convert: does auto_keep ignore all other options?

[frigginbrownie]

Hey y'all,

Big fan of beets. Am working on moving my music to a NAS and refactoring how I store my music. My want is:

1. One database, storing the highest quality version that I have.
2. If the file is lossy, import into beets and copy to the \music directory.
3. If the file is lossless, import into beets, copy to the \lossless-music directory, and convert to lossy into the \music directory (for easy playback on devices which don't support higher bitrates/codecs and archiving purposes).

I've played around with the config file for a few days and have half a solution - using the convert plugin with auto: no, auto_keep: yes, and default path set to \music. Importing flac files results in the lossless version being imported into beets, copied to \lossless-music, and converted into a lossy version stored in \music (perfect!). However, lossy files are still being converted by convert on import, resulting in \music having duplicate versions of lossy files.

I've tried setting never_convert_lossy_files and no_convert, but these don't seem to be followed if auto_keep is set to yes.

So.. is something wrong with my config file? Is this a bug regarding the convert plugin? Am I doing something with beets that can't be done?

Included is a snip of my config file and what my current output is. Thanks for any suggestions in advance.

config.yaml:

directory: /audio
library: /config/musiclibrary.db
threaded: yes
asciify_paths: yes
original_date: yes
per_disc_numbering: yes

import:
    write: yes
    move: yes
    resume: ask
    incremental: yes
    quiet_fallback: skip
    timid: no
    log: /config/beet-import.log
    
default: music/%bucket{%left{$albumartist,1}}/$albumartist/%title{%asciify{$album%aunique{} ($year)}}/%if{$multidisc,$disc-}$track - %title{$title}
format:flac: lossless-music/%bucket{%left{$albumartist,1}}/$albumartist/%title{%asciify{$album%aunique{} ($year)}}/%if{$multidisc,$disc-}$track - %title{$title}
    
 convert:
    auto: no
    auto_keep: yes
    copy_album_art: yes
    dest: /audio
    ffmpeg: /usr/bin/ffmpeg
    paths:
        default: music/%bucket{%left{$albumartist,1}}/$albumartist/%title{%asciify{$album%aunique{} ($year)}}/%if{$multidisc,$disc-}$track - %title{$title}
    never_convert_lossy_files: no
    no_convert: format:MP3
    threads: 5
    format: mp3
    formats:
        mp3:
            command: ffmpeg -i $source -c:a libmp3lame -q:a 0 -ar 48000 $dest
            extension: mp3

importing "My Artist - My Album [FLAC] (2024)"

\audio\lossless-music\M\My Artist\My Album (2024)\
    - 01 - My Song.flac
    - 02 - My Other Song.flac
 
 \audio\music\M\My Artist\My Album (2024)\
    - 01 - My Song.mp3
    - 02 - My Other Song.mp3

importing "My Artist - My Album [MP3] (2024)"

 \audio\music\M\My Artist\My Album (2024)\
    - 01 - My Song.mp3
    - 01 - My Song.1.mp3
    - 02 - My Other Song.mp3
    - 02 - My Other Song.1.mp3

[frigginbrownie]

I did some digging into the convert plugin. Expected behavior of auto_keep is to keep all files, regardless of compression format and create a file in the dest directory. If the file is lossless, it will convert to lossy and place the file in dest. If the file is lossy, it will copy the file and place in dest.

This results in duplicate lossy files - one file in your default directory, the same file in dest. In the above scenario, the dest is the same as default directory, which is why My Artist - My Album [MP3] (2024) ends up with 01 - My Song.1.mp3 and 02 - My Other Song.1.mp3.

In addition, auto_keep doesn't take into account the never_convert_lossy_files and no_convert settings (perhaps because no conversion is happening). That's not the case for auto or for using "beet convert", which respects those settings prior to any conversion.

A manual way to solve this problem: set auto_keep and auto to no, then import your files as normal. Post import, run "beet convert format:flac". This will transcode flacs to mp3s, moving them to the path listed in the config file.

However, I've also created a pull request to try and make auto_keep's behavior more consistant with auto and beet convert. This change now takes the never_convert_lossy_files and no_convert settings into account on import, preventing duplicate lossy files from being made while still converting lossless files to lossy.

This is likely a weird personal edgecase, but hopefully it has helped you!