Official Qobuz Issues Thread

[Polyglot]

13 minutes ago, Mike48 said:

 

I was going to suggest you search on "Johann Schobert", until I tried it. Not good. Is there repertoire there that is not being found, to you think, or does Qobuz just not have the material?

 

No, it is there, but it is a real pain to find. They urgently need to fix the search function on their program.

[The Computer Audiophile]

51 minutes ago, Polyglot said:

Facts don't care about your condescension. While Tidal's search engine provides accurate results, Qobuz's doesn't. If the latter care about competing, they better fix it.

Sugar works better than spice much of the time. 

[Polyglot]

18 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Sugar works better than spice much of the time. 

 

You're right, however, loving music, it upsets me that something so promising is being ruined. Discovery and serendipity is the only aspect of streaming that is more enjoyable than a proper CD collection, and for that a functional search engine is indispensable. It used to work correctly, but now it seems they've decided on a model intended for people who can't type properly the name of what they're looking for, but that screws anyone looking for something specific. They've restricted the number of results as well.

[Jud]

1 hour ago, Polyglot said:

 

 

Facts don't care about your condescension. While Tidal's search engine provides accurate results, Qobuz's doesn't. If the latter care about competing, they better fix it.

 

First page search results for the term 'Schobert'. Not a single relevant hit on Qobuz. On Tidal, all of Johann Schobert's available albums are presented first. Qobuz's search engine is completely broken.

 

For a search on "Schobert" in the Qobuz Windows app, I get a choice of "Artists," "Releases," "Tracks," "Playlists," and "Panoramas."  When I click on Johann Schobert under "Artists," 8 albums come up.  There seem to be about a dozen Johann Schobert albums in your Tidal screenshot above.  That's more for Tidal, but not "not a single relevant hit," exactly, for Qobuz.  Any thoughts as to how I wind up with 8 under "Artists" and you see none?

[Polyglot]

13 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

For a search on "Schobert" in the Qobuz Windows app, I get a choice of "Artists," "Releases," "Tracks," "Playlists," and "Panoramas."  When I click on Johann Schobert under "Artists," 8 albums come up.  There seem to be about a dozen Johann Schobert albums in your Tidal screenshot above.  That's more for Tidal, but not "not a single relevant hit," exactly, for Qobuz.  Any thoughts as to how I wind up with 8 under "Artists" and you see none?

 

By searching for artists, not releases. Do you not see the attached screen capture? The former is neither reliable nor practical. Go see how many iterations and combinations of the artist 'Karajan' there are: hundreds. Being able to conduct specific, accurate searches for releases is indispensable.

[Jud]

23 minutes ago, Polyglot said:

 

By searching for artists, not releases. Do you not see the attached screen capture? The former is neither reliable nor practical. Go see how many iterations and combinations of the artist 'Karajan' there are: hundreds. Being able to conduct specific, accurate searches for releases is indispensable.

 

Except that I didn't set out to search for artists, I just typed the word Schobert.  Then I chose "Artists" from among other possibilities, which, since Schobert doesn't have a huge catalog, worked nicely.  For someone whose catalog is large (Karajan), there are ways to narrow things down.  (Edit: For example, Karajan #NewRelease brings up as the top hits under Releases 30 or so releases in the past couple of months on Qobuz that have full albums or at least tracks conducted by von Karajan.)  So far I personally haven't run into anything horribly inconvenient, though of course all searches won't be ideal for everyone.

 

I feel this may be more a matter of Qobuz having arranged their searches in a fashion that doesn't suit the way you normally do things, rather than their searches being globally broken for everyone.  Perhaps there may be suggestions for reasonably practical additions or changes that would suit you better that you might be able to make to Qobuz.  As @The Computer Audiophile said above, "You suck!" is probably a poor way to try to communicate suggestions for improvement.

[Martin H]

9 hours ago, Jud said:

 

........

I feel this may be more a matter of Qobuz having arranged their searches in a fashion that doesn't suit the way you normally do things, rather than their searches being globally broken for everyone.  Perhaps there may be suggestions for reasonably practical additions or changes that would suit you better that you might be able to make to Qobuz.  As @The Computer Audiophile said above, "You suck!" is probably a poor way to try to communicate suggestions for improvement.

