# Bad Characters
**URL:** https://community.mp3tag.de/t/bad-characters/16375
**Category:** General Discussion
**Created:** [December 1, 2014, 2:40am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/bad-characters/16375 "2014-12-01T02:40:41Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@ForrestsVines](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ForrestsVines)
#### Post date: [December 1, 2014, 2:40am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/bad-characters/16375/1 "2014-12-01T02:40:41Z")
Hello,
I'm reasonably new to tagging, and I've noticed that some characters (eg colon ":") in tags don't pass through media networks very well.
Is there are standard way to filter, convert, or escape these characters from tags?
Thanks
---
### Author:  [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)
#### Post date: [December 1, 2014, 5:03am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/bad-characters/16375/2 "2014-12-01T05:03:37Z")
As you do not tell us in which context you need the "escapism", I can only give you the hint to use the $validate() function (see [Scripting Functions – Mp3tag Documentation](https://docs.mp3tag.de/scripting)).
You then enclose the whole filename string in this function.
But AFAIK does the Convert\>Tag-Filename function already cut this out as long as it is not the second character in a string.
---
### Author:  [@ForrestsVines](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ForrestsVines)
#### Post date: [December 1, 2014, 6:08am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/bad-characters/16375/3 "2014-12-01T06:08:50Z")
Thank you for your reply ohrenkino.
As an example - I RIP a CD to MP3, where the tag data is provided by Gracenote. The album name is "30:30 Hindsight". I copy the MP3 files onto two media servers 1) Windows 7, 2) Western Digital MyBookLive. When I use the standard media search function, the Windows 7 server will find them but will crash when I attempt to play it, and the Western Digital MyBookLive will not find them.
I then manually edit the tags changing the album name to "33-30 Hindsight" and all is working again on both Windows 7 and Western Digital MyBookLive.
Other characters like "%" and "?" cause problems. Is there a work around?
Thanks again
> [@ForrestsVines](#):
>
> Hello,
>
> I'm reasonably new to tagging, and I've noticed that some characters (eg colon ":") in tags don't pass through media networks very well.
>
> Is there are standard way to filter, convert, or escape these characters from tags?
>
> Thanks
---
### Author:  [@LyricsLover](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/LyricsLover)
#### Post date: [December 1, 2014, 6:50am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/bad-characters/16375/4 "2014-12-01T06:50:05Z")
I have thousands of tracks with metadata including 'forbidden' characters. As long as they don't appear in the filename, every program I know can handle it.
Maybe your filenames (not the metadata inside the files) may cause the problem?
As ohrenkino told you:
You have to use the scripting function $validate() to ensure that the windows filename doesn't include any of the illegal characters
```
Command: $validate(filename,to)
Example: $validate(%artist% - %album% - %track% - %title%,-)
This example replaces all invalid characters (/?*"<>|:) with dashes
```
---
### Author:  [@ForrestsVines](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ForrestsVines)
#### Post date: [December 2, 2014, 2:50am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/bad-characters/16375/5 "2014-12-02T02:50:46Z")
Thanks for your reply LyricsLover.
The file and folder names are okay. I can find them using Windows Explorer. I can even play them on the local machine.
The problem occurs when I play them on a networked Media Renderer (either my amp or DVD player).
As I said, I can fix it by replacing the colon in the album name with a hyphen. I thought that this would be a common problem, and therefore there would be a common solution...
Thanks anyway.
> [@ForrestsVines](#):
>
> Thank you for your reply ohrenkino.
>
> As an example - I RIP a CD to MP3, where the tag data is provided by Gracenote. The album name is "30:30 Hindsight". I copy the MP3 files onto two media servers 1) Windows 7, 2) Western Digital MyBookLive. When I use the standard media search function, the Windows 7 server will find them but will crash when I attempt to play it, and the Western Digital MyBookLive will not find them.
>
> I then manually edit the tags changing the album name to "33-30 Hindsight" and all is working again on both Windows 7 and Western Digital MyBookLive.
>
> Other characters like "%" and "?" cause problems. Is there a work around?
>
> Thanks again