MusicBrainz – Page 7 – MetaBrainz Blog

MusicBrainz Server update, 2023-03-20

We’re hopefully back to a normal schedule after the crazy relationship editor testing period! That means we have the usual small amount of bug fixes and improvements this time, including a couple further fixes for small issues of said relationship editor which were not found during beta testing. We also have a text version of the list of historical MusicBrainz events that could only be seen before as bars on our timeline – which hopefully will help remind us to actually update that with new events on a regular basis.

A new release of MusicBrainz Docker is also available that matches this update of MusicBrainz Server. See the release notes for update instructions.

Thanks to CatQuest, chaban, mr_maxis, satanisch_opium, sound.and.vision and yyoung for having reported bugs and suggested improvements. Thanks to salo.rock and an anonymous Albanian translator for updating the translations. And thanks to all others who tested the beta version!

The git tag is v-2023-03-21-hotfix.

MusicBrainz Server update, 2023-02-28

After about three years of development and almost six months of beta testing, here is the new implementation in React of all the relationship editors, including the release relationship editor. During the beta period, a hundred more smaller changes have accumulated; mostly bugfixes, but also some URL handling improvements and a fair number of other pages converted to React.

This is a major step forward in development as it makes the project more open to JavaScript contributors and allows for implementing more refinements.

From an editor point of view, the relationship editing dialog slightly changed visually, but overall the page offers the same features, fixes a large amount of bugs, and has some additional improvements:

Better handling of very big releases by not loading all tracks at once
Added ability to edit batch-created works before they’re submitted
“+” icons to quickly add additional relationships of the same type are now also available on the release relationship editor
Now remembering which entity type was selected last in the relationship dialog
New type-to-search functionality for the relationship type selector
Better internationalization as the layout ordering of fields is based on their dependencies rather than on the English grammar of link phrases.
Better seeding of data: easier to script, more reliable, and more available fields
Recording-work relationships can now be reordered straight from the release relationship editor
Reordering relationships can now also be done by entering the order number rather than using up and down arrows
A preview of the relationship (and any changes) is now shown in the add/edit relationship popup

During the beta period, another hundred tickets or so relating to the new editors were reported and addressed. There still are a few tickets reported during the beta that have not yet been resolved, but their drawbacks are outweighed by the benefits of this server update. They are still tracked and will be addressed later on.

A new release of MusicBrainz Docker is also available that matches this update of MusicBrainz Server. See the release notes for update instructions.

Thanks to jesus2099, julian45, and Maxr1998 for having contributed some code. Thanks to kellnerd for working with us to make sure his data seeding scripts worked in the new editors and through that helping us improve script and seeding support. Special thanks to chaban for his thorough dedication at identifying/reporting/detailing issues during these months. Thanks to Admiy, CatQuest, cherryblossom000, chiark, Cyberskull, drsaunde, Eincrou, Griomo, HibiscusKazeneko, johnnyjd, mcboing, mfmeulenbelt, Midness, MXS, otringal, outsidecontext, sound.and.vision, timmart.in, UltimateRiff, vzell, withered.silence, yindesu and zos18 for having reported bugs and suggested improvements. Thanks to 3Johnny, Blu777, dongrimaldo42, homersimpsons, perea and salo.rock for updating the translations. And thanks to all the many others who tested the beta version!

Edit: The changes for MBS-10614 accidentally allowed editors without a confirmed email to vote for a while – this has now been hotfixed.

The git tag is v-2023-03-03-hotfixes.

MusicBrainz Server hotfix, 2023-01-10

A spam technique has been discovered that consisted in creating an account with a malicious URL in the username and the email of the intended victim, so that the victim would receive a verification email with the malicious URL inside it. It was most often combined with control characters to make the malicious URL even more visible.

Thanks to Devin McGovern from the Cyber Security Operations Department at Hyatt who responsibly disclosed this issue to the team.

To deal with the issue:

Creating new such accounts has been blocked; See MBS-12827.
Existing such accounts, around 40,000, have been removed (since new verification emails could still be requested); See MBBE-68.

It doesn’t affect mirrors so there is no update for MusicBrainz Docker.

The git tag is v-2023-01-10-hotfixes.

Unexpected Picard Setups

This article is showcasing some of the more unusual ways MusicBrainz Picard can be run. Some are useful, some are more technically interesting solutions.

The description in MusicBrainz Picard’s README file says:

MusicBrainz Picard is a cross-platform (Linux, macOS, Windows) audio tagging application.