 

I have tried to follow this set of posts and make some sense of it because I haven't really noticed any particular issue and certainly not any fundamental failure or flaw in the search. Like any search (or database) there will be the odd quirk or anomaly but nothing that consistently breaks the overall experience. To brand the search feature as 'ruined' and 'it's impossible to find anything now' seems way over the top and can't help your cause Polyglot. I am not sure which O/S you are on but I regularly use the windows/android (mobile)/ios (old and new ipads) versions and they all seem to work. I am UK based and so can't speak for the US catalogue but that doesn't seem to be the problem you are having. 

 

(Polyglot) - Re your other beef re the performance on your laptop. If you are only using this device for playing music, aren't there far cheaper options available today rather than replacing your old laptop with a new one for $400? It's difficult to tell from your posts how old or under-powered your device is but as it has worked well on my last 3 smartphones I am surprised you are having major issues. If your kit is today below the norm (and I assume it must be or this thread would be bombarded with similar posts) I am not sure sure how reasonable it is to expect them to re-engineer it for you. It's a regular occurrence on Apple devices for instance where latest apps will no longer work and you decide to upgrade or not. I am not arguing the latter is a good thing but more that it's a reality and expecting that to change seems unlikely somehow and you will surely be disappointed. 

 

Despite those comments - I do hope things improve for you but I don't think an aggressive stance will help.  

 

 

[Mike48]

I think what I would like, please, is a search model that, if I typed "Schobert" (or another valid name), would ask  "Did you mean Schubert?" before assuming I was wrong, and provide "Yes" or "No" choices. That would, in my opinion, be a little more respectful of the user.

 

It appears to me that many search problems come from not indexing "composer" (e.g.) as a full-fledged part of the metadata. Lumping bandleaders, pop singers, composers, conductors, and orchestras together as "artists" makes for poor search results. Doing so inconsistently makes for even worse ones.

[Polyglot]

39 minutes ago, Mike48 said:

I think what I would like, please, is a search model that, if I typed "Schobert" (or another valid name), would ask  "Did you mean Schubert?" before assuming I was wrong, and provide "Yes" or "No" choices. That would, in my opinion, be a little more respectful of the user.

 

Or quite simply, search for the inputted term. How revolutionary is that? At the very least, show all exact matches first! Also, exclude from search items like producer of photographer. As I wrote earlier, they're able to do it on their web search, so why not on their program?

[Jud]

1 hour ago, Mike48 said:

I think what I would like, please, is a search model that, if I typed "Schobert" (or another valid name), would ask  "Did you mean Schubert?" before assuming I was wrong, and provide "Yes" or "No" choices. That would, in my opinion, be a little more respectful of the user.

 

This (assuming I was searching for Schubert) didn't happen with my search when I typed Schobert. Are you sure it wasn't just an auto-complete function?

[Mike48]

12 hours ago, Jud said:

 

This (assuming I was searching for Schubert) didn't happen with my search when I typed Schobert. Are you sure it wasn't just an auto-complete function? 

It wasn't auto-complete. One or two of the items shown had pieces by various composers including Schobert, most were Schubert. 

[PAR]

It is using fuzzy logic to try to provide results should you have  mistyped Schobert for Schubert.  Now although  I like the idea of the Qobuz search engine acting like Google and providing a " Do you mean...?" response, if you didn't you then need to tell the engine what you did mean ( i.e. re-enter the search term ).  So that adds a stage.  You could have the engine ask the question while continuing to display the potentially wrong matches ( as Google does) or not to display any matches at all until the question has been answered.  Already it is potentially becoming more complex.

 

The Qobuz search engine definitely requires some improvement.  It is not "broken" or unusable but it comes up with many results which seem to have no relationship at all to the search term even if others are exact matches. It doesn't even necessarily place the exact matches first. It is the seemingly random "noise" of unrelated results that concerns me.

 

As an example before writing this I entered a search for John Faulds ( British classical composer).  I chose "all releases" for results and Qobuz provided exact matches for the first two results ( i.e. reading the thumbnails left to right and top to bottom);  two albums or orchestral pieces by Faulds. The next 67 (!) results seemed to have zero relationship with the search term even given the idea of fuzzy logic. Albums by Deodato followed by Charlie Mingus etc. etc. none of which were titled "John Faulds" or had any contributors called John Faulds ( or Fowldes or Fields) which may at least have provided an explanation until we get to results 70, 71 and 72 ( lots of scrolling to get to them) which, again, were exact matches with the search term ( piano works etc. by John Faulds).

 

There seems to be  something very wrong with the algorithms that the engine uses. I can well imagine that writing them is a complex piece of analysis but some revision is needed.

