MusicBrainz is both disabled by default and load-bearing

[9999years]

When running beet import, the enter Id option is always shown, but it fails instantly if the musicbrainz plugin isn't enabled:

➜ [A]pply, More candidates, Skip, Use as-is, as Tracks, Group albums,
Enter search, enter Id, aBort, eDit, edit Candidates? I
Enter release ID: 823b4f5a-eae8-47fb-b896-f5ccdfaaf605
No matching release found for 10 tracks.
For help, see: http://beets.readthedocs.org/en/latest/faq.html#nomatch
[U]se as-is, as Tracks, Group albums, Skip, Enter search, enter Id, aBort?

The error message also doesn't indicate that it didn't even attempt to hit the MusicBrainz API, or that it could be due to the plugin being disabled.

At the same time, even if the musicbrainz plugin is disabled, many functions of beets require the MusicBrainz API to be reachable:

$ beet import .
Error: MusicBrainz not reachable in get release by ID with query 'f3b088da-39fc-4483-a4b4-b8325e13b4fe'

I guess... the musicbrainz plugin should just be enabled by default?
Or enter Id shouldn't depend on the plugin?

Related:

• ID lookups should warn or override when they conflict with match.require settings #1270
• musicbrainz metadata source is used when the musicbrainz plugin is not activated #6212

[henry-oberholtzer]

Musicbrainz is currently enabled by default still - as is the default config. Unfortunately, if any plugins are specified in your config file, the default of musicbrainz is overridden, and it must be specified manually. Enter ID also is reliant on a metadata plugin being enabled.

If you can get us a printout of your config using beet config we can track down if this is a bug or configuration issue a bit more specifically!

[9999years]

Unfortunately, if any plugins are specified in your config file, the default of musicbrainz is overridden, and it must be specified manually.

That would be it. I would expect it to not offer to have me enter a MB ID if the plugin wasn't enabled?

[henry-oberholtzer]

That's a good call, I'll need look at the codebase and see what is handling the enter ID. I agree - it should be off if musicbrainz is disabled.

[snejus]

@9999years enter Id prompt option is always enabled and it applies to any metadata source plugin that you have enabled, not only musicbrainz.

As far as I understand, you're suggesting to render this option conditionally, right?

• If you have at least one metadata source plugin enabled, render it
• If not, hide it - there's no point to have it available if it's guaranteed to return nothing.

It's fairly simple to implement actually. Note that the same applies to the Enter search prompt too.

[illya-laifu]

Same situation as above - just updated beets today, and fresh imports of known albums with valid metadata return no results, but adding/enabling musicbrainz plugin fixes the problem.

Is this a recent breaking change in how the configuration is handled?

[snejus]

@illya-laifu yes, see the changelog note for 2.4.0.

[9999years]

enter Id prompt option is always enabled and it applies to any metadata source plugin that you have enabled, not only musicbrainz.

@snejus Oh, interesting. The docs only mention MusicBrainz, so I didn't know you could put anything else in there.

[snejus]

@snejus Oh, interesting. The docs only mention MusicBrainz, so I didn't know you could put anything else in there.

Sounds like we need to update the docs! Yes, you can use IDs for any data source that you have enabled, see some examples from my library:

data_source  mb_albumid
Spotify      1Sj0Suv7FnwpB0f5iY71Rw
Deezer       233946292
MusicBrainz  4865103e-638b-428e-b7d8-2e37a7d5522a
Discogs      7039978
bandcamp     https://childrenatplay.bandcamp.com/album/--6

[9999years]

Oh, very cool -- I had no clue I could paste Bandcamp links in directly. (I was wondering what the correct format for other sources would be.)