SomaFM provider mishandling removal from library

[owldown]

What version of Music Assistant has the issue?

2.8.0b13

How is the MA server installed?

Home Assistant OS Addon

Mandatory: Carefully read the Troubleshooting FAQ and confirm that

• I have examined the logs and tried to resolve this issue
• I have fixed any errors or warnings in the logs that relate to tags
• I am not running MA across a VPN, VLAN, subnet, behind a firewall, or using local SSL or have any other complex network setup
• I am not using or have disabled tools such as AdGuard, Pi-hole or pfSense and retested
• I have checked my network setup to ensure mDNS/multicast is not being blocked
• I have reviewed the Open and Closed Issues and Discussions
• I have reviewed the applicable player or music provider documentation
• I have reviewed the MA Status Page
• I have tried restarting MA and rebooting the host

As Applicable: Carefully read the Troubleshooting FAQ and confirm that

• If using HA, I have confirmed the internal URL is set correctly
• I have tried a wired connection for issues related to interrupted or poor playback quality
• If the problem relates to a device then I have checked the device settings
• If it is a frontend issue, I have tried a different widely used browser
• For voice problems, I have sought help elsewhere before returning here
• For playback problems, I have recycled power to the physical device

The problem

The Soma.fm provider currently adds all available stations to the MA library when the provider is enabled. Users can remove stations from the library, which removes them from the listing in the Radio view as expected. Once the station is removed, it is also removed from the Soma.fm section in the Browse view, giving the user no method for adding removed stations back to their library. This is unexpected.

One workaround is to reload the Soma.fm provider in the provider settings, but this adds all available stations to the MA library.

How to reproduce

After enabling the Soma.fm provider, from the Radio view, choose a station provided by Soma.fm and remove it from the library.
In the Browse view, choose the Soma.fm folder and notice that the station has also been removed from this listing.

Music Providers

Soma.fm removes the station from both the Radio view and the Browse view.

Radio Paradise removes the station from the Radio view, but not the Browse view, giving the user an opportunity to add the station again.

Player Providers

This isn't a playback issue.

Full log output

MA SETTINGS >>> CORE doesn't exist.
Instead, I've downloaded logs from Settings / System / Server logging, which does exist.

music-assistant.log

Additional information

Discussed here: https://github.com/orgs/music-assistant/discussions/5012

What version of Home Assistant Core (if used) are your running

2026.2.3

What type of installation are you running?

Home Assistant OS

On what type of hardware are you running?

Proxmox

Have you included ALL of the information specified in the Troubleshooting FAQ or explained why you cannot

• Yes

[MarvinSchenkel]

Maybe @macegr has some insights here?

[macegr]

Yeah, I foresaw this potential UX issue and mentioned it in the docs along with a workaround (favorite stations and then just use the Radio tab with the Favorites filter), but @OzGav made me take it out 😄

It's kind of a heads you lose, tails I win situation. I really liked how when I added the provider, all the stations would show up in the Radio tab immediately. With the RadioParadise provider, you have to go through the clunky Browse interface and manually add stations, which isn't obvious.

Further complicating the issue, SomaFM does change its station listing occasionally, so you do want to be able to refresh the list and surface new stations.

My thinking for honoring station removals was to maintain a database of removed station, but I don't know if the library_remove hook actually works with radio stations, or is supposed to be used for a local station database instead of track management in a remote provider account. I also don't know if the Music Assistant library database is available to providers, so that I could search for removed stations and not repopulate them if they were explicitly removed.

In summary, I'd like some advice from other developers to help resolve:

• When someone removes a radio station, does that trigger a call back to a music provider?
• What is best practice for storing persistent local info if I need to track it myself, or accessing a list of disabled radio stations assuming that list exists after the user has removed a station?
• Is get_library_radios() called every time the Radio tab is rendered, or is that done just once on provider reload? So that I have an opportunity to not return disabled stations?

Edit: Summary of a summary....to the best of my knowledge, when you remove something from the Music Assistant library, it doesn't go ask the provider what to do. It just removes it from Music Assistant's database. Therefore my provider has no opportunity to handle or track station removals in the first place. I'd love to be wrong about that, because without Music Assistant triggering a removal hook to providers, or maintaining a database of removed items to keep deleting, or adding a "Hide" status for a library item instead of flat removal, there aren't a lot of non-clunky ways to work around this.

[macegr]

It does look like I never handled browse in the SomaFM provider, which in other providers does go repopulate the browse listing and would provide the missing stations again. However, reloading the provider would still repopulate the Radio tab with all the stations if I can't get access to a list of deleted stations (this is why having an official way to hide/disable items instead of a flat delete would help).

[OzGav]

Correct but I am looking at whether there should actually be a core change so that provider mappings aren’t deleted when the station is removed from the library. (And generally looking at all the radio providers to see if there is any synergies to be had)

[OzGav]

To be clear what I think should be happening is the list of stations available should be maintained by the routine sync which should be adding or removing stations to match what is on the provider. Then adding or removing from the library should be just changing the in_library flag not deleting the provider mappings.

So I don’t think you need callbacks or anything complex like that?

Now whether all available stations should be automatically added to the library is a separate question and to date we have only done that where the user has previously made a decision to add to the provider library (eg. Pandora or TuneIn) or where the number of stations is small (eg. Radio Paradise (Garrett was incorrect when he said this isn’t the behaviour))

[macegr]

It looks like I can work on one code change for the SomaFM provider to fully support the Browse functionality, that should keep the station from disappearing everywhere if removed from the Library.

Aside from that, @OzGav I think you're onto something with the in_library flag. Basically, Music Assistant handles Favorites quite well, and disabling certain stations should be identical but inverted logic (except active even when the Favorites filter is not enabled).

[owldown]

The mental model I have for the way I expect it to work (and I don't know if this is correct or a shared opinion) is something like this:

• The list of stations available from a Provider is large, and is periodically synchronized to expose new stations added by the provider (or made unavailable by the provider). This list of stations is what appears in the Browse view when selecting the provider's folder
• For providers that do not offer an external method of selecting which stations are in a particular user's library, a subset of that list of stations are added to the MA Library, either through manual user interaction, or all at once when the provider is enabled if the number of stations is below some threshold of too many. This list can be changed by the user, by adding to the library from the Browse view, or by removing from the library. Adding and removing items can be reversed by the user without having to reinstall or reload the provider (which would remove all user customization).
• For providers that do offer external selection, MA honors that as the intent of the user, and those stations are added to the MA library.
• A smaller subset of the list of stations that are in the MA Library can be marked as favorites, which is useful for filtering the Radio view, and surfaces those stations in the Home view. In order to be marked as a favorite, the station must be added to the library. If a station from the Browse view that isn't already in the MA Library is favorited, it is added to the library and favorited. Un-favoriting a station does not remove it from the MA library.

Please let me know if that's not the way this works.

I wonder if it would be good to allow the user to select what happens as far as automatically adding all available stations to the library when adding the provider? Perhaps a checkbox setting in Settings / Providers / Setup provider like "Add all available stations to library", and perhaps that box always defaults to no, or always to yes, or that is left up to the discretion of the Provider developer.

[macegr]

Perhaps a checkbox setting in Settings / Providers / Setup provider like "Add all available stations to library", and perhaps that box always defaults to no, or always to yes, or that is left up to the discretion of the Provider developer.

I had considered this, but I don't think other providers do it. @OzGav @MarvinSchenkel I'd be willing to try it on the beta testers if you think it's worth considering as a common approach across new providers?

[OzGav]

@macegr just wait as I have asked for some direction from the team. I might fix this in core.