannot import/seed 99-track releases from FreeDB
  • [MBS-3034] – Immediately remove PUID
  • [MBS-3070] – Release editor cannot be seeded with >99 for array-like elements
  • [MBS-3223] – Work relationships not available in web service recording requests
  • [MBS-3336] – NGS /ws/1 doesn’t include some relationships
  • [MBS-3350] – ws/2 browsing release by track artist
  • [MBS-3372] – Add relationship not linking to the URL entity
  • [MBS-3442] – WS/2: Can’t browse work by artist (ws/2/work?artist=MBID)
  • [MBS-3456] – Selecting recording from search results in work "Relate to…" doesn’t close results
  • [MBS-3463] – Remove ISRC edits are not shown pending on recording page
  • [MBS-3477] – Crash when trying to edit a release to create a new release group
  • [MBS-3483] – Release editor > Importing a Various Artists CDStub doesn’t import track artists
  • [MBS-3509] – Change release group via release editor doesn’t show up in edit history / open edits of target release group
  • [MBS-3523] – Entity not being selected for relationship
  • [MBS-3528] – Internal Server Error – Couldn’t render template "undef error – Can’t call method "value" on an undefined value at /usr/local/share/perl/5.10.1/HTML/FormHandler/Field.pm line 89. "
  • [MBS-3564] – Cover arts from ozon.ru are not diplayed
  • [MBS-3570] – change direction not working when no relationship type was selected first.
  • [MBS-3573] – Got Internal Server Error while updating info for ‘Mob Hits [Disc 2]’
  • [MBS-3577] – Release editor converts unicode characters to HTML quotations
  • [MBS-3584] – amazon.es is not recognized as ASIN in "Add URL Reference"
  • [MBS-3591] – Finding some labels in AJAX search is impossible
  • [MBS-3592] – Artist aliases have extremely low priority when doing a simple search
  • [MBS-3622] – Internal Server Error during import of freedb release that cannot be found
  • [MBS-3623] – Edit relationship fails with internal error when attempting to move credits between recordings
  • [MBS-3625] – The FreeDB page throws an exception if you try and view it when the disc doesn’t exist

Improvement

  • [MBS-962] – Allow more characters in tags
  • [MBS-2276] – Report: released before 1982 but has DiscID attached or CD medium
  • [MBS-3234] – Report: deprecated use of "(feat."
  • [MBS-3295] – Report: releases with an ASIN as catalogue number
  • [MBS-3382] – Report: releases with only some mediums with format
  • [MBS-3582] – Amazon-Links should state country like Wikipedia links do
  • [MBS-3620] – Improve the search results for autocompleted editor searches

New Feature

  • [MBS-3363] – Report: same ASINs attached to multiple releases
  • [MBS-3364] – Report: Discogs pages attached to multiple releases

Sub-task

  • [MBS-3315] – Add the ‘Possibly duplicate artists’ report
  • [MBS-3316] – Add the ‘Release Groups that might need to be merged’ report
  • [MBS-3317] – Add the ‘Releases with duplicated or missing track numbers’ report
  • [MBS-3318] – Add the ‘Releases with superfluous data tracks’ report
  • [MBS-3319] – Add the ‘Tracks whose names include their sequence numbers’ report

Web server update, 2011-09-26

A bit late on releasing this one I’m afraid, but we finally got this delayed release out today. Here’s everything that got fixed and changed:

