ITunes destroys my ID3 tags

Hello guys,
I am using itunes for a long time, but a couple days ago it started to destroy my ID3 tags. As soon as I click play, the cover and all the information (title,artist,etc...) disappear. I already browsed the web but there were no satisfying answers. In fact, it seems that no one else has had this problem before.
I hope you can help me!
I'm using iTunes 10.6.3.25 on a Windows 7 x64 machine.
Regards,
Fabian

Hmm, I've just downloaded the live version of the script to test it and it seems to work as I expect it to.
That's 9 tracks selected in iTunes, if I run the script it then asks for confirmation.
tt2

Similar Messages

ITunes changes my ID3 tags... more info please.

Hello,
I'm in the process of setting up a podcast on iTunes for my church. Here is the feed. http://www.christcommunity.org.au/feed/?post_type=sermons
Now, when I subscribe to the feed in iTunes and download a file, I notice that two important ID3 tags have changed.
1. Album changes. In 'The Authority of Jesus.mp3', it is 'The Life of Jesus' on my web server but it is 'Christ Community Church » Sermons' when downloaded from iTunes.
2. Contributing Artists changes. In 'The Authority of Jesus.mp3', it is 'David Cunningham' on my web server bu it is 'Christ Community Church' when downloaded from iTunes.
Why do these ID3 tags change? Thanks.

Roger,
Thanks for your reply to my post. I am not concerned about what appears in iTunes as such, and I understand how that relates to the <iTunes:> tags in the feed. The Apple documentation is pretty clear on this.
However, in the feed, the file is specified by:
<enclosure url="http://media.blubrry.com/christcommunitychurch/www.christcommunity.org.au/ wp-sermons/20110306-ChristCommunity-Mark1.mp3" length="8640981" type="audio/mpeg" />
Now, when I download the file from that URL and look at the ID3 tags, the Album is set to 'The Life of Jesus' and the Contributing Artists is set to 'David Cunningham'. When I download the same podcast episode through iTunes, using the same feed, the ID3 tags change, as specified in my original post.
The feed is created by Blubrry/PowerPress but this process does not alter the ID3 tags.
So the question still remains, why is iTunes changing my ID3 tags? Thank you for your assistance.

ITunes 11 Changing ID3 Tags

Ok, I've been using iTunes for years and like many I've found the new version, 11, to be frustrating.
The main thing is ID3 Tags.
These have always been customiseable. For someone OCD like me, being able to edit and customise ID3 tags is very important in keeping my iTunes "tidy". I don't want one album saying "Florence + The Machine" and another saying "Florence & The Machine". I want them both the same.
But what I really want, more than anything else, is 100% control over what the ID3 tags say. On all the old versions of iTunes, I had this. Now, I don't.
I've just listened to two albums by Dead Prez. They're stylised thus: 'dead prez'. So, it is that version which I've always had on my iTunes. However, after listening to one of the albums, iTunes decided to change the name back to 'Dead Prez'. This was nothing to do with me. Why has it changed?
Worse, I've just listened to a song by David Gray, and I've now found it stored under U - for Unknown. It's not 'Unknown', because I've known for all the years that I've owned that file that the song was by David Gray. I haven't had to edit the information for years.
Is this a bug?
Is this a new feature of iTunes? Can I turn it off? If not, can Apple/ someone provide me with an explanation as to WHY this has changed?
Cheers,
Guy

In iTunes go to Edit > Preferences > Store and turn off
Show iTunes in the Cloud purchases
Share details about your library with Apple
On any iOS device go to Settings > Music and turn off
Show All Music
Close and reopen iTunes and/or reset the device and you should see your version of the metadata for each track rather than the original store data.
tt2

MP3 song information not retained after iTunes 7.0 - ID3 tags at fault?

