Fix/Workaround: custom lyrics broken on iOS 18 (unsyncedlyrics tag))

[bking]

Hi All,

I've been working on the problem described in this thread:

iOS 18 broke custom lyrics for local files on Apple Music?

Hey yall, I use Apple Music to stream my local file library on my computer. My process to getting the music I downloaded on my computer to my phone is this: I have the files of the song (usually in .flac) on my computer and I use Mp3tag and kid3 to tag the files to my liking I convert the file to .m4a (the metadata carries over in conversion) As sort of a safety measure, I drag the .m4a files into Mp3tag, select them all and then press CTRL + S to really save the tags I finally upload the fil…

which no longer allows replies. This was the only recent thread I could find anywhere that referenced the problem I'm having, so I wanted to get out what worked for me. I know this isn't an MP3Tag problem specifically, but I'm willing to be that those of us who have a sizeable local MP3 library are likely use (or at least be familiar with) MP3Tag. I do have a workaround (if an irritating one) that enables custom lyrics to work on iOS 18.1.1, with local music sync'd from Apple Music 1.5.0.160 on Windows with Apple Devices 1.5.0.160. I suspect it will work on other versions also, but don't have any good way to test.

The workaround is this:

1. Begin playback of the file(s) with custom lyrics/unsyncedlyrics tag within Apple Music on the PC. It doesn't have to be playing long, just long enough for Apple Music to reload the tags on the file. 1/3 of a second before skipping to the next track was enough for me. I ended up writing an AutoHotKey script to automatically press CTRL-RightArrow every .33 seconds to have Apple Music run through my entire library.
2. The irritating part, part 1: if the mp3 is already synced to the phone, delete it off the phone. Unfortunately with Apple Devices, I couldn't find a way to delete just one file like you could in iTunes. You have to turn off local music syncing entirely, which wipes out your library on the phone.
3. The irritating part, part 2: resync the mp3s in question to the phone. This will take a long time - in my case (55GB library), it took about 30 minutes. Also, Apple Devices might crash. Repeatedly. If you just reopen it and start the sync again, it will eventually complete.

After this, all the lyrics and album art (which was also missing for some albums, in my case) started displaying properly in the iOS Music app, without the need for an Apple Music subscription or any of the other weird things I've seen suggested.

I do recall having a similar problem in the past with one or two files, and I did recently move/reimport my Apple Music library, so I suspect that the issue might not be unique to iOS 18, but is just more common there. I think it might have something to do with the PC version of the iTunes library not properly loading all the tags when they're imported initially, but instead only when the file is played. I don't have any concrete evidence for that, it's just a hunch.

In any case, I hope that helps someone else with the problem. If anyone knows more about the issue, has improvements on my workaround workflow, or is able to link to here from the original thread, I'd love to hear about it.

[MotleyG]

For the Windows side with iTunes, any changes you make outside of iTunes are not automatically recognized by the program. As you have found, simply accessing the file can get the metadata to update. This includes the lyrics.

You may be able to force this update using a script. I have previously provided one that can help here.

Force iTunes To Update Track Info After Using MP3TAG

For those with IOS devices or are simply using iTunes as your primary music manager, you will find that mp3tag is far more flexible and powerful than the built-in Get Info editor. However any changes made outside of iTunes will not automatically be reflected into any music files that have already been loaded. There are two ways to get these changes to be reflected into iTunes. Open the Get Info panel for each track. This will force iTunes to grab the latest metadata info and overwrite whatev…

You may have to edit it to include the lyric tag, but I'd try it without changes first.

[bking]

That script is awesome! Thank you. My issue isn't exactly this, as I had all the tags in place before I imported into Apple Music/iTunes, and most of the information was there upon sync, but just not the lyrics.

[Ahrimdon]

Yep. I have the EXACT same issue. The simplest method I have found to get the lyrics working is:

1. Embed them as the tag UNSYNCEDLYRICS using the quick action feature in MP3tag and the LRC file. (Line Endings: LF, Encoding: UTF-8, Type: Plain Text, Extension: .lrc - although the only thing that should matter is the encoding)

2. Import them into my Apple Music Library on iTunes (NOT my iPhone)

3. Play the song in iTunes and skip through it until iTunes recognizes it

4. Right click and add the song to my device

I was able to then click into the lyrics within the Apple Music app. This was not an issue before iOS 18... billion dollar company folks...

Apple Music is already a pain in the a** with custom music but this took it over the top for me.

TIP: There is a feature in iTunes on Windows (and I'm sure Mac) that allows you to drag and drop music files and delete them immediately from your Apple device. This was a game changer for me and a +1 for Apple not having to sync my entire library every time I added music or wanted to test something.

I hope this helps someone as I made an account on this forum JUST to make this post!