I have a few MP3's that 0.9RC refuse to read the tags from. These files are lame encoded mp3's with id3v2 tags, and i've used iTunes 6.0.3.5 to add album art to them.

0.8.3 reads the tags perfectly. 0.9RC does not read them no matter what.

As i've said, i've used iTunes 6.0.3.5 and added album art into these files. But the tags are perfectly read in Winamp 5.2, foobar2000 0.8.3 and Windows Media Player 10, but not foobar2000 0.9RC. Also other files i've added album art to with iTunes works perfectly in 0.9RC.

I can supply the files for testing if you want.



Those are the same files newly added to both players.

It has been extensively discussed already.
Since 0.9 RC, Foobar only manages ID3V2.4 [Unicode] tags in the most "standard" fashion, leading to some incompatibilities such as the ones you mentionned, also considering ID3V2.4 is not as widely supported as ID3V2.3.

Developper's position has been expressed here and is summarized there and [unfortunately, IMHO] unlikely to change.

Personnally I just expect that a plugin will be developped enabling to switch back to the good old behaviour of 0.8.3, although I don't even know whether it would be feasible.

Well i really hope so. Cause IMHO, if this is intentional it's a step back, not a step forward. I'll keep using 0.8.3 then, since i use iTunes to sort/rate/categorise and manage playlists anyways, and just drag'n'drop the playlists over to foobar2000 for playback when i want to use as little system resources as possible.

0.8.3 reads the files perfectly, so why make a newer version not read the tags? Doesn't make sense, no matter if the tags are wrongly written by iTunes. 0.8.3 still reads the tags, 0.9 does not.

IIRC, iTunes has the ability to write ID3v2.4 along with all the other major versions so i don't see how this can be a problem.

From what I've noticed in out tests, iTunes writes the frame size in a wrong format (not as unsynced integer) for ID3v2.4 frames.

This was already discussed here.

Not without replacing foo_input_std whose source code will not be in the SDK, since it requires too many closed-source libraries anyway.

See if attached patch fixes it (needs "reload info from files" etc to take full effect). If it does not, please use uploads forum to post sample files that trigger the problem.

Please don't make offtopic posts or post false info. This topic is about problems with reading and not writing ID3v2 tags. We support reading of ID3 v2.2, v2.3 and v2.4, while only writing support has been restricted to ID3 v2.4.

OK, thanks for the clarification

Yep, that fixed it alright 0.9 RC now reads all the tags perfectly, just like 0.8.3 does.

Great stuff!

I didn't use iTunes to tag these files. They are tagged with EAC, i just used iTunes to add album art to the files (which i guess re-writes the tags?) I'm also using SoundCheck (somewhat similar to ReplayGain) in iTunes which usually adds some data to the tags i guess.

Handling of ID3 v2.2 with cover art is broken in current public build (2006-02-24) and has been fixed since; this problem doesn't affect any other ID3 revisions and your files are most likely perfectly valid if they now read as expected.