So yes, Linux, macOS and Windows are our officially supported platforms and the main targets for running Picard. If you are using Picard you likely do this on a laptop or desktop computer running one of these three operating systems. We already offer plenty of options to install and run Picard, including our official downloads for Windows and macOS, Picard in the Microsoft Store for Windows 10 and 11 and the popular Linux packages Flatpak and Snap.

But as Picard is free software you can get it running essentially anywhere were Python and PyQt5 are available. Let’s start this year with showcasing some of the more unusual ways Picard can be run. Some are useful, some are more technically interesting solutions.

End-of-life for external access to MusicBrainz search server

For MusicBrainz mirrors, MusicBrainz server development, and custom applications, there used to be a direct access to search.musicbrainz.org which was actually inherited from the previous search infrastructure until 2018.

Keeping it available in the current infrastructure uses a compatibility layer which has been unintentionally broken last year. This issue has been reported only once. The alternative and much more sensible solution which is to install a local search server has improved in reliability and simplicity in the meantime. Polling the community shown that only one person would be interested which isn’t enough to justify the maintenance overhead for this replaceable service.

Therefore it has been decided to close this access for good.

Thanks to everyone who made this transitioning service to work and handle about 40k requests a day on average!

MetaBrainz Summit 2022

The silliest, and thus best, group photo from the summit. Left to right: Aerozol, Monkey, Mayhem, Atj, lucifer (laptop), yvanzo, alastairp, Bitmap, Zas, akshaaatt

After a two-year break, in-person summits made their grand return in 2022! Contributors from all corners of the globe visited the Barcelona HQ to eat delicious local food, sample Monkey and alastairp’s beer, marvel at the architecture, try Mayhem’s cocktail robot, savour New Zealand and Irish chocolates, munch on delicious Indian snacks, and learn about the excellent Spanish culture of sleeping in. As well as, believe it or not, getting “work” done – recapping the last year, and planning, discussing, and getting excited about the future of MetaBrainz and its projects.

We also had some of the team join us via Stream; Freso (who also coordinated all the streaming and recording), reosarevok, lucifer, rdswift, and many others who popped in. Thank you for patiently waiting while we ranted and when we didn’t notice you had your hand up. lucifer – who wasn’t able to come in person because of bullshit Visa rejections – we will definitely see you next year!

A summary of the topics covered follows. The more intrepid historians among you can see full event details on the wiki page, read the minutes, look at the photo gallery, and watch the summit recordings on YouTube: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3

MusicBrainz Android App: Adding BrainzPlayer in Android App

Greetings, Everyone!

I am Ashutosh Aswal (IRC nick yellowhatpro), pursuing my bachelor’s from Punjab Engineering College Chandigarh, India. As a Google Summer of Code’22 contributor, I worked for MetaBrainz, on the MusicBrainz Android app and added a music playback feature to the app, which we call BrainzPlayer.

During the GSoC period, I was mentored by Akshat Tiwari (akshaaatt). Through this post, I will be summarizing my journey throughout the summer with MetaBrainz.

Let’s begin!! ( •̀ ω •́ )✧

My Google Summer of Code 2022 summary

What and for whom

Organization: MetaBrainz Foundation
Project: MusicBrainz Picard
Mentors: Laurent Monin (zas) & Philipp Wolfer (phw)
Main focus: Introducing single-instance mode in Picard 3.0
GSoC website: Link

MusicBrainz Server update, 2022-09-06

This release mostly consists of small bug fixes and improvements. One bigger bug fix (MBS-12497) involves an issue where it was impossible to apply any edit which would cause an artist credit with any redirects pointing to it to be removed. Sorry about your stuck edits, people! They should now pass.

A new release of MusicBrainz Docker is also available that matches this update of MusicBrainz Server. See the release notes for update instructions.

Thanks to chaban, HibiscusKazeneko, jesus2099, Mineo and sammyrayy for having reported bugs and suggested improvements. Thanks to ikerm2003 and salo.rock for updating the translations. And thanks to all others who tested the beta version!

The git tag is v-2022-09-06.

MusicBrainz Server update, 2022-08-22

It’s time for more fixed bugs and refactoring/maintenance tasks.

A new release of MusicBrainz Docker is also available that matches this update of MusicBrainz Server. See the release notes for update instructions.

Thanks to CatQuest and otringal for having reported bugs and suggested improvements. Thanks to hamaryns, ikerm2003 and salo.rock for updating the translations. And thanks to all others who tested the beta version!

The git tag is v-2022-08-25-hotfixes.