Make discovery pool population respect provider priority while keeping Spotify strict, and reduce unnecessary request volume in the hot discovery paths.
- keep discovery fan-out source-priority aware
- preserve cache use where freshness is not required
- cap Spotify artist-album pagination in discovery and cache refresh paths
- keep incremental release checks to a single page, since they only need the newest releases
- add regression coverage for provider order, strict Spotify handling, and pagination caps
Centralize the ordered metadata source list and source-priority helper so album completeness and the repair worker follow the same Deezer/iTunes-first fallback order. This also removes the last duplicate priority logic from the touched repair paths.
Album completeness and any other repair job now uses the centralized source/client helpers instead of a worker-local Spotify client or override plumbing
- This keeps source selection aligned with the configured primary provider and removes the last Spotify-only special case from the job path.
This change ultimately is a step towards further centralizing the Spotify client access and the associated `is_spotify_authenticated` check.
- Currently these look-ups are done all over the place in different feature implementations directly, but moving forward, any feature that uses `get_primary_client` or `get_client_for_source` to access the Spotify client, won't have to duplicate any rate-limiting or auth checks as long as these getters are used
Album completeness and downstream repair flow now follow the configured
primary provider first, with Discogs and Hydrabase support added alongside
existing Spotify, iTunes, and Deezer paths.
Keep spotify_track_id for compatibility while preserving source-aware track
IDs for provider-neutral handling.
Stripped 4,200+ emoji characters from print(), logger calls across
39 Python files. Logs are now clean text — easier to grep, more
professional, no encoding issues on terminals without Unicode support.
Seasonal config icons preserved for UI display.
Clients are for the most part being initialized per-request, which leads to a lot of redundant client initialization, as well as noise on the logs, since each client initialization emits a row on the logs, eg. 'Deezer client initialized'
All callers of _create_fallback_client() and _get_configured_fallback_source()
now use get_primary_client() and get_primary_source() directly. No more
legacy alias usage anywhere in the codebase.
All metadata source decisions now flow through get_primary_source() and
get_primary_client() in core/metadata_service.py. Previously 6 different
files reimplemented this logic with inconsistent defaults ('itunes' vs
'deezer') and auth checks, causing bugs when any one was missed.
Changes:
- metadata_service.py: Added canonical get_primary_source/get_primary_client
- web_server.py: _get_metadata_fallback_source() and _get_active_discovery_source()
are now thin wrappers delegating to metadata_service
- seasonal_discovery.py: _get_source() delegates to metadata_service
- personalized_playlists.py: _get_active_source() delegates to metadata_service
- spotify_client.py: Fixed _fallback_source default from 'itunes' to 'deezer'
- watchlist_scanner.py: _get_fallback_metadata_client() delegates to metadata_service
Future changes to source selection only need to update one file.
- Remove redundant enable checkbox — fallback dropdown is the enable
- Hydrabase option only appears in dropdown when connected
- Connect/disconnect dynamically adds/removes dropdown option
- _is_hydrabase_active checks fallback_source == hydrabase (not config toggle)
- Fallback client returns hydrabase_client when selected, iTunes if disconnected
- Auto-reconnect respects fallback selection for dev_mode handling
- hydrabase added to settings save service list for persistence
- Status shows green Connected on page load when auto-connected
Users can now choose between iTunes/Apple Music and Deezer as their free
metadata source in Settings. Spotify always takes priority when authenticated;
the fallback handles all lookups when it's not.
Core changes:
- DeezerClient: full metadata interface (search, albums, artists, tracks)
matching iTunesClient's API surface with identical dataclass return types
- SpotifyClient: configurable _fallback property switches between iTunes/Deezer
based on live config reads (no restart needed)
- MetadataService, web_server, watchlist_scanner, api/search, repair_worker,
seasonal_discovery, personalized_playlists: all direct iTunesClient imports
replaced with fallback-aware helpers
Database:
- deezer_artist_id on watchlist_artists and similar_artists tables
- deezer_track_id/album_id/artist_id on discovery_pool and discovery_cache
- Full CRUD for Deezer IDs: add, read, update, backfill, metadata enrichment
- Watchlist duplicate detection by artist name prevents re-adding across sources
- SimilarArtist dataclass and all query/insert methods handle Deezer columns
Bug fixes found during review:
- Similar artist backfill was writing Deezer IDs into iTunes columns
- Discover hero was storing resolved Deezer IDs in wrong column
- Status cache not invalidating on settings save (source name lag)
- Watchlist add allowing duplicates when switching metadata sources
Introduces core/itunes_client.py implementing an iTunes Search API client for music metadata, providing search and lookup for tracks, albums, and artists with rate limiting. Adds METADATA-FALLBACK-IMPLEMENTATION.md, a comprehensive guide comparing fallback strategies for music metadata, including anonymous Spotify access and iTunes, and outlines integration approaches for seamless user experience without requiring Spotify credentials.
