Original post here [redlib link].

Written by deluan

The next release normalizes every ID in the database into a single format. It runs a one-time migration on first start. The PR with this change will be merged this weekend: github.com/navidrome/navidrome/pull/5824

If you run develop or auto-update, this lands soon (this weekend) and without warning. Make a backup of navidrome.db now. The migration is one-way, so rolling back (if needed) means restoring that backup.

The short version:

• Takes ~30s to ~1m20s on my 96k-track library (QNAP Celeron). Scales with library size.
• Everyone gets logged out once. Web UI and clients using the Navidrome API need to log in again. Subsonic clients authenticate per request, so they are unaffected.
• Song IDs change, album and artist IDs do not. Clients that cache song IDs (offline downloads, cached playlists) may need a re-sync.
• Cover art gets re-fetched, so the first browse after upgrading is slower.
• Share links keep working.
• Nothing is lost: favorites, ratings, play counts, bookmarks, play queues, scrobble history and Last.fm / ListenBrainz links all survive. No rescan needed.
• One manual fix: .nsp smart playlists using inPlaylist or notInPlaylist keep the old playlist ID on disk and need updating by hand.

Full write-up: gist.github.com/…/917ebc243c8b486101de857ffae6739…

If you can, please test it with your favourite client once it is merged, and reply here (or on our Discord) if anything looks off.

EDIT: For app/client developers: I’ll merge the topSongsByArtistId PR at the same time as this ID migration. This means that you’ll be able to detect if a server is migrated by checking the getOpenSubsonicExtensions response and looking for the topSongsByArtistId extension.

#selfhosted