Any ideas on what could be causing and how to stop my files being retagged from x/y to x when I double click them or select a track? It doesn't seem to happen when foobar switches tracks automatically. Thanks.

are you using any component that rewrites tags .. like autorating or anything like that?

I have the foo_massstag, foo_lyricmake, and foo_infobox. Would one of these rewrite the tags automatically?

Foobar doesnt normally update the tags on a file unless you specifically tell it to either manually or with a plugin that updates stuff like playcount. Are you manually editing the tags or running any masstag functions? I personally dislike your use of the tracknum and think you should explore using totaltracks but regardless foobar shouldnt be updating the tags unless you tell it to.

No as I said I'm only double clicking the files to play them when they are rewritten. I almost never edit tags in foobar.

Which components do you use? It really sounds like maybe one of your components are refreshing a tag on your files. Try stripping foobar down to it's bare components.

Is there some way of outputting a list?

File> Preferences> Components

Uhh you can't actually copy and paste from there which is why I asked about output.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screenshot

CTRL+ALT+PrintScreen
open photoshop, irfanview, paintbrush, whatever and paste your clipboard
edit if you want, save and toss on imageshack

otherwise try removing each .dll file from components dir until you figure out which one is doing it

The problem with removing the components is that it happens randomly making it difficult to duplicate. Once I restart foobar it stops for a while and then suddenly starts doing it again and I can't figure out why.

Does it really change the files or only the data displayed in foobar2000? For example, ID3v2 stores track numbers in N/M format in a single frame, but foobar2000 translates that to TRACKNUMBER=N and TOTALTRACKS=M when reading the tag, and does the inverse conversion when writing ID3v2 tags.

so if his mp3's are tagged in N/M format, foobar would parse %tracknumber% as N ? he should then use $meta(tracknumber) instead on his playlist display to see the N/M format?

No, this conversion is applied on the decoder level, it has nothing to do with titleformat field remappings.

%tracknumber%[/totaltracks%] would display the track number in N/M format, if the total number of tracks is known.

I didnt notice any components that came to mind as a component that auto-tagged but I did notice you have several archive container components. many of those work by decompressing your .zip or whatever to a temp dir then repack them to save any changes... that might be triggering something. check with a 3rd party program to see if the tags are actually being rewritten or just the display in foobar.

foobar2000 does not support updating files inside archives, at least not for components that use the archive reading infrastructure from the SDK.

I suggest waiting for further feedback from the original poster instead of posting unverified theories.

That screenshots seem to me like v0.8.x. He even has an ID3v2 component. I think the tags in that version were displayed as 01/10, and not separated into TRACK and TOTALTRACK fields, like in 0.9

Good question and I believe the answer is yes. If I look at the file properties in foobar or with infobox on the changed files TRACKNUM = X and TOTALTRACKS is added. From windows explorer you can't actually tell which version of tags it's reading but it just shows Track X.


None of my files are in archives.


Yes I'm running 0.8. When the files are changed TOTALTRACK is being added and TRACKNUM is changed from x/y to x.

Then what's the problem ? What you see is foobar (foo_id3v2 to be exact) 'fixing' your track numbers. The TRACKNUM field is not limited to numerical values and perhaps your files have stored the tracknumber as a string (like '01/10'). After playback they're corrected to numerical values and separated to different fields, what is, i suppose, more compatible. Although i don't understand why is this happening automatically...

Maybe you could try Mp3Tag to take a closer look to that files.

The problem is that it's happen automatically and sporadically which is undesirable. I'll try lookiing at them with MP3Tag.

Changed tracks have Track X and unchanged have Track X/Y

Switch to v0.9 I can't give you other recommendation. The plugins for 0.8 are quite obsolete now, so i have doubts somebody will answer your questions. Maybe you could try removing some plug-ins (except foo_id3v2) to see whether one of them is guilty, but you seem to have a lot of them so it could take a time.

Switching to v0.9 and building a configaration from scratch is worth the efforts, trust me. You will have a cleaner, faster and better foobar

The main reason I use foobar at all is for the lyric components and lyricmake hasn't been ported to 0.9 so that's not an option for me.

Since the retag is erratic, troubleshooting that way would be difficult.

Is this the case with foo_id3v2 for 0.8.3 as well?


One way this could happen is if your files were tagged "x/y" when you loaded them in foobar2000 but you retagged them "x" with another program. foobar2000's playlists and database cache might not be aware of the changes, but if you play them in foobar2000, the changes will be shown.

Solution? Manually reload data from all files, sort by total tracknumber to pick out songs to retag, and retag them.

No.

No I am not retagging them in any application. The problem is specific to Foobar. As I said, when the problem occurs, I can double click a track in Foobar and it will automatically update. I've tested this by checking the properties of a file before and after double clicking. The problem is in Foobar and not something I'm doing.

Well, what does an external tagger (such as MP3Tag) say before and after double clicking?

Another way "any reported data" can change is if playlists were made with an older version of foobar2000, and if newer versions of foobar2000 report data differently.

I'm using the same version.