All converted files in my iTunes library have been labelled "Explicit" by iTunes 11

[ripadeedoodah]

All the songs in nearly all the albums in my iTunes library have been labelled "explicit" since I downloaded the iTunes 11 update, even though I don't have any explicit material in my library. There's no way of removing this tag that I've yet been able to discover. All the albums that have this tag are albums I converted using dBpoweramp. Is this a known issue and is there a way of fixing it? Please don't tell me I have to re-rip my entire library!

[garym]

Re: All converted files in my iTunes library have been labelled "Explicit" by iTunes

All the songs in nearly all the albums in my iTunes library have been labelled "explicit" since I downloaded the iTunes 11 update, even though I don't have any explicit material in my library. There's no way of removing this tag that I've yet been able to discover. All the albums that have this tag are albums I converted using dBpoweramp. Is this a known issue and is there a way of fixing it? Please don't tell me I have to re-rip my entire library!

Known problem fix here.

http://forum.dbpoweramp.com/showthread.php?27799-classical-music-gets-explicit-tag-added-when-converting&p=127951&highlight=Explicit+tag*post127951

[ripadeedoodah]

Re: All converted files in my iTunes library have been labelled "Explicit" by iTunes

I saw that thread and that's why I posted. It's not a fix - what it seems to suggest is that, in order to get rid of the explicit ratings which are now on every single song (eg Frosty The Snowman) and can't be removed, I have to trash my entire music library and re-rip it from scratch using the new beta version.

I appreciate your kindness in replying but - are you serious?

[dgs2001]

Re: All converted files in my iTunes library have been labelled "Explicit" by iTunes

Theres no need to rerip them just use the tag editor from the beta version.

select a sensible amount of albums and right click > Edit ID-Tags

Then look for the Content Rating tag and change it to 0

** NOTE **
Itunes will not update the display until a track is selected then the explicit label will vanish.

Duncan

[garym]

Re: All converted files in my iTunes library have been labelled "Explicit" by iTunes

Itunes will not update the display until a track is selected then the explicit label will vanish.

or you can delete the itunes music library, then re-add the directory as library and this takes care of all the songs at once. I can't seem to locate it, but I've seen posts here (or elsewhere) regarding a script one can run against their itunes library, that basically will automatically "select itunes files automatically and "touch" them in a way that will cause itunes to reread their metadata automatically and thus make everything show up properly in itunes (of course you still need to do the dbpa edit mentioned above).

[garym]

Re: All converted files in my iTunes library have been labelled "Explicit" by iTunes

I saw that thread and that's why I posted. It's not a fix - what it seems to suggest is that, in order to get rid of the explicit ratings which are now on every single song (eg Frosty The Snowman) and can't be removed, I have to trash my entire music library and re-rip it from scratch using the new beta version.

I appreciate your kindness in replying but - are you serious?

Am I serious? Huh? And that thread does not indicate that you have to rerip at all. anyhow, stuff answered below now with more info.

[ripadeedoodah]

Re: All converted files in my iTunes library have been labelled "Explicit" by iTunes

What a nightmare. I mean, thanks very much for the info, DGS2001 and garym, but what a nightmare. My music library, although obviously ripped in Windows, is contained on a Mac (two Macs in fact) so if I'm going to use R14.4 to edit the tags on every file, it means I'll have to move the entire library back to Windows, and then learn how to edit it, and then actually carry out the editing, no doubt making many mistakes along the way and having to fix them, and then move the whole library back to the one Mac again and see if there's a way of copying it to the other Mac. It's going to take hours of work - I know it wouldn't for you guys but I'm just an ordinary Joe who likes listening to music and I've no idea how to edit tags or any of this stuff. I already spent well over an hour on the phone to Apple Support trying (unsuccessfully) to get this problem fixed before realising dBpoweramp was the culprit. And before you say, "Why not just live with the explicit ratings?", apart from anything else we have parental controls in the family home so the iTunes library is currently unusable.

I'm amazed there isn't a long thread on this topic - surely many people must be affected, and lots of them worse than me? (My library isn't that big.) Maybe they just haven't yet realised it's a dBpoweramp issue.

Anyway, if you've any other suggestions that could make things easier I would love to hear them.

