Bug 508105

Summary:	Sorting audio files by "Artist" sorts them by "Album Artist" instead.
Product:	[Applications] dolphin	Reporter:	vbhunt
Component:	general	Assignee:	Dolphin Bug Assignee <dolphin-bugs-null>
Status:	RESOLVED FIXED
Severity:	minor	CC:	dolphin-bugs-null, kdedev
Priority:	NOR
Version First Reported In:	25.04.3
Target Milestone:	---
Platform:	Arch Linux
OS:	Linux
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed In:	25.08.0
Sentry Crash Report:

Description vbhunt 2025-08-11 09:54:42 UTC

SUMMARY
When I have dolphin sort audio files by "Artist", it instead sorts them by album artist.

STEPS TO REPRODUCE
1. Put 3 audio files in an empty directory. Be sure to use files with 3 different artist names.
2. On the file that has the artist name that should sort in the middle, edit the "Album Artist" tag to say "ZZZ" but leave the "Artist" tag alone. 
3. Tell dolphin to sort audio by artist.

OBSERVED RESULT
The edited file will sort first or last, depending on sort order.

EXPECTED RESULT
The edited file should sort to the middle.

SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS
Arch Linux
Linux/KDE Plasma: X11
KDE Plasma Version: 6.4.4
KDE Frameworks Version: 6.17.0
Qt Version: 6.9.1

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
This is a huge problem because multiple artist albums (e.g. compilations, large shows, soundtracks, etc) are often labeled as "Various Artists" in the "Album Artist" field. If one wants to sort by "Album Artist" instead, that should be an appropriately named additional option. Also, in English, sorting ascending order should be A-Z and descending order should be Z-A. Artist sorting order is backwards.

Comment 1 TraceyC 2025-08-18 20:58:27 UTC

I'm not able to immediately reproduce this in git-master, following those steps.
The way I sorted by Artist was to click on the Artist column. Is that what you're doing, or something else?

Comment 2 vbhunt 2025-08-18 21:39:18 UTC

I am sorting it with the right click context menu in Icon View mode (no columns). Since filing this bug, Arch pushed out a KDE update which brought my Dolphin to version 25.0.8.0 and the behavior in this version seems to be much better. All of my tests now seem to be put in artist order except for one. In one of my folders, Santo & Johnny sorts to the end of the folder (after ZZ Top) for some inexplicable reason. Other than that, they all seem to be sorting correctly now. At least now, I can do rapid file sorts and group artists quickly, even if one or two odd ducks randomly sort to the end of the folder.

This update also seems to have fixed the ascending/descending order issue.

Comment 3 vbhunt 2025-08-18 21:51:06 UTC

After more testing, the Santo & Johnny file was sorting last no matter what Audio tag it was sorted by. It turns out that it had a blank APE tag attached to the end of the file. I copied the information from the ID3v2 tag into the APE tag, and it started sorting correctly. I'll count this bug as fixed.

Comment 4 TraceyC 2025-08-19 15:41:46 UTC

Great to hear! Thanks for letting us know.