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.

Similar Messages

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 changing the ID3 tags and deleting music after syncing or opening

After syncing (or opening iTunes), iTunes changes the tags in about 25% of my music (this time it was about 90% affected). It removes the total track number on some of the songs. This has been a consistent problem. I noticed that it also actually erased some of my music, random tracks in my library are now missing (gone in windows explorer also). I have reformatted my iPod and restored it, it's not that. What is going on!! Going through and fixing 7500 songs every time I sync is ******* me off
Here is a picture of what it is doing: removing the total track on some songs
http://i169.photobucket.com/albums/u233/jupiterssj4/itunes.jpg
Forgot to mention that it also copied the artist field data to the album artist field... had to erase all of those too

Mine is doing the exact same thing. It happens every time I click on a song. Weird letter-number strings are inserted into the Comments field, my album art is gone, and the track numbers are messed up.
I've tried upgrading to the new iTunes. I tried reinstalling iTunes. I turned off my soundcheck option and deleting potentially comprised files. Nothing's worked.
I've tried emailing Apple directly and got no help. Anyone know what's going on???
http://photos.walmart.com/slideshow/AlbumID=46480802/PictureID=1343518875/a=9835 065_9835065/otsc=SHR/otsi=SPIClink

Itunes is slowing down my computer by writing ID3 tags

What are ID3 tags? Itunes seems to be slowing down my computer and is becoming very slow to respond to commands because it says that it's "writing ID3 tags". This just started yesterday. I've been using Itunes for a couple of months.

"hyjack".... a perfect word.... I can't operate any of my programs when it's writing these tags.
Mysteriously it stopped yesterday. There might be a correlation between me shutting my computer down - figuring it needed to reset. Yesterday Itunes was working perfectly.
So try the "old problem solver" ..shutting your computer down when you go to sleep.... a full rest....or shut it down for a full ten minutes. See if that works.
evie

"Writing ID3 tags..." every 10 seconds! AAARRRGH!

It seems that ever since I upgraded to iTunes 6, once iTunes loads, I keep getting the "Writing ID3 tags..." message every 10 seconds! Of course, everything freezes until the progress bar reaches the end, and then the message disappears. This gives me a whole... ten seconds to do anything I need to do with iTunes and then BAM! the whole thing happens again. And again. And again. I don't want to use iTunes ANYMORE!!! ...which is a shame because now I am screwed for updating my iPod. What should I do?!?!?!?
Various Windows XP

I have the same problem.
In fact, even if I minimize iTunes and work in another application, iTunes will pop up that "writing ID3 tags" window on top of whatever I'm doing, every so often. It appears to do it twice per song it plays. In fact, if I minimize iTunes, and then this window comes up, then iTunes will retore its window again! It makes it impossible to use iTunes to play MP3 files. If I minimize iTunes to the tray icon, then the main iTunes application will not restore, but the window will still interrupt whatever I'm typing on.
I have imported a 6000 legal mp3 song library from my Linux file server (it still stores the files on the file server). It may be that this behavior only happens the first time I play each song, but that's still pretty bad (it'll take months to play through all those songs).
It'd be great if we could get some information on this problem from someone who actually knows what to do about it. And, even better, an actual fix -- iTunes doesn't exactly seem to be the best behaved Windows application there is right now, which is a shame.

Itunes Library and ID3 tags

Hi,
So here's my problem :
I spent hours cleaning my MP3 collection and re-Writing ID3 tags in order to have a clean Itunes Library without "Blink 182" and "Blink-182" (for exemple) in the Explorer but just "Blink 182".
And importing my tied up music in the library, I noticed that there still was "Blink-182".
I checked my ID3v1 and ID3v2 tags : They're all the same : "Blink 182".
I don't understand where iTunes takes these artists name since they aren't in the tags.
Can you help me or these hours of cleaning where worthless ?
Thanks

If you open iTUnes, rightclick the song, hit "Get Info" and the artist field is "Blink 182" instead of "Blink-182" then all you need to do is play the song and iTunes should read the tag and correct the info.
If it does not do this one of the 2 is most likly happening, theres multiple tags on the song that needs to be stripped off using the program "TidyMP3" or windows media player is "Sneaking around" in the background and changing them back based on the info its getting off the net, in which case you will have to open WMP, goto tools>oPtions>Library tab and UNCHECK "Retrieve info off the internet"

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.

I want to remove my credit card from my daughter's itunes account but i can't delete the information without getting a notification that i must have the fields filled out

I want to remove my credit card from my daughter's itunes account but i can't delete the information without getting a notification that i must have the fields filled out. When she first got the ipod touch, we did not need to supply credit card information for her to set up her account. Only now that I entered it for one purchase, I can't remove it. Now my daughter has purchased over $300 in downloads the last two weeks.