[garym]

Re: All converted files in my iTunes library have been labelled "Explicit" by iTunes

What a nightmare. I mean, thanks very much for the info, DGS2001 and garym, but what a nightmare. My music library, although obviously ripped in Windows, is contained on a Mac (two Macs in fact) so if I'm going to use R14.4 to edit the tags on every file, it means I'll have to move the entire library back to Windows, and then learn how to edit it, and then actually carry out the editing, no doubt making many mistakes along the way and having to fix them, and then move the whole library back to the one Mac again and see if there's a way of copying it to the other Mac. It's going to take hours of work - I know it wouldn't for you guys but I'm just an ordinary Joe who likes listening to music and I've no idea how to edit tags or any of this stuff. I already spent well over an hour on the phone to Apple Support trying (unsuccessfully) to get this problem fixed before realising dBpoweramp was the culprit. And before you say, "Why not just live with the explicit ratings?", apart from anything else we have parental controls in the family home so the iTunes library is currently unusable.

I'm amazed there isn't a long thread on this topic - surely many people must be affected, and lots of them worse than me? (My library isn't that big.) Maybe they just haven't yet realised it's a dBpoweramp issue.

Anyway, if you've any other suggestions that could make things easier I would love to hear them.

This has nothing to do with Apple, so no use contacting them, but I guess you now figured this out. And most apple users are not using dbpa (because they don't even know about secure ripping). I'm not sure, but maybe this problem only affects lossy files created with dbpa, and I suspect many dbpa users create FLAC files (lossless), so they might not see this issue on their end.

But You must have a backup of your music files that you keep on a USB Harddrive? If not, you need this anyhow. Then just plug this into your Windows machine running DBPA. find the directory with all your files, Select all, right click, select EDIT ID TAG from the menu, then change the explicit tag value, then hit save. You're doing this to ALL your files at one time in one large batch. So other than the backup of the files to the Harddrive, this should take about 3 minutes.

Then delete the music directory on your Mac, replace the files on your Mac with the files from your harddrive, have itunes rescan the music folder to add all the songs back to your itunes library and you're back in business. Maybe 15 minutes in total. Just in case, I'd probably create two copies of my music files on the external HD. One would be an exact copy of what you have. The second would be the one you work with for tag edit (and that you copy back to your Macs). This way, if you messed something up, you have the original files untouched.

p.s. If you have no idea how to edit tags how in the world did you end up using dbpa. This is not complicated, but dbpa is usually only used by people that know more than the typical itunes user about ripping, music files, etc. (and I'm not a computer guy, just an average joe music listener as well).

[ripadeedoodah]

Re: All converted files in my iTunes library have been labelled "Explicit" by iTunes

This has nothing to do with Apple, so no use contacting them, but I guess you now figured this out. And most apple users are not using dbpa (because they don't even know about secure ripping). I'm not sure, but maybe this problem only affects lossy files created with dbpa, and I suspect many dbpa users create FLAC files (lossless), so they might not see this issue on their end.

But You must have a backup of your music files that you keep on a USB Harddrive? If not, you need this anyhow. Then just plug this into your Windows machine running DBPA. find the directory with all your files, Select all, right click, select EDIT ID TAG from the menu, then change the explicit tag value, then hit save. You're doing this to ALL your files at one time in one large batch. So other than the backup of the files to the Harddrive, this should take about 3 minutes.

Then delete the music directory on your Mac, replace the files on your Mac with the files from your harddrive, have itunes rescan the music folder to add all the songs back to your itunes library and you're back in business. Maybe 15 minutes in total. Just in case, I'd probably create two copies of my music files on the external HD. One would be an exact copy of what you have. The second would be the one you work with for tag edit (and that you copy back to your Macs). This way, if you messed something up, you have the original files untouched.

p.s. If you have no idea how to edit tags how in the world did you end up using dbpa. This is not complicated, but dbpa is usually only used by people that know more than the typical itunes user about ripping, music files, etc. (and I'm not a computer guy, just an average joe music listener as well).