 

I have raised this with Qobuz over here in Europe and I will let you know if I get a response, it usually takes several days.

[David Craff]

On 7/7/2019 at 8:38 PM, Polyglot said:

Why aren't we given an exact search parameter such as "Foerster", or the ability to search in specific fields for composer, album, work, interpreter or label?

 

Hi, this feature will arrive soon.

 

You can use quote to get better result : 

Query "Johann Schobert" (with quote) give better result than query without quote.

When you use quote, the search  engine answer with result where all world can be find in the product

[David Craff]

On 7/8/2019 at 2:52 AM, Polyglot said:

It used to work correctly, but now it seems they've decided on a model intended for people who can't type properly the name of what they're looking for, but that screws anyone looking for something specific. They've restricted the number of results as well.

 

Indeed the old search engine (2 years ago) did not allow for typing errors. This was, rightly, the most frequent feedback from users. We have completely changed the search engine, allowing us to correct this problem and other.
The new search engine is not yet relevant and we are well aware of this.

We are improving it every day as much as many things at Qobuz. The evolution of metadata in the Qobuz catalogue will have a positive impact on the relevance of the search engine.

[David Craff]

22 hours ago, Mike48 said:

It appears to me that many search problems come from not indexing "composer" (e.g.) as a full-fledged part of the metadata. Lumping bandleaders, pop singers, composers, conductors, and orchestras together as "artists" makes for poor search results. Doing so inconsistently makes for even worse ones.

 

Artist, composer and performer are all index in the search engine.

[PAR]

1 hour ago, David Craff said:

 

Hi, this feature will arrive soon.

 

You can use quote to get better result : 

Query "Johann Schobert" (with quote) give better result than query without quote.

When you use quote, the search  engine answer with result where all world can be find in the product

David, do you have different search engine software for the USA service compared to e.g. the UK service? Obviously the USA one searches a different database but do they use different criteria? I am a UK subscriber and just tried your "use quote" advice with a search for John Faulds as per my earlier post above. Rather than a better result it actually It produced  zero  as is shown in this screenshot:

 

[phosphorein]

46 minutes ago, PAR said:

David, do you have different search engine software for the USA service compared to e.g. the UK service? Obviously the USA one searches a different database but do they use different criteria? I am a UK subscriber and just tried your "use quote" advice with a search for John Faulds as per my earlier post above. Rather than a better result it actually It produced  zero  as is shown in this screenshot:

 

 

Do you mean "John Foulds"?

[PAR]

Oops . That explains a lot. How did I manage to do that? 🤔. Thanks. Yes folks "search term" does work.

[David Craff]

15 hours ago, PAR said:

David, do you have different search engine software for the USA service compared to e.g. the UK service? Obviously the USA one searches a different database but do they use different criteria? I am a UK subscriber and just tried your "use quote" advice with a search for John Faulds as per my earlier post above. Rather than a better result it actually It produced  zero  as is shown in this screenshot:

 

Hi,

Search engine is the same for all and parameters too. Index is also the same, we just have filter for zones.

 

We do not have matching with John Faulds in  the index the correct write is John Foulds. When you add quote, the query is strict that's why you find nothing with "John Faulds"

[Martin H]

13 hours ago, PAR said:

Oops . That explains a lot. How did I manage to do that? 🤔
. Thanks. Yes folks "search term" does work.

 

You have to admit that it's quite funny that you did though  

[PAR]

😊

[Polyglot]

The "" modifier doesn't work on single terms. Inputting just "Schobert" still yields mostly useless results. Many recordings are not properly tagged with the full name of the composer, so this needs to be enabled. Also, searching for "Dvorak Chamber" doesn't work as intended either. Neither does "Dvorak" plus "Chamber" nor simply Dvorak Chamber when you're looking for this release, which does show up at the top on the web search.

 

The search engine needs a complete overhaul. I'm sorry to say, but it is quite simply nonfunctional. The fuzzy logic needs to be removed or severely tamed.

[Mike48]

On 7/9/2019 at 8:42 AM, David Craff said:

 

Artist, composer and performer are all index in the search engine.

 

So then, is it possible to search for something like

 

Composer = Beethoven, "simon rattle"

 

?

[David Craff]

It will be soon...

 

 

 

[Mike48]

On 7/12/2019 at 8:33 AM, David Craff said:

It will be soon...

 

 

 

If that's referring to my request for advanced (compound) search, you'll get a warm "Bravo!" from me when it's available.