I'm having some strange problems with track information in iTunes. I first noticed it when I tried to copy some mp3's from my Mac to my mobile phone: certain tracks did not retain the song information, like artist, album etc., while others did.
A similar problem has been discussed in this post:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=3698498
However, my problem seems to be a little bit more specific.
If I look at the music in my library in iTunes, all the track information is there. However, for MP3's encoded after 16th October last year, the "Imported With" field, using Get Info, is shown as "Unknown". Before this date, it is shown as "iTunes v7.0". For all MP3's the ID3 version is v2.2.
I believe that I must have upgraded to iTunes 7.0.1 around this time, since I have a number of Apple Lossless audio files which have also been imported and don't show this problem.
The main problem is with the file ID3 tag information (I think). If I select one of the problem tracks, find the original file, open it up in Quicktime and "Get Info", no track/album/artist/composer information is displayed. This is NOT true for 1) MP3's encoded before 16th October 2006 and 2) Apple Lossless files encoded at any time.
In other words, the track information for songs encoded with iTunes 7.0.1 and later is either encoded in a way that no other application can read, OR is only being stored in the iTunes playlist, NOT the file itself. I can see all the track information for these problem files on my iPod, but NOT my mobile phone (where I have to manually copy them over), even if I drag and drop them directly from iTunes.
I have this problem with Quicktime, my mobile phone music player and RealPlayer, so I'm assuming it's "system wide". It even occurs if I copy a problem file out of my music folder and onto the the Desktop, then manually add the track to iTunes: all the song information has disappeared.
I have all my music stored on an external hard disk - 160GB Freecom ToughDrive formatted as HFS+. Previously it was stored on an external disk formatted as FAT32, but copying the files over to the new disk didn't change the problem.
I considered using the "convert ID3 tags" option to see if it would make a difference, but both the good and bad files are listed as using v2.2. I also don't understand enough about them to feel confident converting them to something different - perhaps to v2.3 or v2.4 - just to see if it makes a difference.
Any information on how to "recover" the missing information (for anything other than iTunes) would be greatly appreciated!
MacBook Pro 17" 2.16 GHz 2GB RAM Mac OS X (10.4.9) iTunes 7.1.1

Okay, some more information as I try and track down the source of the problem.
By using an id3 tag editing program - ID3 Editor - I was able to view the song information for each track, even though all the other music players I had tried would not show it. If I then chose to modify and update the ID3 information, this would somehow modify the tags in such a way that they become readable in all other programs.
I tried using the "Convert ID3" tags option in iTunes, just on a whim, but without any success. Saving the song information in ID3 Editor doesn't change the version of the ID3 tag - it's still listed as v2.2 in iTunes - but it DOES make it readable in other programs. I also tried the various text conversion options, again without any success.
This looks to me like a bug in iTunes. While its possible for me to get around it, in an extremely long winded way, I still can't understand why iTunes would be writing ID3 information that other Apple programs cannot read.
Any suggestions? Should I be posting this question in a different forum perhaps?

ITunes re-writing id3 tags with deleted / edited information

Help I think I'm going insane. I keep my iTunes music folder on a LaCie 160 gig Rugged drive. iTunes keeps on re-writing id3 tags on certain files with information I have previously deleted or changed. This info auto fills as soon as I play the file again. I'm not using any other application to change tags.
Also if I reset the music library location and then put it back to the external drive it finds loads of new files without me adding.
Any idea what is going on here? Totally confused. Ghost in the system! Is it cofusing 2 databases? There's only 1 iTunes library file in the folder.

There is a setting in iTunes.
'Automatically download missing album artwork'. In the past that interfered with anything not being complete. Is it switched on?
The second reason is when you get MP3 files from a PC and the details were added through XP itself, updating it in Winamp would give all kinds of problems, perhaps a similar thing is happening here.
There is no real solution. The only solution that worked in my past was to clean out the details and enter them again, but NOT through the file manager of XP.

ITunes Slow Writing ID3 Tags From External Drive

When adding files (music) located on my WD External Hardrive, and upon trying to add the album art, the process slows down... a lot. As opposed to when I add filed on my internal hardrive (from my laptop directly), which is a lot faster (seconds whereas from the External takes about 2-3 minutes per album of 12-16 songs)
It takes FOREVER to write these ID3 tags. Is there a way to speed this up? What gives?

