beets: Musicbrainz lookup always fails

[jasom]

Nixpkgs version

• Stable (25.11)

Describe the bug

On "beet import" the musicbrainz lookup fails. This happens both with reasonable metadata that works on beets from 25.05, and even if a release ID is entered manually.

Steps to reproduce

1. You will first need a directory containing at least one audio file. Such a directory (here named "test") can be made by running
   mkdir test && nix shell nixpkgs#sox -c sox -n test/output.wav synth 1 noise
2. Now try to import that directory:
   nix shell github:NixOS/nixpkgs/nixos-25.11#beets -c beet import -t test
3. If you used the test directory from step 1, we don't expect it to find a match, but can specify an ID manually by entering "I" at the prompt. Any valid release ID will do here, I used f6c8d517-2a6f-4bc4-aa93-5217f42086c8 selected from a recent release added to MusicBrainz

Expected behaviour

It should find the closest match from MusicBrainz

Screenshots

Here are differential reproductions (between 25.11 and 25.05) of both the minimal test-case I posted above, and a directory with some real audio files. nixpkgs-unstable also has this issue:

25.11:

mutsumi in Music [?] on  master 
❯ nix shell github:NixOS/nixpkgs/nixos-25.11#beets -c beet import -t test

/home/aidenn/Music/test (1 items)
No matching release found for 1 tracks.
For help, see: https://beets.readthedocs.org/en/latest/faq.html#nomatch
➜ [S]kip, Use as-is, as Tracks, Group albums, Enter search, enter Id, aBort? I
Enter release ID: f6c8d517-2a6f-4bc4-aa93-5217f42086c8                                   
No matching release found for 1 tracks.
For help, see: https://beets.readthedocs.org/en/latest/faq.html#nomatch
➜ [S]kip, Use as-is, as Tracks, Group albums, Enter search, enter Id, aBort? B

25.05:

mutsumi in Music [?] on  master took 19s 
❯ nix shell github:NixOS/nixpkgs/nixos-25.05#beets -c beet import -t test

/home/aidenn/Music/test (1 items)
No matching release found for 1 tracks.
For help, see: https://beets.readthedocs.org/en/latest/faq.html#nomatch
➜ [S]kip, Use as-is, as Tracks, Group albums, Enter search, enter Id, aBort? I
Enter release ID: f6c8d517-2a6f-4bc4-aa93-5217f42086c8

  Match (0.0%):
  Candan Erçetin - Melek
  ≠ missing tracks, album, artist, tracks, media
  MusicBrainz, Digital Media, 2004, XW, Dünya, None, None
  https://musicbrainz.org/release/f6c8d517-2a6f-4bc4-aa93-5217f42086c8
  ≠ Artist:  -> Candan Erçetin
     ≠ (#0) output.wav (0:01) -> (#1) Melek (3:53)
Missing tracks (13/14 - 92.9%):
 ! Ağlıyor musun? (#2) (3:57)
 ! Meğer (#3) (4:32)
 ! Canı Sağolsun (#4) (4:22)
 ! Sitem (#5) (4:15)
 ! Bir Yangının Külünü (Versiyon 1) (#6) (4:14)
 ! Bahane (#7) (3:02)
 ! Şehir (#8) (4:14)
 ! Sensizlik (#9) (5:03)
 ! Yaşıyorum (#10) (4:12)
 ! Bu Sabah (#11) (4:28)
 ! Sonsuz (#12) (4:13)
 ! Gökyüzünde Yalnız Gezen Yıldızlar (#13) (2:17)
 ! Bir Yangının Külünü (Versiyon 2) (#14) (3:59)
➜ Apply, More candidates, Skip, Use as-is, as Tracks, Group albums,
Enter search, enter Id, aBort? B

25.11, Real music data:

mutsumi in Music [?] on  master 
❯ nix shell github:NixOS/nixpkgs/nixos-25.11#beets -c beet import -t Soul\ Coughing/Ruby\ Vroom/

/home/aidenn/Music/Soul Coughing/Ruby Vroom (14 items)
No matching release found for 14 tracks.
For help, see: https://beets.readthedocs.org/en/latest/faq.html#nomatch
➜ [S]kip, Use as-is, as Tracks, Group albums, Enter search, enter Id, aBort? B

nixos-unstable, real music data:

mutsumi in Music [?] on  master took 2s 
❯ nix shell github:NixOS/nixpkgs/nixos-unstable#beets -c beet import -t Soul\ Coughing/Ruby\ Vroom/

/home/aidenn/Music/Soul Coughing/Ruby Vroom (14 items)
No matching release found for 14 tracks.
For help, see: https://beets.readthedocs.org/en/latest/faq.html#nomatch
➜ [S]kip, Use as-is, as Tracks, Group albums, Enter search, enter Id, aBort? B

25.05, real music data:

mutsumi in Music [?] on  master 
❯ nix shell github:NixOS/nixpkgs/nixos-25.05#beets -c beet import -t Soul\ Coughing/Ruby\ Vroom/

/home/aidenn/Music/Soul Coughing/Ruby Vroom (14 items)

  Match (100.0%):
  Soul Coughing - Ruby Vroom
  MusicBrainz, CD, 1994, US, Slash, 9 45752-2, None
  https://musicbrainz.org/release/abc49b59-0c11-4651-9262-7316bda4c158
  * Artist: Soul Coughing
  * Album: Ruby Vroom
➜ [A]pply, More candidates, Skip, Use as-is, as Tracks, Group albums,
Enter search, enter Id, aBort? B

Relevant log output

Additional context

No response

System metadata

• system: "x86_64-linux"
• host os: Linux 6.12.60, NixOS, 25.11 (Xantusia), 25.11.20251204.c97c47f
• multi-user?: yes
• sandbox: yes
• version: nix-env (Nix) 2.31.2
• channels(aidenn): ""
• channels(root): "nixos-23.11, nixos-unstable"
• nixpkgs: /nix/store/hv1dx0bah4m1mw2asfrg29wl17by9ngd-source

Notify maintainers

@astratagem @doronbehar @lovesegfault @pjones

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[jasom]

I did some bisecting and confirmed that this behavior changed with fde3a6e which bumps beets from 2.3.1 to 2.4.0

[jasom]

Looking at the diff, it's clear that the musicbrainz functionality moved to a plugin, and enabling that plugin in my config restores the previous behavior. Apologies for bothering people with this,