Hello. I am new here, so this may be an old request, but I cannot find any related articles on the forum. A little background to this request...
I recently moved from iTunes to JRiver Media Center 23. When I ported my iTunes files, most of them in AAC form, but some in ALAC or AAIF form, I was left with 1084 files (about 10% of my library) that are unreadable by MC23. I've since confirmed that at least the symptom of the problem is that the files were copied with no tags. There are tags that are readable when one hovers the cursor over a file selected in Windows Explorer. However, when I load these same files into Mp3tag, no tags are displayed in the right hand pane, excepting Filename and Path. Obviously, that leaves me with a huge problem, if I have to fix all of these files manually in Mp3tag. Is there a means of repairing these tags, in bulk, by issuing a command, or string of commands, to Mp3tag that will look up multiple tracks in the .src data files, locate the proper tags and write them into the files?
Any help or guidance would be appreciated. I have begun the process of editing these files, one by one, but I'm getting just a bit frustrated...
There should be column more to the right that tells you which tag versions are in the files (like ID3V2.3, V1, APE) and it should tell you which tag version you currently see.
If it is APE then it is fairly likely that these are out of sync with the ID3Vx tags and as they overrule the V2 and V1 tags you see only the contents of the APE tags.
Go to File>Options>Tags>Mpeg and switch off reading APE tags.
Or if it is the other way round that you have all the data in the APE tags and none in the V2 ones, then switch it on.
In the end, when you see the right data, set APE to be deleted and read but not written, cut the tag and save it immideately.
I checked as far to the right as I could move the window, but didn't see the column you suggested should be visible. The furthest column to the right that I can see is labeled "Modified", with date/time data. I checked the view menu and didn't find a column that shows tag version. Is there another switch I need to turn on to be able to see this column?
You can create one yourself:
Right-click on a column header in the file list.
Open the dialog for columns.
Create a new one: Enter a column header (name).
Enter for value: %_tag_read%[ (%_tag%)]
Leave empty "field".
Make sure that the new column is ticked to be visible.
OK; now, I feel a bit dimwitted. I created the column, as you suggested. It returned the same value, as a column labeled "tag". The values returned were all "MP4 (MP4)". So...re-reading your first reply, I opened the "Tools" menu and deleted the value "*.ape" from the "Restrict incoming files to:" dialog. Is this what you were instructing me to do, when you said "switch off reading APE tags"?
As you can see, there is nothing of the form "ID3V2.3" or "V1". Should I add these? Or have I messed things up?
One more thing...I've realized if I select a group of files and simply choose "Save tags", the files will now play in Media Center. I assume this would work for all of the files, if I had the courage. No values change, i.e., they all remain blank, even tho "playability" has been repaired. Any idea what's going on?
Thanks for replying, again, to my newb questions...
OK, MP4 files usually do not have APE tags... Sorry, if I overread there something.
Please add the *.ape again as the extension has nothing to do with APE tags which can also be in MP3 files.
To me it looks as though iTunes saved data in its database and did not write it back to the tags.
In the old (mp3) days, it was a trick to let iTunes transform the tags from one version to another which would then write the data to the tags.
The "from one version to another" also meant: from V2.3 to V2.3 (so no data was lost).
Perhaps this works for MP4 as well ...
The values returned were all "MP4 (MP4)". So...re-reading your first reply, I opened the "Tools" menu and deleted the value "*.ape" from the "Restrict incoming files to:" dialog. Is this what you were instructing me to do, when you said "switch off reading APE tags"?