Sorry, where is the file iTunes Library.itl? If you're not certain and don't know how to find out use this script: iTunesXMLPath
External drives take longer to process file operations than internal drives. Every operation in iTunes causes the database to be updated so if this is on a sluggish drive you will notice.
May help to exclude the library & media folders from any anti-virus scans. iTunes also slows up as you increase the number of playlists and the size of the library.
Are you certain your computer is running USB 2.0? What happens if you power down the computer and remove all USB devices except keyboard, mouse and external drive? (Of course this might be your usual config.) Is iTunes any faster? Are you connected to the front USB ports or the rear? The drive should not be connected through an external USB hub.
tt2

ITunes cannot read ID3 tags written by Perl module MP3::Tag?

Greetings,
Just trying to re-arrange ID3 information in a large set of MP3 files. Before I run the following Perl script, iTunes can read the ID3 tagging information. After writing ID3 inform ation to the MP3, iTunes no longer reads any tagging information from the MP3.
Does anyone have any information regarding this? There is some cryptic information in the MP3::Tag POD regarding setting the "id3v23_unsync" option but that doesn't seem to alter the impact on iTunes at all. Windows and other tag readers seem to be able to read the all ID 3v1 and ID3v2 tags just fine (including the altered fields) after running the following script.
Thanks for any suggestions/guidance anyone can provide.
Description: the following program takes an MP3 filename as input.
Action: It appends the value in the Album field to front of the TITLE Field. That's it! Easy!
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use MP3::Tag;
MP3::Tag-> config(id3v23_unsync=>FALSE);
my $filename = $ARGV[0];
$mp3 = MP3::Tag-> new($filename);
@info=$mp3-> autoinfo;
@albnum = split(/_/, $info[3]);
$frame = $mp3-> {ID3v2}->get_frame("TIT2");
print $frame;
$mp3-> {ID3v1}->title("$albnum[0] $info[0]");
$mp3-> {ID3v2}->change_frame("TIT2","$albnum[0] $info[0]");
$mp3-> {ID3v1}->write_tag();
$mp3-> {ID3v2}->write_tag();
@info=$mp3-> autoinfo;
print $info[0]; //print ID3v1 TITLE field
$frame = $mp3-> {ID3v2}->get_frame("TIT2");
print $frame; //print ID3v2 Title2 field
$mp3-> close();
Thanks!
GL
Windows XP

SOLVED
Changing the config entry (Line 3 in original listing) to:
MP3::Tag->config("id3v23_unsync",0);
fixed the problem with iTunes.
NOTE: This means that iTunes version 7.x still has the synchronization problem alluded to in the documentation (POD) for this Perl module. I just had the syntax wrong to set the workaround parameter.
That aside, iTunes 7.2 works quite nicely with the modified MP3. Artwork (even though this was a modified and obscure (and legal) Bible audio, it found additional information about the MP3 in the online database).
Kind Regards,
GL
Windows XP

How do you force itunes comments to ID3 tags in MP3 files?

I have comments all throughout itunes. The mp3 files do not have those comments in the ID3 info.
How do you force itunes comments to write out to ID3 tags in MP3 files?
The folder and files all have write permission.

Yeah, don't do that, you probably also degrade the sound quality... If you've confirmed it is something odd with multiple tags try this.
Select a group of mp3 files (You might want to start with a smart playlist so you don't mess with any other format)
Right-click and use Convert ID3 Tags > None (may need to repeat this step if multiple tags)
Then right-click and use Convert ID3 Tags > v2.3 (v2.4 support still patchy from various accounts)
Downside is that it will lose any embedded artwork, but it should preserve all other meta-data, both tag-based and stored within the library itself.
In fact, if you use my CreateFolderArt script before and after updating the tags it should archive any artwork as a local Folder.jpg image for each album and then reinsert that image on the subsequent run... Check it out on a single album first. If it doesn't work as expected let me know and I'll tweak the script to achieve this end.
tt2

BUG: iTunes writes invalid id3 tags. This is unacceptable.

