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Topic: tag data lost in renaming WAV files (Read 7053 times) previous topic - next topic
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tag data lost in renaming WAV files

I don't know if it has already been discussed. The issue that I have had is a sporadic loss of data in the Artist, Album, Tracknumber, or/and Title field(s) of one or a few WAV files after I used "File Operations->Rename" to rename a batch of them in the same album. I am using the  version 1.2.9 of foobar2000 on a Dell XPS 8500 with Windows 7 Home Premium. From what I read, no fixes on the newer versions of foobar2000 are directly related to WAV format.

Similar losses of data also happened when I converted file format from FLAC to WAV in batch. I didn't test to confirm that the same would happen in renaming a single WAV file or in converting a single FLAC file to WAV format. I got this error when operating on a batch of files and there was no fixed pattern on which tag field of which file the loss would happen.  I had to look at the display to know if some files had lost data after a collective file operation.

It looks likely that a software bug has caused all these spurious errors. It could be a bug in foobar2000. But it might equally be a bug in the operating system of my PC. To be honest, I don't trust W7 more.

Anyone would like to shed light on this?

Thank you in advance.

tag data lost in renaming WAV files

Reply #1 –
WAV files are not generally tagged, and while you can get some software to add the tags, theres a good chance doing much of anything to the files with other software will corrupt or lose the tags.  In particular, since I don't believe foobar2000 supports tags in WAV files, I would not recommend using it with any files you want to preserve tags in.

What are you trying to do with your WAV files?  Generally the solution is to avoid saving in WAV and instead directly convert to whatever the final format is going to be so that no metadata loss occurs.

tag data lost in renaming WAV files

Reply #2 –
Quote from: saratoga on
In particular, since I don't believe foobar2000 supports tags in WAV files,

Do I misunderstand you, saratoga (especially because db1989 didn't comment on that)?

foobar2000 v1.1.9

Quote
Added WAV file format tagging support.
This is HA. Not the Jerry Springer Show.

tag data lost in renaming WAV files

Reply #3 –
Quote from: irix7 on
Nothing you say about PCs, electronics or audio is correct in any way. It's all esoteric, pseudoscientific nonsense. You don't happen to be the lead audio developer of Titanfall?
To quote myself:
Quote from: Kohlrabi on
Quote
Das ist nicht nur nicht richtig, es ist nicht einmal falsch!

[transl.: It is not only not right, it is not even wrong!]

To get back to the original question, even though foobar2000 supports some tagging with WAV files, I'm not sure it supports the same features for WAV as for all other formats. Second, those tags will likely will not be read by any other software out there. And third, WAV files are generally just a huge waste of disk space compared to compressed lossless formats.
It's only audiophile if it's inconvenient.

tag data lost in renaming WAV files

Reply #4 –
Quote from: Kohlrabi on
Nothing you say about PCs, electronics or audio is correct in any way. It's all esoteric, pseudoscientific nonsense.

Some of the OP's phrases remind me of Jplay's deceptive statements.

Anyhow, that a simple renaming of a wav file would be able to delete (some of) its tags, is this possible at all?

Quote from: irix7 on
The issue that I have had is a sporadic loss of data in the Artist, Album, Tracknumber, or/and Title field(s) of one or a few WAV files after I used "File Operations->Rename" to rename a batch of them
This is HA. Not the Jerry Springer Show.

tag data lost in renaming WAV files

Reply #5 –
It could will be that the files don't have tags, but that foobar2000 just shows the filename, which obviously changes after renaming.
It's only audiophile if it's inconvenient.

tag data lost in renaming WAV files

Reply #6 –
I get your point, Kohlrabi, but then the OP could also not have seen any tags before the renaming which he complains to have lost afterwards.

What I thought about is that as far as I know Windows uses an internal 'table of content' where it looks for files. If a file is renamed, then the corresponding entry in that table is changed in truth.

Only if foobar2000 would write/build files completely new during a renaming operation a data loss could happen theoretically.

