I've been aching for a solution for my troubles with foobar which I don't want to switch over to other programs for my tagging. The problem is, when tagging with foobar2000 and overwriting the tags of mp3s, Windows then reads them as ID3v1 eventhough I tell foobar to use ID3v1 AND ID3v2. But when I tell it not to use ID3v1 and just ID3v2, it doesn't write any tags at all! Well, I can still see the tag in foobar2000 but windows doesn't have a clue. Is it because Windows reads ID3v1 only? But if that was the case, howcome some of my other mp3s that have been tagged without foobar get read properly (>30 characters)? Winamp even knows ID3v1 wasn't used and that ID3v2 is in order. Man I'm at a lost =[

For example:

I start with this:


and this to proove its just original:



I then edit the artist name to LEDZEPPELINLEDZEPPELINLEDZEPPELIN (which is > 30 characters) and this is what happens:

Which shows its been changed nicely in foobar2000, as expected, right? Also, I had ID3v1 and ID3v2 ticked when updating the tag...

Then this is where it gets worse:

See how its cut out? it should have ZEPPELIN eek !

And for some bizzare reason it shows up fine in foobar2000 (and I've shown you what settings I used to update):



Now, if I deselect ID3v1 altogether, this is what happens:


I just can't win. I would love someone to help me fix this problem. It's been eating at me for a while!!!!

If I am not mistaken, foobar writes ID3v1.1 and ID3v2.4 tags. Windows (inlcuding vista) will read ID3v1.1 and ID3v2.3 tags. The result is that if you tag a file with foobar, windows will not be able to read the ID3v2.4 tag and therefore defaults to the ID3v1.1 tag which has a tag length limitation you are experiencing. When you tag a file with another program (winamp), if that other program writes tags in ID3v1.1 and ID3v2.3 then windows will be able to read the ID3v2.3 tag and display it properly.

Foobar has an option to compensate for older programs (including the mp3 library in windows):
File> Preferences> Advanced> Tagging> MP3> "ID3v2 Writer Compatibility Mode"

If you check this option, foobar should start writing tags in ID3v1.1 and ID3v2.3, however you should be aware that the ID3v2.3 support will kill many of the features added with ID3v2.4 like unicode support and any custom tags like ratings and playcount.

Gotta be ID3v2.3 vs ID3v2.4 problem.

Use foobar2000's ID3v2 compatibility mode.

Edit: Apparently Yotsuya beat me to it.

My hat goes off to both of your support. Worked like a charm!! Now, I'm just confused on the matter of ID3v2.3 and ID3v2.4. So to my understanding, windows can't read ID3v2.4 tags which foobar uses so when doing 'ID3v2 compatibility mode' for tagging in foobar, the mp3's tags now contain not only ID3v1 and ID3v2.3 but also ID3v2.4? Is my understanding correct?

No. Under ID3v2 Compatibility Mode Foobar writes ID3v2.3 instead of ID3v2.4.

Ah I understand. Does winamp, for example, not write ID3v2.4?

I have not paid much attention to AOL Media Player (aka Winamp) for awhile now but last I cared to look it only wrote v2.3. iTunes I believe can write v2.4 if configured to do so but writes v2.3 by default.

I've just been trying to tag under ID3v2 Compatibility Mode under the 'Album Artist' field but it doesnt save it into the tag. When not in ID3v2 Compatibility Mode, it does save but that way isn't useful to me. Is there a way around this?


Edit: Just tried with mp3tag and seemed to work ok

Did you say that some of your song file titles have been truncated and now everything is okay?
Some of my titles have been truncated as well but they are gone. Period. Ver. 8.3 never did this to my files and regardless of the tag writing scheme foobar should not allow this to happen since this is last thing anyone wants to see when using the default settings. Then again I may have inadvertently hit "Rewrite file tags" without realizing what I did, but too late. Oh, well.