LibrarySection.search documentation does not list `artist`

[cburgard]

The documentation of LibrarySection.search does not list artist as a possible field to search for (proof). This seems rather odd.
Is this an oversight in the documentation, and the field is actually supported, or is this an actual shortcoming of the API or its implementation?

[blacktwin]

The amount of search/filter fields is too large and ever changing to have documentation be 1:1 to whats available. However there is a large hardcoded list for each section (MusicLibrary).. Pending PR #518 (comment) the hardcoded part will be changed to dynamically pull all available search/filter fields for the library being searched.

Can you please provide a code snippet for what you're attempting to search for artists?

print(plex.library.search(**{'artist.title': 'Flaming Lips'})) this returns Artist, Album, and Track object for this artist.

[cburgard]

Ok, that was really helpful, thanks!
However, I am confused by the fact that with artist.title, I seem to be searching for what is the albumartist ID3 tag, whereas I'd prefer to search for artist, which is typically more helpful if you have Mix albums. Any idea how to get your hands on that one?

[blacktwin]

So you want to find any tracks that the artist is listed on?

plex.library.section("Music").searchTracks(**{'artist.title':myFavoriteArtist})

[cburgard]

I'm doing this

plexmusic = plex.library.section("Music")
plexmusic.searchTracks(**{"track.title":title,"artist.title":artist})

and it's coming back empty-handed for an artist where I have only this one track in my entire library, and it's from a mix album - the "albumartist" is set to "Various Artists" in this case. Perhaps coincidentally, if I search for the artist directly using libtype="artist", I also don't find the artist. It seems like Plex is only really using the albumartist tag. However, if I put the artists name in the GUI, I do find the track, so it must be known to Plex somehow.

Any suggestion?

[blacktwin]

Look at that track's xml or the webui More Info or Edit. Where is the Artist's name that you're looking for? Plex doesn't have a Contributing Artists field and it's Artist field for a Track is one string not a list. Seems like you maybe limited by how Plex handles Music libraries and it's tracks.

[cburgard]

I do see the artist name I'm looking for in the "Artist" field in the UI, it's just the search with plexapi that doesn't seem to actually look at that field.

[blacktwin]

When searching via the WebUI can you Inspect the browser to see what the GET command is? Also provide the XML information related to this instance?