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Topic: itunes messing up my tags (Read 3983 times) previous topic - next topic
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itunes messing up my tags

well i have a very annoying problem which i can't solve...

when i import my files (tagged with mp3tag) to itunes, it always corrupts the tags of the files, so no other players or taggers can see it!


for example, my library is ok, tagged with mp3tag, works perfectly in foobar...
and if i import a folder with an artist to itunes, and if i play a song, or use "get info" nothing seems to be changed...
but then if i open that same folder with mp3tag, all the files look untagged!!!
and the album cover isn't shown anymore in foobar, as itunes seems to mess it up everytime it uses the file!



it's really annoying, and i hope that someone could help me :\

itunes messing up my tags

Reply #1 –
I've never encountered problem like this...
You could make all your music files read-only after you properly tagged them with MP3Tag. That way iTunes cannot make any changes to your files.

itunes messing up my tags

Reply #2 –
something is definitely wrong here on your end (not the software generally). Simply looking at file info within itunes does NOT change my tags (and I use mp3tag and foobar as well). Even modifying a tag within itunes doesn't cause me any problems.  What sort of files and what tags (mp3, AAC, id3v1, id3v2, APE, etc.????

itunes messing up my tags

Reply #3 –
this happened to me once before, when it literally destroyed 2000 of my first added files, which i had to convert from itunes to id3v2.3 and to add covers again for every file (because itunes makes them unusable in other players).


i always use id3v2.4 in foobar and mp3tag and it works fine, but if i add a file to itunes and then use the "get info" option on that song, it destroys the tags... everything is still usable and viewable in itunes, but in foobar and mp3tag it's always shown as files without any tags



and also, my genre fields are multi-field values, like Rock; Hard Rock; Progressive Rock which works good in foobar, and mp3tag sees it as Rock\\Hard Rock\\Progressive Rock... but they both separate it as it should be done... but it tunes at first it is shown as Rock○Hard Rock○Progressive Rock○ and when i use the "get info" function it only takes the first value and saves them like that...


but i'll try to use the read-only (unfortunately, that will prevent from modifying them with foobar and mp3tag as well)
thx

itunes messing up my tags

Reply #4 –
Quote from: garym on
something is definitely wrong here on your end (not the software generally). Simply looking at file info within itunes does NOT change my tags (and I use mp3tag and foobar as well). Even modifying a tag within itunes doesn't cause me any problems.  What sort of files and what tags (mp3, AAC, id3v1, id3v2, APE, etc.????


all my files are id3v2.4, after i use the files in iTunes they are useless in other programs...
but if i convert them to id3v2.3 with iTunes, the tags are usable everywhere, but with some limitations (the artwork gets screwed up, and only the first genre is added)

itunes messing up my tags

Reply #6 –
greynol hid the nail on the head.  Use ID3v2.3.  I don't see a need to use v2.4 anyway since support for it is still buggy.  Hell, half of my devices aren't even compatible with ID3v2.4.  So switch to using ID3v2.3 from the get-go and you won't have any issues.

itunes messing up my tags

Reply #7 –
I'm currently slamming my head against the wall with ID3v2.3 tags written as UTF-16 which can't be read by tag.exe.

EDIT:
In light of rpp3po's follow-up below, ID3v2.4 can't be read by tag.exe either.

EDIT2:
In light of kornchild2002's follow-up below rpp3po's, metamp3.exe can read v2.3 UTF-16, though it can't read 2.4.

itunes messing up my tags

Reply #8 –
Quote from: greynol on
I'm currently slamming my head against the wall with ID3v2.3 tags written as UTF-16 which can't be read by tag.exe.


That's one benefit of 2.4. Almost everything in modern operating environments is UTF-8 nowadays, as supported by id3v2.4. The choice of ISO 8859-1 and UTF-16 for 2.3 was a mess.

id3v2.4 is already 9 years old. Kind of not fair to blame iTunes, when other apps are still unable to parse 2.4 tags. As far as I know iTunes has the most complete id3 implementation of any music player. Which part of the "spec" do you think it breaks?

I don't know how just looking at the tags has converted them for the OP. But you can always use iTunes to convert your id3 tags to older revisions, which should be readable for apps with limited support.
 

itunes messing up my tags

Reply #9 –
Quote from: greynol on
I'm currently slamming my head against the wall with ID3v2.3 tags written as UTF-16 which can't be read by tag.exe.


Seriously?  I am surprised that it can't read 2.3 UTF-16 tags.  I use 2.3 UTF-16 tags all the time as that is the only way for me to get tags that work on my iPod, PS3, Xbox 360, car CD decks, and various other devices (or I use v2.2 tags).