Ha! Maybe 15 of your earth minutes but I promise you, it'll be more like 15 hours where I come from. However, thank you very much indeed for the helpful tips, which make it sound a slightly less daunting task. I do have an external back-up drive with copies of all my music files but that drive is my other Mac, a Mac Mini, so unfortunately that doesn't help me at all. But at least it points me in the right direction - maybe I can borrow a drive from someone or else I'll have to buy one, and then I can copy all my files over to it and start from there.

I should have said at the beginning that all my files were ripped directly from CDs to Apple Lossless, then moved one at a time (over a long period) from Windows to iMac (and Mac Mini.) Maybe it only affects people running their ripped files on OS X? If not, and it affects Windows too, I would think that a lot of dBPoweramp users would be affected. Like me, they're probably cursing Apple for botching iTunes 11 at the moment and haven't yet realised it's only their dBpoweramp files that are affected. I only realised by a fluke, otherwise I'd still be on the phone to Apple Support..

Anyway, thank you again for your advice. I won't have time to tackle this before Christmas but will try to get it fixed in the new year. Meanwhile it's back to good old LPs and CDs for me!

[garym]

Re: All converted files in my iTunes library have been labelled "Explicit" by iTunes

Ha! Maybe 15 of your earth minutes but I promise you, it'll be more like 15 hours where I come from. However, thank you very much indeed for the helpful tips, which make it sound a slightly less daunting task. I do have an external back-up drive with copies of all my music files but that drive is my other Mac, a Mac Mini, so unfortunately that doesn't help me at all. But at least it points me in the right direction - maybe I can borrow a drive from someone or else I'll have to buy one, and then I can copy all my files over to it and start from there.

I should have said at the beginning that all my files were ripped directly from CDs to Apple Lossless, then moved one at a time (over a long period) from Windows to iMac (and Mac Mini.) Maybe it only affects people running their ripped files on OS X? If not, and it affects Windows too, I would think that a lot of dBPoweramp users would be affected. Like me, they're probably cursing Apple for botching iTunes 11 at the moment and haven't yet realised it's only their dBpoweramp files that are affected. I only realised by a fluke, otherwise I'd still be on the phone to Apple Support..

Anyway, thank you again for your advice. I won't have time to tackle this before Christmas but will try to get it fixed in the new year. Meanwhile it's back to good old LPs and CDs for me!

when you get ready to tackle it, don't hesitate to post back and I'll try to help you step by step. Once you have files on a drive, its actually pretty simple.

[dgs2001]

Re: All converted files in my iTunes library have been labelled "Explicit" by iTunes

Just to confirm its not as daunting as you think.
And yes it affects flac too.

I ended up with a classical piano album which has no singing at all labelled as explicit. but it only took a few clicks to sort it, and sorting multiple albums all at once should only require the same few clicks once they are all selected.

[Spoon]

Re: All converted files in my iTunes library have been labelled "Explicit" by iTunes

Install the utility codec 'ID Tag Update' from codec central, use Batch Converter to select your whole music folder (one click), then convert >> to ID Tag Update, add a deletion rule to remove 'Content Rating' tag value.

Job done.

(test on a few files first)

[garym]

Re: All converted files in my iTunes library have been labelled "Explicit" by iTunes

And yes it affects flac too.

What do you mean when you say it affects FLAC? I looked at all my recently ripped FLAC files (dbpa 14.3). None of these FLAC files have a content rating field/tag. Are you saying that converting to m4a from a FLAC file with dbpa 14.3 will add the rogue content rating tag.

[ripadeedoodah]

Re: All converted files in my iTunes library have been labelled "Explicit" by iTunes

Install the utility codec 'ID Tag Update' from codec central, use Batch Converter to select your whole music folder (one click), then convert >> to ID Tag Update, add a deletion rule to remove 'Content Rating' tag value.

Job done.

(test on a few files first)

I'm sorry but this is like a foreign language to me. What's codec central and where do I install this codec? But most important of all, can I do all this on a Mac? Because my first problem is getting my entire library back into Windows again.

Speaking of which, I suddenly had a (very obvious) thought this morning. All my problems would be solved if there were a simple way of editing the library tags on a Mac. Does anyone know of an an easy-to-use tag editor that will fix this problem on a Mac?

[Spoon]

Re: All converted files in my iTunes library have been labelled "Explicit" by iTunes

Codec Central:

http://www.dbpoweramp.com/codec-central.htm