Hi there,
I'm a developer on a large opensource media player (XBoxMediaCenter) and have recently encountered a number of completely invalid id3v2 tags written by iTunes.
For instance, TCP and TCMP frames have been written (in the case of compilations) where these are not defined by the spec, and thus any spec-compliant tag reader should rightly fail at any such frame.
iTunes should instead be writing TXXX tags or PRIV tags to do this.
Furthermore, it's also writing application specific data to a COMM (comment) frame. This also should be in PRIV or TXXX tags.
You just don't make up your own frames when there is already mechanisms in place (TXXX tags for instance) to deal with application specific data.
The ID3 tag specification is available free to all. It would be useful if iTunes could obey it!

While the feedback page is OK, developers such as yourself should do the following to submit a bug report:
1. If you don't have one already, get an ADC account (http://developer.apple.com/products/). The "ADC Online" (http://connect.apple.com/) accounts are free.
2. Submit a bug report at http://bugreport.apple.com

Can iTunes write corrected ID3 tags to the main files?

I'm sure this has been posted somewhere already, but I can't find it, so here goes.
I have changed several hundred ID3 tags by editing the files in iTunes. Titles, artists, album, etc. The problem is, the main files aren't updating. SO if I change an entire album's ID3 info in iTunes, then delete it from iTunbes, then import it again, it's not updated. Is there a way iTunes can transfer whatever information I have changed within the application to the main files? I tried using the "Convert ID3 Tags" inside of iTunes and it didn't work.

villenuv27 wrote:
It does for most fields, but it won't change the song title.
I still don't understand what you mean by "main files" or why you are deleting and re-importing. Sorry, but without more information, I don't have any suggestions. iTunes writes tags just fine for me but I allow iTunes to organize all my music. My iTunes files are my only music files.

ITunes Library and ID3 Tags cause confusion

Okay, so this is what happens. I play a song that has Garage as the genre, but right after I double click on it, the genre changes to Other, and the track name shortens. Now, this doesn't happen with every file, but it happens with enough files to get really annoying. And no matter how many times I change it, it will always revert when I play the song.
I have an idea of what's happening, but I don't know how to fix it. My hypothesis is that the data in the ID3 Tag and the iTunes library are different, and when I edit the song tags in iTunes, it is changing the library data, but not the ID3 tag on the song file. I would use an ID3 tag editor, but all of them I have seen do not give access to Grouping and some of the other fields. I also use Serato Scratch Live, which accesses my iTunes music, for DJing.
Is there anyway to tell iTunes that it needs to write tag data to the ID3 on the song? I have searched preferences, but there is nothing concerning this.

YES... this is seriously messed up. It was the same issue in 7.5 and is now obviously present in 7.6. I would guess that many people don't see it because they never do anything with their mp3s after they are in the library, or if they make tag changes they never have to reimport the files. Or they don't care.
I've spent a LOT of time over the past 6 months cleaning up tags, adding details, adding artwork and ripping CDs and now have about 500gigs of tunes in my library. The symptom is the same.. after I've changed or added tags they look fine. If I then bring them into itunes on another mac (this is a shared drive) the edited tags all disappear and revert to either what they were before my edits, or disappear completely. Interestingly (maybe a hint as to whats happening) if I embedded artwork in the file, IT stays, but other tags revert/disappear.
What is the deal here? I can't really see any pattern, some mp3s were downloaded, some were ripped by me, some are CBR others VBR. I have full read/write permissions. MOST of the time I can edit tags and it sticks. its about 10-15% of them that have problems. I've also tried changing the tag to NONE to remove it and then create a new one but that doesnt consistently fix things either. Its either a conflict between the iTunes database and the embedded tags as you suggest or perhaps a conflict between different ID3 versions.
I'd like to hear how other people have got around this... Looks like I've got about 15% of six months of on again off again work down the drain since the tags don't exist in the files (or they're corrupt now).

