Editing ID3 tags isn't working

[swgoddess]

Anyone have any ideas why I can't update ID3 tags? I am, heaven help me, running XP SP3 and dBpoweramp music converter v13. All I can say is it used to work before I updated to v12.3, hasn't worked since.

Ideas?

Please?

[LtData]

Re: Editing ID3 tags isn't working

What happens when you try to update them: are you getting an error, or are the tags not updating? If they aren't updating, what program is showing them as not updating, dMC or another program?

[swgoddess]

Re: Editing ID3 tags isn't working

No errors. They do not show as updated in either dBpoweramp or windows, and I can hex edit the file and they're not there either.

Here's what I'm doing:
Right click on file name
I select edit id3 tag (or whatever it is in the menu)
It says there are no tags (which they don't have)
I fill in the artist name (been through this too many times to add anything else)
I hit return so the field is no longer selected, but the data I typed is in there
I click the ok button
The pop-up tag window goes away
Windows does not display updated data
I edit id3 tags again on the file
It says there are no tags
.
.
.
etc.

[swgoddess]

Re: Editing ID3 tags isn't working

Here's something interesting. I tried doing a batch edit on the tags on the entire album, single file at a time. It updated all but the last file I did. So if I do only one file, it doesn't update. If I do 9 files, it updates the first 8 but not the 9th.

As a coder myself, I hesitate to suggest a code bug as simple as an off-by-one indexing error when manipulating a list of files and the data saves...

[swgoddess]

Re: Editing ID3 tags isn't working

I was wrong. I have to go in and clear the fields first, then it will allow me to set them. I don't see why it's not allowing me to overwrite whatever is in the field. I've gone in with the hex editor and there's data in the TIT2, TPE1, and TALB, TIT1, etc. fields, so I don't get why the tag editor isn't able to figure out what it is.

I'm not a big ID3 expert, I'm wondering if it is the binary data of 0x00000016 and 0x00000044 before the ascii starts in the TIT2 field, for example, that is causing problems.

Still my question is, why isn't it just overwriting this data?

[LtData]

Re: Editing ID3 tags isn't working

What is the file type of these files and where did they come from?

[swgoddess]

Re: Editing ID3 tags isn't working

They are mp3's. If you like, I can send you one of them if you tell me where. I did not rip these myself, I do not know what encoder was used, etc.

[LtData]

Re: Editing ID3 tags isn't working

Did you say the tags did or did not already have tags on them?

[swgoddess]

Re: Editing ID3 tags isn't working

There are tags. Like I said, what concerns me is the inability of dBpoweramp to overwrite the data in the tags without my having to manually clear them first. I'm betting the text encoding bytes are indicating some kind of encoding that dBpoweramp doesn't understand, but I don't see still why it can't just overwrite the data into the correct text frame.

[LtData]

Re: Editing ID3 tags isn't working

If you have a small file (<10MB preferably), check your PMs for my e-mail.

[swgoddess]

Re: Editing ID3 tags isn't working

File sent. It's under 4M.

[LtData]

Re: Editing ID3 tags isn't working

Got the file, looking at it now.

From first look, it seems odd that there are entries for "Artist", "album" and the like but they are empty. (Note: n/m, this is the default behavior of dBpoweramp)

Edit: putting the file into Winamp shows no ID3v1 tags but the presence of ID3v2.x tags, which has an encoder tag saying "SoundJam v2.1.1".

Edit2: Problem solved. Per "The Godfather", the tags are ID3v2.4 which dMC cannot read. You will need to erase all the tags on the files, which you can do with the [ID Tag Update] utility codec. Go to the deletions tab and select "All Tags". The Godfather confirms this erases all tags on the files.

[swgoddess]

Re: Editing ID3 tags isn't working

Gotcha. I didn't think anyone had gone to 2.4 tags... Even the ID3.org people tell you nobody's using it, lol.

Thanks.

[LtData]

Re: Editing ID3 tags isn't working

There are some programs that use it. I know foobar uses it, for instance.