Bug

  • [MBS-375] – Create redirect web server config files
  • [MBS-1349] – Differences in current and migrated "Set track lengths from discID" edit display
  • [MBS-1380] – An URL ending in closing parenthesis gets broken when listed in edit notes
  • [MBS-1947] – When logged out, viewing a private collection should prompt a log in
  • [MBS-2084] – Approve/cancel and tagger buttons add extra whitespace above the heading
  • [MBS-2202] – User names with spaces cause superficial problems when sending emails
  • [MBS-2591] – Release editor unescaping HTML entities POSTed to http://musicbrainz.org/release/add
  • [MBS-2608] – Logged in as autoeditor, seeing nag screen
  • [MBS-2911] – URL decoding should not decode non-utf-8 strings
  • [MBS-2936] – Merging Artists does not merge birthday
  • [MBS-3001] – Set track lengths now even more difficult to compare
  • [MBS-3134] – When viewing a DiscID ToC page, there’s no indication if there’s a pending Remove edit for an issue.
  • [MBS-3170] – UTF error yields 502
  • [MBS-3264] – Historic "Add ISRC" edits not linked to releases
  • [MBS-3268] – Approving an edit in a new tab yields a misleading error message
  • [MBS-3309] – An error while trying to add a release from Picard
  • [MBS-3333] – Internal server error when adding AR twice (accidental misclick)
  • [MBS-3467] – /otherlookup for freeDB ID gives misleading error
  • [MBS-3497] – Artist credit editor is hidden when the balloon is stretched too high
  • [MBS-3499] – Encoding error – couldn’t render template…
  • [MBS-3511] – Edit note syntax broken
  • [MBS-3521] – Sporadic ISEs when trying to view the editing history of an artist
  • [MBS-3529] – Uppercase cover art file extension not recognized
  • [MBS-3530] – "Edit barcodes" edits are not linked to relevant release artists
  • [MBS-3532] – ISE when editing a relationship to the same as an existing relationship
  • [MBS-3533] – ISe adding a CD Stub where MB already has the discID
  • [MBS-3538] – Two redirects for /show/edit/conditions.html
  • [MBS-3539] – Regression: Instrument search in relationship editor no longer works in Firefox/Opera
  • [MBS-3546] – ISE when visiting Tag Lookup page without arguments
  • [MBS-3548] – Admin "adjust flags" panel crashes on form submission
  • [MBS-3549] – Field validation prevents adding lyrics relationship URL to lyricstatus.com
  • [MBS-3559] – Searching works gives an internal server error: Caught exception in MusicBrainz::Server::Controller::Search->external "Can’t use string ("backward") as a HASH ref while "strict refs" in use
  • [MBS-3561] – Can’t find any work
  • [MBS-3565] – "Can’t use an undefined value as an ARRAY reference" ISE when doing artist query for works from /ws/2

Improvement

  • [MBS-1470] – Ask for confirmation before canceling an edit
  • [MBS-3493] – Show message in overview for empty artists
  • [MBS-3545] – Make Tag Lookup usable again by "regular" editors

New Feature

  • [MBS-2963] – Support ‘release-groups’ inc parameter for /ws/2/release browsing

Search Server Update, 2011-09-28

On Wednesday we rolled out an upgrade of our indexed search servers. These search servers are used for search in both the web service and website. This release includes some fixes and improvements added to make it easier to handle some particular search cases, plus few other fixes. A fairly critical bug with respect to work searching was came up yesterday after this update, but we’ve released a hot-fix patch to solve that problem. Here are the release notes:

Bug

  • [SEARCH-82] – Relation Type in Work relation list is reported as {xxxx}{yyyy}zzz
  • [SEARCH-104] – Querying "code:XXXXX" in a label search returns no results.
  • [SEARCH-106] – target-type attribute missing in relation-list elements
  • [SEARCH-110] – Web service is returning ‘disambiguation’ element in release groups
  • [SEARCH-112] – Label codes are indexed as strings
  • [SEARCH-113] – Label aliases don’t produce the expected results
  • [SEARCH-116] – Freedb import chokes on entries with multiple ids
  • [SEARCH-121] – Recording search only searches on recording artists not track artists if different

Improvement

  • [SEARCH-114] – Index unset artist countries as unknown
  • [SEARCH-115] – Allow advanced search for releases with zero mediums

New Feature

  • [SEARCH-90] – Search for standalone recordings

NGS Bug fixes 2011-09-21 and the New "Split Artist" Feature

Apologies for being a few days late here, but we’ve just finished updating the servers with the latest set of bug fixes and new features. This release brings a new feature that people have been asking for since NGS – the ability to “split” an artist into artist credits.

Split Artist

With NGS, we had the ability to link multiple artists to recordings/releases/etc. While our migration script handled most cases, there are some cases when it was unclear how to automatically split artists, and we opted to leave that artist unchanged. While it was possible to manually edit references to this artist, it was painful. We now have a convenient way to make this process easier. In the sidebar of artists there is now a “split into separate artists” link:

The new "split into separate artists" feature
The new "split into separate artists" feature

Clicking this link will present you with a form where you can choose the new set of artists. For example, here’s me splitting the single “Alix Perez & SpetraSoul” artist into the correct separate artists:

The "split artists" form
The "split artists" form

As with the other types of editing in MusicBrainz, this edit has to be voted on by other editors before it is applied.

