Bug 2532646

Summary:	beets falsely detects distinct albums with identical artist and title as duplicates
Product:	[Fedora] Fedora	Reporter:	Gerald Cox <gbcox>
Component:	beets	Assignee:	Gerald Cox <gbcox>
Status:	CLOSED ERRATA	QA Contact:	Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa>
Severity:	medium	Docs Contact:
Priority:	unspecified
Version:	rawhide	CC:	gbcox, mh, michele
Target Milestone:	---
Target Release:	---
Hardware:	All
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version:	beets-2.14.0-2.fc46 beets-2.14.1-1.fc45 beets-2.14.1-1.fc44	Doc Type:	---
Doc Text:		Story Points:	---
Clone Of:		Environment:
Last Closed:	2026-09-13 04:34:34 UTC	Type:	---
Regression:	---	Mount Type:	---
Documentation:	---	CRM:
Verified Versions:		Category:	---
oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team:	---	Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description Gerald Cox 2026-09-13 04:07:39 UTC

beet import -A incorrectly identifies distinct albums as duplicates when they have the same album artist and official album title, even when their MusicBrainz release and release-group IDs differ.

For example, Santana’ss ? two separate albums both have the official MusicBrainz title Santana:

1969 album:
Release ID: 43ca95e6-8 editors 4165-99a8-e6fd5a993500
Release-group ID: cbe55545-7a3e-3f8c-8c5f-33984a818e91
1971 album commonly called Santana III:
Release ID: 7a36ef45-f1c4-44c5-ae5a-7d9cabfe2718
Release-group ID: 6258df90-78c7-3395-8830-e7b4328a002c

Running:

beet --plugins= -vv import -A /mnt/unas/music/santana/santana

incorrectly produces:

found duplicates: [1740]
This album is already in the library!
Old: 12 items, FLAC, 914kbps, 44.1kHz/16 bit, 56:38, 370.1 MiB
New: 12 items, FLAC, 841kbps, 44.1kHz/16 bit, 61:43, 368.0 MiB

The problem remains with all plugins disabled, confirming that it occurs in beets core.

The same behavior occurs with Weezer’s multiple officially self-titled albums. Beets presents the different Blue, Green, White, Teal, and Black albums as duplicate candidates despite their different MusicBrainz identifiers and track lists.

This can lead users to merge or remove unrelated albums based on an incorrect duplicate warning.

The proposed fix compares MusicBrainz identifiers before retaining an artist/title duplicate candidate:

If both albums have release IDs, compare the release IDs.
Otherwise, if both have release-group IDs, compare the release-group IDs.
If comparable identifiers are unavailable, retain the existing duplicate_keys behavior.

The fix also preserves mb_releasegroupid when aggregating metadata for beet import -A.

I built the patched Fedora package through COPR and manually verified both reproductions:

Both Santana albums were processed without a false duplicate prompt.
All Weezer self-titled albums were processed without false duplicate prompts.

Upstream issue:

https://github.com/beetbox/beets/issues/7026

An upstream pull request containing the tested patch and regression tests has also been submitted.

Reproducible: Always

Comment 1 Fedora Update System 2026-09-13 04:32:08 UTC

FEDORA-2026-ec85b2f6e3 (beets-2.14.0-2.fc46) has been submitted as an update to Fedora 46.
https://bodhi.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2026-ec85b2f6e3

Comment 2 Fedora Update System 2026-09-13 04:34:34 UTC

FEDORA-2026-ec85b2f6e3 (beets-2.14.0-2.fc46) has been pushed to the Fedora 46 stable repository.
If problem still persists, please make note of it in this bug report.

Comment 3 Fedora Update System 2026-09-13 04:35:47 UTC

FEDORA-2026-77212505a9 (beets-2.14.0-2.fc45) has been submitted as an update to Fedora 45.
https://bodhi.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2026-77212505a9

Comment 4 Fedora Update System 2026-09-13 04:36:33 UTC

FEDORA-2026-6abeb51bde (beets-2.14.0-2.fc44) has been submitted as an update to Fedora 44.
https://bodhi.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2026-6abeb51bde

Comment 5 Gerald Cox 2026-09-13 18:59:10 UTC

Resolved by adding mb_albumid to import.duplicate_keys.album. 

I verified the unpatched package against both the Santana and Weezer examples, 
and the false duplicate prompts no longer occur. Closing as user configuration issue.

Removing patch.

Comment 6 Fedora Update System 2026-09-13 19:38:47 UTC

FEDORA-2026-652318999a (beets-2.14.0-4.fc45) has been submitted as an update to Fedora 45.
https://bodhi.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2026-652318999a

Comment 7 Fedora Update System 2026-09-13 19:40:01 UTC

FEDORA-2026-586304c506 (beets-2.14.0-4.fc44) has been submitted as an update to Fedora 44.
https://bodhi.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2026-586304c506

Comment 8 Fedora Update System 2026-09-14 01:29:50 UTC

FEDORA-2026-652318999a has been pushed to the Fedora 45 testing repository.
Soon you'll be able to install the update with the following command:
`sudo dnf upgrade --enablerepo=updates-testing --refresh --advisory=FEDORA-2026-652318999a`
You can provide feedback for this update here: https://bodhi.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2026-652318999a

See also https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA:Updates_Testing for more information on how to test updates.

Comment 9 Fedora Update System 2026-09-14 02:05:01 UTC

FEDORA-2026-586304c506 has been pushed to the Fedora 44 testing repository.
Soon you'll be able to install the update with the following command:
`sudo dnf upgrade --enablerepo=updates-testing --refresh --advisory=FEDORA-2026-586304c506`
You can provide feedback for this update here: https://bodhi.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2026-586304c506

See also https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA:Updates_Testing for more information on how to test updates.

Comment 10 Fedora Update System 2026-09-18 01:59:22 UTC

FEDORA-2026-67e67c8e09 has been pushed to the Fedora 45 testing repository.
Soon you'll be able to install the update with the following command:
`sudo dnf upgrade --enablerepo=updates-testing --refresh --advisory=FEDORA-2026-67e67c8e09`
You can provide feedback for this update here: https://bodhi.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2026-67e67c8e09

See also https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA:Updates_Testing for more information on how to test updates.

Comment 11 Fedora Update System 2026-09-18 02:16:58 UTC

FEDORA-2026-f1b89f4134 has been pushed to the Fedora 44 testing repository.
Soon you'll be able to install the update with the following command:
`sudo dnf upgrade --enablerepo=updates-testing --refresh --advisory=FEDORA-2026-f1b89f4134`
You can provide feedback for this update here: https://bodhi.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2026-f1b89f4134

See also https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA:Updates_Testing for more information on how to test updates.

Comment 12 Fedora Update System 2026-09-26 00:16:10 UTC

FEDORA-2026-67e67c8e09 (beets-2.14.1-1.fc45) has been pushed to the Fedora 45 stable repository.
If problem still persists, please make note of it in this bug report.

Comment 13 Fedora Update System 2026-09-26 01:22:55 UTC

FEDORA-2026-f1b89f4134 (beets-2.14.1-1.fc44) has been pushed to the Fedora 44 stable repository.
If problem still persists, please make note of it in this bug report.