Does fb2k write files completely new when it renames them?
This is HA. Not the Jerry Springer Show.

tag data lost in renaming WAV files

Reply #7 –
Quote from: Robertina on
Does fb2k write files completely new when it renames them?
No, renaming is a special case of moving a file, i.e. creating a new TOC entry for the existing data. The exception is a move across file system boundaries, i.e. to another drive. In that case the file is copied to the new location and then the old copied is deleted. However, this is a byte by byte copy, not a re-encode.

tag data lost in renaming WAV files

Reply #8 –
Thank you, foosion.

That was what I expected (otherwise renaming would last much longer).

But isn't then impossible what the OP reports? I wouldn't know how tags could be lost then. I think there must be some user error on his side?
This is HA. Not the Jerry Springer Show.

tag data lost in renaming WAV files

Reply #9 –
fb2k writes metadata into wave files using two different schemes. If you open an untagged wave file, and add information in the properties window, it adds both types of tags by default.

For RIFF LIST INFO ( http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exifto.../RIFF.html#Info ) it writes:
IPRD = Album Title
IART = Artist Name
IGNR = Genre
ICMT = Comment
INAM = Track Title
ITRK = Track Number
ICRD = Date

For ID3v2 ( http://id3.org/id3v2.3.0 ) it writes:
TIT2 = Track Title
TALB = Album Title
TYER = Date
TRACK = Track Number/Total Tracks
TPOS = Disc Number/Total Discs
TPE1 = Artist NAme
TPE2 = Album Artist
TCOM = Composer
COMM = Comment
TXXX-PERFORMER = Performer
TCON = Genre

As you can see, the RIFF chunk doesn't include all the information, the ID3v2.3 tag does.

When both are present, the values displayed in fb2k are from the ID3v2.3 tag. When you edit the values, the changes are written to both the RIFF LIST INFO chunk and the ID3v2.3 tag.


Files without tags are shown by filename only. Some versions of fb2k have a database and all support fb2k playlists, both of which can hold metadata. The default playlist (loaded when you launch fb2k) reads the metadata from the playlist rather than the files to speed up load time. If the metadata in the files has somehow changed in the meantime, the new values will not be shown in fb2k until the track is played (or its properties are viewed by right clicking on it).

Hope this helps someone to figure out this.


There is no audible difference between FLAC and WAV on any non-broken system. Do you not realise how trivial it is to decode FLAC compared to virtually everything else your PC does? We've had this discussion before. Human perception is crippled by expectation bias. That's why people hear differences between identical sounds. We've had this discussion before too  .

There are plenty of ways of measurably (and sometimes audibly) damaging PC audio playback - it's just that using FLAC isn't one of them.

Cheers,
David.

tag data lost in renaming WAV files

Reply #10 –
Quote from: 2Bdecided on
If the metadata in the files has somehow changed in the meantime, the new values will not be shown in fb2k until the track is played (or its properties are viewed by right clicking on it).

The OP used foo_fileops for renaming, thus foobar2000 should reflect these alterations immediately.
This is HA. Not the Jerry Springer Show.

tag data lost in renaming WAV files

Reply #12 –
irix7, are you seeing lost data in fb2k, or when viewing in windows explorer, or both?

FWIW in Win7, explorer seems to show the data from the RIFF INFO chunk. In XP, explorer didn't understand any metadata for .wav files. As I said, fb2k displays the data from the ID3v2.3 tag.

Cheers,
David.

tag data lost in renaming WAV files

Reply #13 –
Quote from: 2Bdecided on
irix7, are you seeing lost data in fb2k, or when viewing in windows explorer, or both?

FWIW in Win7, explorer seems to show the data from the RIFF INFO chunk. In XP, explorer didn't understand any metadata for .wav files. As I said, fb2k displays the data from the ID3v2.3 tag.

Cheers,
David.

Sorry for being late to respond. For the word "display" I meant the foobar2000's default user interface. It is the one that lists each file on one line showing the Artist/album, Track no, Title/track artist and Duration information of the file. Before I used foobar2000 to rename these files (in batch), I had already tagged them with foobar2000's Properties or Tagging->manage scripts utilities.

tag data lost in renaming WAV files

Reply #14 –
Thanks to everyone who responded. Now I have learned that tagging a music file in WAV format is not a good idea. The format itself is probably not specific enough on how non-music data can be added to it. I will consider other lossless formats for playback purposes. I will use either AIFF for iDevices or the uncompressed FLAC on other machines.