Character limits in the "Comment" when using a text expander?

Support
#1

Hi team,

I did a quick search in the forums and couldn't find a thread addressing this. Apologies if this is well known or has already been covered.

The issue: I am trying to use a text expander / macro tool called Keyboard Maestro, in combination with an Elgato Streamdeck, to add automatically add comments in Mp3Tag. Push a button on the Streamdeck, Keyboard Maestro types a string of text in the comment box of Mp3Tag.

It works perfectly except after appending 4 or 5 tags, the comments start overwriting themselves at the end of the string in a strange way. It deletes the previous comment and overwrites it, leaving only a comma between them.

It looks like this:

"Comment: Afro, Dope, Broken, Loopy, GrindyBass, ,,,, "

Note the multiple commas at the end are the result of the last tag I entered (GrindyBass) overwriting the previous last tag, leaving only a space and a comma in its place.

Question: Can someone check if the string I'm using in Keyboard Expander is messing with Mp3Tag in some way to cause this strange behaviour?

The string I use for each Streamdeack button is as follows:

%Space%GrindyBass,%Space%

This sends " GrindyBass, " to the Comment field in Mp3Tag. It works perfectly up until the fourth or fifth tag, at which point it any additional tags overwrite the last one, leaving an excess of spaces and commas.

I'm probably making a silly mistake but I appreciate any insights the community may have!

Thanks and best.

#2

This looks gruesome to me as MP3tag uses the %-character to define field names. So it could be that this interferes.
If you have certain strings that you want to add to a field, then it would be much easier (without the need to use a chain of third party programs) to create actions of the type "Format value" for COMMENT that insert the strings.

#3

Thanks for the feedback.

Can you elaborate a bit more on the below, please? I'm not sure how I'd do that.

...it would be much easier (without the need to use a chain of third party programs) to create actions of the type "Format value" for COMMENT that insert the strings.

The only purpose of using the Text Expander is to act as a bridge between the USB button Streamdeck (so I can push for different combinations of tags) and MP3Tag. I usually assign between 10 to 15 standard tags to each track via the Comments, so doing this by hand would be a nightmare.

Thanks again! Appreciate your input.

#4

For each genre that you want to add to COMMENT create an action group with the following actions, each for the field COMMENT, here for the genre GrindyBass

  1. Format value
    Format string: %comment%\\GrindyBass
  2. Merge duplicate fields for COMMENT
    Separate with: ,
    (which is comma-space)
    Like that you can add more or less any number of genres to the list.
#5

This is a non-issue, since you can type as many percent signs as field contents as you like. The string is also used inside of Keyboard Maestro, so it's not even visible to Mp3tag.

Can you experiment a little with the timing for your command in Keyboard Maestro? It could be that parts of the string are still selected in Mp3tag, at least how Keyboard Maestro is seeing it. Here is an entry from their Troubleshooting document:
https://wiki.keyboardmaestro.com/Troubleshooting#Timing

#6

Hi Florian,

Thanks for taking the time to respond.

I'll see if varying the timing of the command in KM makes a difference. It does seem like it's selecting and then overwriting the last string entered after a certain number of entries. I'll check the link and get back to you.

Best!

#7

Hi Florian and everyone,

Quick update, I figured out what the problem was. It had nothing to do with Mp3Tag; the problem was in the selection automation I was using before entering the text string. All sorted and onwards to better things now!

Thanks for you input and replies, everyone.

#8

Excellent! Glad you’ve figured that out and thanks for letting us know.

#9

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