Uploading music to Google Play Music, Album Art and Year missing

[Dansync]

When I upload MP3s created with dBpoweramp into Google Play Music, there are two tags not read by Google Play Music:
1. Album Art is missing
2. Year field is empty

Both fields are written into ID3v2.4 tags with Unicode-UTF-8 encoding using dBpoweramp.

Previously I ripped CDs using iTunes into ALAC and converted those files into MP3, also using iTunes.
The MP3 versions created with iTunes had Album Art embedded inside the files. When uploading those files to Google Play Music I did not had this issue.

Is there a way for me to rip CDs using dBpoweramp and writing the tags in a way that Google Play Music will understand the Album Art and Year ID3 tags from the MP3 file(s)?

NOTE: The album I uploaded is not present in Google Play Music's library, so they couldn't match it, just to make sure they wouldn't try to overwrite my tags with their own.

[Dat Ei]

Re: Uploading music to Google Play Music, Album Art and Year missing

Hey Dansync,

there are things to check:

1.) Have you checked if the album art is embeded and the year field is present in the files?
2.) Does Google Play Music (or your player) support ID3v2.4 tags with Unicode-UTF-8 at all?


Dat Ei

[Dansync]

Re: Uploading music to Google Play Music, Album Art and Year missing

1.) Yes, I have checked that both fields are embedded in the files using dBpoweramp's Tag Editor, Mp3tag and foobar2000. All show Year and Album Art correctly.
2.) Can't find if Google Play Music supports ID3v2.4 tags with Unicode-UTF-8.

I'll do some tests later today and post back.

[Dat Ei]

Re: Uploading music to Google Play Music, Album Art and Year missing

Hey Dansync,

ok, that looks like Google Play Music (or your player) can't handle the tags.

I've just tested it on my cell phone (Samsung Note 4). Neither Google Play Music, nor any other standard player on my phone showed the the album art, and there are tagged files on my phone for sure. So I would say, it's just a limitation of the player.


Dat Ei

[Dansync]

Re: Uploading music to Google Play Music, Album Art and Year missing

There is definitely something strange going on with their service. Goal now is to find the correct combination of ID3 tagging settings in dBpoweramp to get Google Play Music to understand the Year and Album Art tags.

I did some testing and re-uploading to Google Play Music to see the results. On every re-upload I deleted all cache and emptied the whole Library, just to be sure.

Used settings were:
dBpoweramp Control Center > Audio Codecs > List / Options > mp3 ID Tagging:

Attempt	ID3	Version	Encoding	ID3v2 Use Year/Date frames
1	ID3v2	v2.4	Unicode-UTF8	No
2	ID3v2	v2.4	Unicode-UTF8	Yes
3	ID3v2	v2.3	Unicode-16	No
4	ID3v2	v2.3	Unicode-16	Yes

Once I uploaded attempt 3, the Album Art started to show up, but Year was still missing. After the Album Art worked, I tried v2.4 again, and the Album Art was still working, I think at this point Google Play Music cached the Album Art I uploaded internally and is matching it to the files I'm uploading for test, so I still don't know why it is working now. My guess is that switching to v2.3 helped.

For all 4 attempts, none made the Year field show up in Google Play Music. I checked which ID3 version I was using when uploading iTunes ripped music in the past. These were ID3 tag v2.2 (according to Mp3tag). Could it possibly be that Google Play Music only supports ID3 version up to v2.2 for the Year tag? That does seem odd to me, as all other tags (Title, Artist, Album Artist etc.) seem to work fine for v2.3 and v2.4 when uploading those.

If someone has an idea why this is happening, please share! I'll do some more testing later today and see what I can figure out.

EDIT: Just uploaded a FLAC version of the same CD rip. Year and Album Art showed up no problem in Google Play Music. This is probably just some weird issue on Google's side, possibly with this specific album. Will test this later with another album and post back again.

[Dat Ei]

Re: Uploading music to Google Play Music, Album Art and Year missing

Google Play Music wouldn't be the first software which implements only parts of different versions of a standard. iTunes is another example for those problems.


Dat Ei

[Dansync]

Re: Uploading music to Google Play Music, Album Art and Year missing

Tried a couple of albums now. Artwork isn't an issue anymore, don't know what initially went wrong with that. Year still is a problem. The Year field is always empty when uploading MP3 files. It does work with FLAC files. Although uploading FLAC files takes a lot longer compared to MP3 files, I think I can live with that.

It would still be nice if it worked though.