The split artists edit type can only be used on artists that have no relationships, other than “collaboration” relationships. If the artist does have collaboration relationships, edits to remove all collaboration relationships will be entered at the same time. Note also that this will not remove the now empty artist entirely – that will happen when ModBot does its daily cleanup.

Bugs

We’ve continued working through the bugs as well, and here are the tickets that have been closed in this release.

  • [MBS-1133] – Don’t try to delete relationship types that are still in use
  • [MBS-1343] – Add AR instrument search function has problems with accented letters
  • [MBS-1380] – An URL ending in closing parenthesis gets broken when listed in edit notes
  • [MBS-1396] – Allow for URLs longer than 255 chars
  • [MBS-1411] – Don’t lowercase relationship attributes
  • [MBS-1520] – Tag lookup page has odd search results
  • [MBS-1879] – Remove the non-functional /search/plugins page
  • [MBS-1934] – Inconsistency: “see other versions of this release” vs. “see release group”
  • [MBS-1936] – Historic MusicBrainz::Server::Edit::Historic::EditArtist incorrect: doesn’t include artist names, always use “[removed]”
  • [MBS-1950] – Artist Sortname is shown instead of Artist Name in historic edits
  • [MBS-2047] – Email sender addresses have regressed
  • [MBS-2195] – Don’t allow submitting relationships where the relationship type has no description
  • [MBS-2335] – Other Lookup ISWC search should strip spaces
  • [MBS-2495] – Auto-edit status in edit documentation is misleading
  • [MBS-2529] – Orphaned release group and recordings after rejecting or cancelling a release/medium
  • [MBS-2911] – URL decoding should not decode non-utf-8 strings
  • [MBS-2934] – “Change release group” edit doesn’t appear in artist’s edits
  • [MBS-2944] – Vote on all edits control should only be shown to auto-editors
  • [MBS-3226] – Multi-artist credits with no artist selected produce very confusing behavior
  • [MBS-3227] – Lookup TOC page incomplete for logged out users.
  • [MBS-3269] – Track #s get automatically added to track titles every time the tracklist tab is opened
  • [MBS-3274] – Editing track names using with the basic editor removes track artists and disassociates recordings
  • [MBS-3278] – Warning about using various artists as track artist flashes on screen
  • [MBS-3347] – When trying to add cover art from disallowed sites, no error is shown
  • [MBS-3351] – ws/2 stacktrace browsing release by label
  • [MBS-3358] – “Open Edits” and “All Edits” tabs not marked as open
  • [MBS-3373] – URL cleanup stuff doesn’t always run in time
  • [MBS-3381] – Orphaned release groups/recordings created by release editor should be automatically removed
  • [MBS-3391] – Don’t allow to enter “performs instrument” without instrument
  • [MBS-3399] – No edit links for relationships in the appearances section on the artist relationships tab
  • [MBS-3402] – Do not allow subscriptions to “Various Artists” or “Deleted Artist”
  • [MBS-3403] – “Change release group” edit doesn’t show up in edit history / open edits of target release group
  • [MBS-3405] – Remove leading / trailing / double spaces in titles
  • [MBS-3434] – High DQ Release allows Auto-edits + incorrect edit conditions for merge
  • [MBS-3436] – “Wiki Version” column on transclusion page shows ERROR
  • [MBS-3443] – Inconsistency in sorting of “Edits by subscribed editors” ≠ “Edits for subscribed entities”
  • [MBS-3445] – Cannot search edits by editor name
  • [MBS-3453] – “Related works” on recordings page shows same work and AR set twice if there are two work<->recording ARs for the same work/recording pair
  • [MBS-3464] – Do not redirect www.musicbrainz.org to musicbrainz.org for /ws requests

Task

  • [MBS-1914] – Run script to remove “later/earlier release of” ARs

Improvement

  • [MBS-2669] – Filter edits by language
  • [MBS-2670] – Filter edits by artist country

The Git tag for this release is v-2011-09-21-ngs-bug-fixes. Happy editing!