Background Jobs

Background Jobs

naviList keeps its own copy of your library and does extra work in the background so rules can use things Navidrome doesn't track. This page explains what runs, when, and how to see it.

The library copy

Rules playlists are built from naviList's own database, not by asking Navidrome each time. That's why the first thing you do is Sync Library on the Services page.

After that it keeps itself current:

What	How often
Check Navidrome for library changes	every 5 minutes
Full library sync	every 6 hours
Sync connected services (Last.fm, ListenBrainz, Maloja)	every 30 minutes

You can also run any of them by hand from the Services page.

What runs after a library sync

These run one after another in the background. They're gentle on the services they call, so on a large library they can take hours the first time. You can keep using naviList the whole time, and each job saves progress as it goes, so a restart doesn't lose it.

1. Artist MusicBrainz IDs. Every library artist gets an ID, which ListenBrainz needs for similar artists and popularity. naviList asks Navidrome first, then ListenBrainz, then searches MusicBrainz by name. Artists it can't find are retried after about 30 days.
2. Live recordings. For each artist, naviList looks at their live releases on MusicBrainz and marks the matching tracks in your library as live. It rechecks about every 180 days. See Studio and Live.
3. Popularity ratings. One request per artist, at about one a second. See Popularity.
4. Artist tags. Genres and moods from MusicBrainz and Last.fm, used by Rule Terms for Genre and Mood.

The Services page

The Services page shows each integration and what it holds.

• Navidrome: how many tracks are in the library, when it last synced, and the Popularity progress, such as 812 of 979 artists rated · 30 no data · 137 pending. Sync Library runs a sync now.
• Last.fm, ListenBrainz, Maloja: counts and last-sync times for history, loved tracks, top artists, top tracks and so on. Sync All runs them all.
• Lidarr: how many missing artists are pending, sent, ignored or found. Send Missing Artists sends the pending ones. See Integrations.

If a job shows a dash, it hasn't run yet.

Popularity says "Off". It's off until you add a ListenBrainz token or a Last.fm API key. It says "Last.fm only" when you have a Last.fm key but no ListenBrainz token.

The Logs page

The Logs page shows what naviList is doing. Use Level to switch between Debug, Info, Warn and Error. Pause stops the view from scrolling, Refresh reloads it and Clear log empties it. Each line is tagged with the part of naviList that wrote it, such as refresh, popularity, similar or sync.

When something isn't working, set the level to Debug, repeat the action, and read the lines for that tag.