You definitely can.
To remove your payment information open iTunes and go into your account. An easy way to access your account is from quick links on the store home page. After you login there will be a payment type listed with an edit button next to it. Click edit then select none under card type (next to visa, mastercard, etc).
Afterwards at the bottom of the page select done, then your card will no longer be on file. It will prompt you for a card next time you try to download something that isn't free.

I cannot update my itunes account. when I try to edit information I am getting an error message

cannot update my itunes account. when I try to edit information I am getting an error message

To everyone that is having this problem:
I just ended a 2 hour session with Apple Tech Support. We had to take it to a level 2 support person, but finally got it running. Here's what she had me do. Go to Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs. Uninstall ALL Apple products on the Computer. This inccluded Apple Mobile Device Itunes, Bonjour and Quicktime. I doubt if we would have had to but she had me download a fresh copy of iTunessetup.exe and run it. iTunes came up and ran on version 11.1.4. Then I reinstalled Quicktime.
It is my personal opinion that there is a flaw in version 11.1.4. You shouldn't have to go through all of these hoops just to update a single application that was working fine proir to the update attempt.
That's what worked for me. Hope this helps you. Any questions, get back to me.
Good Luck.

How To Permanently Change ID3 Tags With iTunes

Okay, so here's the deal. I've seen this question in several places, but I can't find a working answer, so I decided to give it a shot.
My goal: change ID3 tag info with my song collection in iTunes so that my changes stick permanently.
Now let me explain. I am picky about what info I want for a song. Anytime I add a song to my collection, I am specific about what info I want to keep and what I want to get rid of. What I keep: Song title, Artist info, album info and genre. I get rid of everything else, like track/disc number, year, comments, and etc.
To further my point, I'll explain how I go about what brings me to the problem. After I have an album with all songs I want from it, I add the folder to the iTunes library but I don't make any changes yet (I don't have the option checked for iTunes to add copies of the songs to the iTunes folder). Then I select all songs and convert them to 128kbs mp3s with v2.3 ID3 tags. Then I edit all the song info to what I mentioned before in the Get Info box. After a few plays, the track/disc numbers, years, and comments come back, but song title/artist info/album info don't change and the album artwork I added remains. I tried the opposite, editing all the info after adding the songs to the library THEN converting...same problem. I tried a third-party program, MP3tag, before and after converting, both with the same result. I even tried adding something to all comment boxes in iTunes to sync the libraries...that didn't work either. I also tried with that option of adding copies to the library checked and it still didn't work.
I want a solution to where my changes in iTunes of removing the track/disc numbers, years, and comments from songs will be permanent and not come back.
Also, this problem has remained through every new version of iTunes released up to the current version as of the time I am typing this.

There may be a number of things going on. iTunes has a problem updating files with multiple tags, e.g. both id3v1 and id3v2.x. Sometimes it seems it can update one copy of the tag, but then read back data from the other. It may also have problems if file security settings are incorrect, in which case it will appear to make a change, but then reveal the original data next time it accesses the track in some way. WMP may also be involved in magially restoring data that you've deleted. Getting iTunes & Windows Media Player to play nicely.
As to the issue with comments, are these general things or strings of digits like this? 00000000 00000210 00000770 0000000000103000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000. I've a feeling that patterns of digits such as these are in some way connected to gapless playback and are supposed to be hidden from view, but that may be wild speculation. Again it is even possible that WMP rather than iTunes creates them.
One way that might work is, having edited tracks to the values you want, use the option Convert id3 tags > None a few times, then Convert id3 tags > v2.3.
While I'm all for people having things the way they want them I really can't see how your library could be improved by not having track, disc, or year values. Without disc and track numbers albums will play out of sequence. Why not just turn off the columns that hold no interest for you?
tt2

Altering ID3 Tags with 3rd party software and having it recognized by iTunes

Hi,
Long time mp3 user but new to the iPod/iTunes family so I'm super unfamiliar with how it works. I currently use as separate mp3 retagger to batch process new ID3 tags and I noticed my iTunes library doesn't update the changes. Is there an easy way to keep updating folders without having to delete everything and reimport?
So, I have VA albums but itunes shows them as different albums with only one track in them - how do I change/fix this? Example: Punk-o-Rama vol 1 is a best of collection but instead of 1 album with multiple artists, iTunes shows it as multiple albums with 1 artist per "album" and only stores the album art on the alphabetically first "album". Fix please?

Maybe this has something to do with connection timeout for Oracle network configuration settings:
in file sqlnet.ora (located on server side), check these values or set them
appropriately:
SQLNET.INBOUND_CONNECT_TIMEOUT
SQLNET.RECV_TIMEOUT
SQLNET.SEND_TIMEOUT
See http://download-east.oracle.com/docs/cd/B19306_01/network.102/b14213/sqlnet.htm#sthref370

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.

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 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

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

ITunes re-writing id3 tags with deleted / edited information

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