Big Discogs problems

[never-said]

I recently upgraded to CDpedia 5.1.3 to ensure that edits/entries I make at Discogs are captured when I add the same disc to my CDpedia collection.

However, the search feature does not typically find my new additions or even other Discogs entries by the same artist. Example: earlier today I added a new release by Shannon McArdle (http://www.discogs.com/Shannon-McArdle- ... se/4258436). However, an add/search in CDpedia using "shannon mcardle" as the search term (no quotation marks) returns 14 hits but NOTHING by this artist, not my new entry OR an older release previously in the Discogs db (http://www.discogs.com/Shannon-McArdle- ... se/3839909).

Searching for the title of her prior release also fails to find that Discogs entry, returning 11 irrelevant hits. What's going on?

I'm similarly unable to get CDpedia to find other releases in Discogs that can be easily found from within the site. Example: Bring up the AddSearch dialog in CDpedia and type Palomar -- my search yields none of the releases listed in Discogs (http://www.discogs.com/artist/Palomar)

Yes, I've reviewed my Prefs and Discogs is checked and the first db listed.

What to do?

[Nora]

Make sure you select DiscoGS as your search site (click on the little magnifying glass in the search field and choose 'DiscoGS' from the list) instead of doing an 'All' search so that the limiters for the site appear. Then set the Limit To option to 'Artist' and you should get 18 results for a search for "Shannon McArdle". The second result will be "Fear The Dream Of Axes".

[never-said]

Thanks, Nora -- this worked (of course).

Such a big change from my previous version of CDpedia... Why do I have to limit the search to a single DB from my default list to get a hit? It used to "just work" without giving db-specific field requests.

Thanks for the quick reply.

[Nora]

In version 4 the limiters that appeared were static - whether they applied to the search site or not. So they were actually much less useful than they are now since most of the time the limits set didn't apply. (If you compare the DiscoGS search in 4.6.8 to the one in 5.1.3 without limiters you'll see the same useless results for a "Shannon McArdle" search.)

[never-said]

OK, but if a Discogs search does not work without the limits provided directly in the Add/Search dialog (that is, using a search that is restricted to a single database) why allow Discogs to appear as a search site in Prefs? Yes, an unlimited search can then cascade through Discogs but if it does not pull anything (anything meaningful) from Discogs without the limiters what is the point of making this a Prefs option?

PS, my previous version may have been earlier than 4.6.8.

[Conor]

I'll work on improve the default DiscoGS search for the next version as it should not be necessary to switch to a single site. It's hard to balance a broad search for all with accuracy on these sites that have no real relevance ranking.

[never-said]

Thank you, Conor -- really appreciate the response and commitment to making CDpedia even better.

[Nora]

Download the CDpedia beta and try out the DiscoGS search once more please. We changed the default setting from 'Title' 'Master' to 'Title' 'Release' which should give you better results during the All search.