Setting a tag with / in it

2022-01-12 23:16:35

Sorry if this has been asked before.

I'm having trouble setting a tag to:
Maceo Plex / Maetrik

The / is getting changed to:
Maceo Plex; Maetrik

Re: Setting a tag with / in it

Reply #1 – 2022-01-13 08:08:37

This is a limitation of ID3v2 before v2.4. The specification only supports a single value per field, and denotes that a forward slash "/" indicates a separator between multiple values. A hack is employed to make this a slash with whitespace around it, to preserve the known problematic value, "AC/DC", and similar others.

Perhaps we need a hack to completely disable multi-value tags for v2.3 and older.

Re: Setting a tag with / in it

Reply #2 – 2022-01-13 10:23:24

Yeah, ID3 was created by someone who apparently only made it to ABBA in the musical directory ...

If Unicode is not an objection, other slashes can be used: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slash_(punctuation)#Encoding

Re: Setting a tag with / in it

Reply #3 – 2022-01-13 10:37:47

Or as hinted, switch those tracks to ID3v2.4 (right-click tracks > Tagging > MP3 tag types...) and re-tag the field.

Re: Setting a tag with / in it

Reply #4 – 2022-01-13 11:35:19

Problem about 2.4 is that it never caught on to be supported well. I don't know if all versions of Windows 10 support it (I mean, as viewable in Explorer ... don't ask me about WMP). Earlier Windows do not.

Several players have issues with 2.4. ID3v2.4 & ID3v1 would offer applications a fallback. Test before migrating.

Re: Setting a tag with / in it

Reply #5 – 2022-01-13 11:43:08

Lack of windows support should never be a consideration. Even if you use the widely supported 2.3, using Explorer and probably any other Microsoft product to edit mp3 tags which contain TXXX frames, it will utterly mangle them.

Reported widely years ago, still an issue on the latest fully updated windows 10 right now.

FWIW, basic 2.4 tags are viewable in Explorer. Never edit.

edit: example with 2.3 tags written with fb2k...



Use Explorer to edit the ARTIST tag and reload info..

Re: Setting a tag with / in it

Reply #6 – 2022-01-13 19:17:52

Quote from: marc2k3 on 2022-01-13 11:43:08

https://i.imgur.com/2AI5Afu.png

WhaT-a-RoyAL-Mess-THAt-iS. 

Thanks for the replies. I can't really change them to v2.4 as Mixed in Key doesn't support them too well and truncates some titles if they begin with a digit. Go figure why. I messaged support to little avail so had to backtrack to v.2,3.

Maceo Plex & Maetrik it is then   Sadfaces.