ID3 tags change, missing, why? Options

[d_headshot]

Okay yesterday I spent hours tagging every song and now today half of them went back to how they were yesterday and there's a lot of tags missing. Yesterday I checked multiple times to see if the tags saved and they did. This crap has happened before and it's extremely annoying having to look through every song checking if the tags are correct.

[tpijag]

d_headshot

Please review your message.....help others to provide help.

Which tags are missing? Consistent across files?
Which tags were changed - saved and somehow reverted back to previous?
Which tags were changed - saved and correctly remained in their changed state?
What program did you use to tag?
What program [s] are not showing the tags?

Without any additional information, I would guess you were incorrectly facing north when you tagged your files

terry

This post has been edited by tpijag: Feb 6 2009, 05:33

[d_headshot]

d_headshot

Please review your message.....help others to provide help.

Which tags are missing? Consistent across files?
Which tags were changed - saved and somehow reverted back to previous?
Which tags were changed - saved and correctly remained in their changed state?
What program did you use to tag?
What program [s] are not showing the tags?

Without any additional information, I would guess you were incorrectly facing north when you tagged your files

terry

I had ripped some cds and tagged them and stored them in a folder which I forgot about. Then when I found them, I added more tags. Originally, they only had track number(in the form "x") and title, artist, etc. I added composer information and change the track numer format to "x/x". I did this on itunes by the way because no other media player or tagger that I know of can change multiple files from the "x" format to "x/x" format all at once. The next day the files changed to the original tags that were used in the encoding process in the first place(lame v3.98). The tags that were changed back to the original state were the composer and track numbers tags. I used itunes(for track numbers) and mp3tag(for album art and etc.) and winamp for composer information. Also, on WMP, the newly tagged files would show up as the original state even though winamp and itunes had the correct tag information that I just saved. I searched around on google and I heard about how if you tag something on itunes, then play it either on itunes or a different media player, the tags don't save properly. So I got rid of itunes and I have yet to check to see if that helped. But I still need to know how to change multiple files from the "x" format to "x/x" format all at once and like I said, I have yet to find a setting or function in a tagging program that does that.

[Ron Jones]

You can actually use Mp3tag for X to X/X conversion. Just select all the tracks in a particular album and go to Tools->Auto-Numbering Wizard. It will present you with options to select the first starting track (typically 1) and will auto-fill the "Save total count of tracks" with the number of selected items. Just make sure that option is selected and press OK. Additionally, you can have the total tracks counter reset for each folder, and though I've never used this feature, I assume it allows you to select all the files in your library and properly apply the X/X format if your library is separated into folders for each album. Fairly straightforward process.

There may also be a way to streamline this process via a custom action group, though I'm not all that familiar with Mp3tag actions. Someone else may be able to chime in and explain how to create an action group that can do X to X/X conversion.

foobar2000 also writes X/X to the TRCK frame for ID3v2.4 by default when information is filled in the Total Tracks field in the Properties dialog, so you can select all the files in an album and edit the Total Tracks field to achieve this.

As for your tag consistency issues, it sounds like a possible tagger configuration issue. Go to Tools -> Options in Mp3tag (or press Ctrl+O), then navigate to the Tags-Mpeg panel (it should be MPEG, really, but I digress). Make sure Mp3tag is set to read ID3v1 and ID3v2 tags, and set the write options to your preference. The issue may be caused by iTunes writing to ID3v1 only, while your other programs may be reading (and/or writing) ID3v2, or vice versa (I admit I don't know offhand what iTunes writes by default), though that's only speculative on my part.

[grommet]

Use ID3v2.3 tags for MP3, and not ID3v2.4... since you'll experience compatibility problems. Mp3tag defaults to ID3v2.3, but you may have changed it. The fine folks at foobar2000 decided to hide this under a "ID3v2 writer compatibility mode" setting, so if you are a foobar2000 fan... set that.

WMP, Windows Explorer, dbPoweramp, Winamp, Media Monkey, etc. all only write ID3v2.3... though some can read ID3v2.4.

You can use Mp3tag to bulk change all your MP3 files to ID3v2.3... and you'll likely have less problems. (You can also keep ID3v1.1 in there, for backwards compatibility.)

Also be aware that the ID3 code, as implemented in the WMFSDK, doesn't read or write the optional total track entry in the TRCK frame. So, if tags are ever manipulated by Microsoft applications (Windows Media Player, Explorer, Zune, etc.)... it'll likely lose your total track entry.

This post has been edited by grommet: Feb 7 2009, 08:47

[d_headshot]

Thank you both for the excellent replies which solved my problems perfectly