probably writing the play count to the file.

Same problem here!

Hi everbody!

The "Play Count" tag is definately being written to the files evertime a song is being loaded.

According to DJ Tracy G. here serato.com , this has always been the case - but starting with Serato DJ Pro 2.2, the message is being displayed.

Bye
Holger

Yes, the long-awaited "Play Count" feature is a tag-writing hog...lol! I'm hoping Serato makes the feature a setting that can be turned on or off. I might play 20 to 30 songs an hour in my routines, and I back the files every time I'm done. I used to have to back up one or two tracks where some data might get changed, but now, it's EVERY ONE played. I add 4 to 8 "plays" per single play of a track, due to the reloading of the tracks in my routine, which is a workflow other DJs use, and each reload gets a "play" added to it, and file is rewritten each time.

Hate to say it, but the algorithm used needs improvement, but it seems embedded this way now. Please, Serato, make it a selectable setting feature, so that those DJs who want to shut it off can do so. It doesn't really help mixshow DJs very much and the constant tag/file writing is a bit of a burden, especially to SSD drives, which are becoming the norm these days.

play count is hardly a good trade off for the problems it creates

What "problems"?

So far all I see is people not liking that it modifies the file and messes with their sorting outside of SDJ?

I've always used the "added" field in Serato to show what I've added to my library and that isn't changed by the play count feature.

outside of Serato is super important to myself and apparently many others. If I need to make a rekordbox usb, backup files to an external, etc... God forbid I gotta create a new database or something, cuz now even decade old tracks have a 2019/2020 date created tag all because I played the song in Serato. Its fucking rubbish. And all for a silly play count keeper. I could care less about how many times I play a certain song. If I like a tune its gonna get played a bunch, I know. and it'll make its way into a sub crate cuz I play it/like it so much. Im a drum n bass junkie and probably add an average of 40-50 tracks a week to my library, and I too keep everything, inside Serato and outside Serato, sorted by the date I put the tune on my computer, and Serato now fux that up

nothing should change the date created tag of a song. Date modified tag change would be more appropriate

I can't see there is a tag called "created" in Serato. And when I check my files the filesystem (MacOS) has not altered the date/time of creation.

Are you using Windows?

@don
No i use mac. In finder u can sort by date created, date added, date modified, kind, size, etc.... pretty basic stuff. I would imsgine it would be the same in windows too, how u can sort a folder. the serato problem is that it changes the first 3 i mentioned- date created, date added, and date modified.when an old song is played, seratowith its play count tag changes these and each of those 3 will display the same date and time

This is serato support acknowledging the problem for u lot who dont quite understand whats going on:


Jon Hardcastle (Serato)
Nov 12, 09:54 NZDT

Hi there,

Thanks for getting in touch.

This is an issue we are aware of and are hoping to fix in a future update, but unfortunately I can't give a timeframe on this.

In the meantime, could you please let me know what file type you're using for your music files? In our tests here, we've found the following (after analysis or any other metadata edit, including play count):

.wav - Date Added, Date Created & Date Modified all updated
.aiff - Date Added updated / Date Created & Date Modified unchanged
.mp3 - Date Added updated / Date Created & Date Modified unchanged

If you want to avoid this happening as much as possible, you should roll back to a version before 2.2 (I recommend 2.1.2) - this is when the Play Count feature was added. This means that the Date Created field won't be updated every time you play a file, only when they're analysed or the metadata is edited.

That could explain why I don't experience this problem, most of my files are AAC.

Well, the "updated"-value is changed for me, but not the "created"-value.

I can also verify that the created-value is changed on my MP3-files.

That’s a good thing that Serato is acknowledging the problems and concerns arising with Play Count. I can see it good for some DJs, but there’s enough DJs not considering it important enough that the problems it has incited warrant at least making it a switchable option in the settings, or utilizing the Serato library data to keep track of the plays, so that files don’t get rewritten so often.

There we go, so the solution right now is to tolerate it until a future update or roll back to pre-"play count".

A switch would be a good solution going forward until they are able to remedy the problems.

Would give them some breathing room to come up with a solution without users complaining the whole time.. IMO

wonder why they don't just maintain the count in a separate serato DB file rather than keep writing it into the id3 tag and forcing a file mod.

would be a fairly easy fix to implement...

Hi all,
someone has any news on the evolution of this problem?
thanks

Hi Carlos please +1 and bump these 2 posts in the feature suggestion, hopefully the more people complain the more attention this issue will get from the serato devs

serato.com

and

serato.com

Thanks ! yes is an annoying issue

While an option to turn it on or off would be ideal, I like the feature, but... Sounds like it's implemented poorly, as Rob J mentioned it adds a play count every time it's loaded. IMHO you should be able to add a play thresh hold %. This is what iTunes does, so if I only play 25% of a song the play count doesn't increase in iTunes.