ITunes sometimes changes ID3 Tags/Deletes Art

Hi
I currently keep all my MP3's ID3 tags as 2.2, as that version is what seems to allow the artist/album information to show up in the actual file info in my My Music folder.
Sometimes, when scrolling through on iTunes, an album's art will suddenly turn blank, and all of the songs in that album have turned to 2.3, and occasionally added things like composer and album artist, which I prefer to keep blank. I have to then select them all, change the ID3 tags back to 2.2, then paste the album back.
Why is iTunes doing this? Is 2.2 not the ideal ID3 tag for files?
Oh, and extra details if it helps. I'm running the most current version of iTunes, and all of my music is from CD's (so nothing from the iTunes store)
Message was edited by: Book1245

I agree with polydorus. It's WMP making hte changes. Esp since itunes by default uses ID3 v2.2, not v2.3 tags.
Also, it doesn't matter if you never use WMP - its default settings allow webpages to open WMP in the background without you even knowing.
You need to turn this auto-update "feature" off in WMP in 4 places.
Player tab: everything unchecked so WMP won't touch your files
Library tab: everything unchecked, esp the box to retrieve info from the internet
Privacy tab: everything unchecked, esp the box to update files
Security tab: everything unchecked so web pages can't launch WMP in the background
You also need to check these 4 settings after every windows update that includes a WMP update, because it has reset them back to some of the defaults, I have noticed.

ITunes not reading ID3 tags correctly

I have an album of mp3s, all correctly ID3 tagged (WinAMP and Windows Media Player read them fine), and when I try to add it into my iTunes library, it only add it as the filename. It does not read the artist, album, or track name from the tag.
It is strange that it is able to read some of the id3 tags but not all.
iTunes 6.0.4 Windows XP Pro

Something else on your system is probably changing the tag outside of itunes. For instance, WMP is set to get album info from the internet.
iTunes isn't constantly scanning your library for any little tag change (a good thing, otherwise it would use 100% CPU all the time). When you go to play it or get Info, it DOES read the tag info.
Then again, I might not understand your itunes preferences settings. I have mine set for itunes not to organize my files and not add them to the itunes library.

ITunes overwriting my ID3 tags

Hi all,
iTunes has been playing up lately. Somehow, when I open iTunes, it seems to overwrite cover art (deletes cover art), disk # information (again deletes it), and track info (even if I have X of Y, it deletes the 'Y' data).
What on earth is going on? It seems like somekind of auto-retrieve ID3 info messing about in the background - if so, how do I turn this off?

iTunes should not alter your iD3 tags by itself, but whenever you select or play a track, iTunes rereads the tags. This can produce the appearance that iTunes is changing the tags when it is merely reflecting a change that has already happened.
Do you have any other software on your PC that can automatically change tags?
For example, Windows Media Player can be set to automatically retrieve information form the internet, that can cause trouble if it is selected in Options.

ITunes not recognizing ID3 tags

Hi, I installed iTunes last night on my PC and imported all my music into it. This seemed to work OK, but quite a few of the tracks are not showing the correct information in the list (e.g. just showing the track name, and not the artist, album etc).
I have checked and the ID3 tag info is present and correct on these MP3s - if I open it in Winamp and look at the file info I can see that the ID3v1 and ID3v2 information is all present and correct, but for some reason it is not being recognised by iTunes (on the Summary info screen for these files it says: "ID3 Tag: None").
Is there any way I can get iTunes to recognise these tracks? I don't want to have to do it manually as there are quite a few.
Any help would be much appreciated, thanks in advance, Leo.

Leo: Yes, when I first imported my library, I found this case on several files.
In every instance, the ID3 tag itself was corrupted. What I later discovered was as follows:
-Corrupt ID3 tags are pretty commonplace
-Winamp is very lenient in its tag reading capabilities
-iTunes is not so lenient
There's a few ways to try to fix these files (since it is a problem with the file, technically).
-You can try to correct the tag using a good tagging program. I found Tag&Rename was capable of fixing most tags.
-You can erase the tag and retag the file entirely. TidyMP3 will remove the tag. Tag&Rename has nice Amazon.com lookup features for retagging whole albums at once (with art!).
But it is the tag at fault. Winamp is just incredibly forgiving, more so than any other program. And as such, it's not a good basis on which to judge the correctness of the file's tag.

ITunes destroys my ID3 tags

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for