# How to fix mass of mp3 wrong times? after editing 50000 songs, times all wrong
**URL:** https://community.mp3tag.de/t/how-to-fix-mass-of-mp3-wrong-times-after-editing-50000-songs-times-all-wrong/63682
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [February 4, 2024, 3:44pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/how-to-fix-mass-of-mp3-wrong-times-after-editing-50000-songs-times-all-wrong/63682 "2024-02-04T15:44:50Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Dick\_Harpees](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Dick_Harpees)
#### Post date: [February 4, 2024, 3:44pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/how-to-fix-mass-of-mp3-wrong-times-after-editing-50000-songs-times-all-wrong/63682/1 "2024-02-04T15:44:50Z")
I edited the heck out of my mp3 tags a few months back, and wound up with great tags, nearly complete artwork (though often only one song on an album will have none for no explainable reason) and everything looked great.
However there was a huge problem with the mp3s. About half of them now have the wrong times when using an Android phone app to play random songs. This causes major problems, in that the player will still think it is on the previous song while playing the next song (it has a function to advance past silence at end of tracks but it is also glitchy since it sees the silence of the extended times but has varying behavior). If the next song fits in the extra time of the first, it may skip songs from playlists, or wind up with 'dead air' (though its only playing for me).
I found that most of the tracks that this was happening to, were originally ripped from their discs using iTunes over 10 years ago. During my mp3 retagging operation one of my things I did was delete comments. Anyone who has iTunes ripped from those old days is probably familiar with the long code type comments found on their ripped files. Is this the reason now they all have 2 times the true time length (in their header I think)?
Is there any way to correct the times for a massive number of files?
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### Author:  [@LyricsLover](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/LyricsLover)
#### Post date: [February 4, 2024, 3:48pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/how-to-fix-mass-of-mp3-wrong-times-after-editing-50000-songs-times-all-wrong/63682/2 "2024-02-04T15:48:54Z")
> [@Dick\_Harpees](#):
>
> way to correct the times
Do you speak about the length of a song?
The length in hours, minutes and seconds as in this example:
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### Author:  [@Dick\_Harpees](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Dick_Harpees)
#### Post date: [February 4, 2024, 3:52pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/how-to-fix-mass-of-mp3-wrong-times-after-editing-50000-songs-times-all-wrong/63682/3 "2024-02-04T15:52:56Z")
Yeah that is what is the problem now yes. The lengths of the songs are pretty wacked. I have this thing where I make long playlists, and sometimes they are getting pretty messed up by the wrong times. I use Musicolet app on Android and it doesn't always skip (in its now playing view) to the next song, though the audio from the next song plays because of the skip ahead past silence behavior ( I won't call it a feature because I don't know why it does it, it just does)
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### Author:  [@LyricsLover](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/LyricsLover)
#### Post date: [February 4, 2024, 3:54pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/how-to-fix-mass-of-mp3-wrong-times-after-editing-50000-songs-times-all-wrong/63682/4 "2024-02-04T15:54:03Z")
You can load your playlist in Mp3tag and then save it again.
This should use your "new" song lengths.
(You can easily test it, just use a new Playlistname and have a look if the length fit your songs).
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### Author:  [@Dick\_Harpees](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Dick_Harpees)
#### Post date: [February 4, 2024, 3:57pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/how-to-fix-mass-of-mp3-wrong-times-after-editing-50000-songs-times-all-wrong/63682/5 "2024-02-04T15:57:04Z")
I am not sure about that. I think there may be a huge issue with wrong times in the headers of the files. I want to get them right and I'm thinking about restoring the old iTunes files from an old backup from several years ago, since they are the meat of the stack, however there are a lot of other files that have an extra 13s at the end now or something similar to that. What I need is the files to have the correct times. I need to fix the mp3s times to fit the audio actually in them.
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### Author:  [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)
#### Post date: [February 4, 2024, 3:58pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/how-to-fix-mass-of-mp3-wrong-times-after-editing-50000-songs-times-all-wrong/63682/6 "2024-02-04T15:58:22Z")
> [@Dick\_Harpees](#):
>
> Is there any way to correct the times for a massive number of files?
Looking at MP3tag: no.
MP3tag is a tagging program for the tags around the audio part of a file.
Anything about the audio part has to be edited with a dedicated audio editor.
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### Author:  [@Dick\_Harpees](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Dick_Harpees)
#### Post date: [February 4, 2024, 3:59pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/how-to-fix-mass-of-mp3-wrong-times-after-editing-50000-songs-times-all-wrong/63682/7 "2024-02-04T15:59:32Z")
It doesn't have a function that can change the songs stated times in any way?
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### Author:  [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)
#### Post date: [February 4, 2024, 3:59pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/how-to-fix-mass-of-mp3-wrong-times-after-editing-50000-songs-times-all-wrong/63682/8 "2024-02-04T15:59:40Z")
> [@Dick\_Harpees](#):
>
> What I need is the files to have the correct times. I need to fix the mp3s times to fit the audio actually in them.
Have a look at
> [@Hints for asking Support Requests](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/hints-for-asking-support-requests/56190):
>
> If you need support using Mp3tag, you can help the community members that are about to support you in finding a solution or workaround to your problem, by following these simple guidelines. Be descriptive, also in what you’ve already tried Please give a short explanation what’s not working as expected or what you’re trying to achieve. It’s best to know any details about the problem at hand and especially, what steps you’ve already tried to solve it by yourself. Helpful information also includ…
and the linked tools there.
Perhaps they help you.
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### Author:  [@LyricsLover](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/LyricsLover)
#### Post date: [February 4, 2024, 3:59pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/how-to-fix-mass-of-mp3-wrong-times-after-editing-50000-songs-times-all-wrong/63682/9 "2024-02-04T15:59:45Z")
> [@Dick\_Harpees](#):
>
> I need to fix the mp3s times to fit the audio actually in them.
You could use the tools mentioned here:
> [@Hints for asking Support Requests](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/hints-for-asking-support-requests/56190):
>
> If you need support using Mp3tag, you can help the community members that are about to support you in finding a solution or workaround to your problem, by following these simple guidelines. Be descriptive, also in what you’ve already tried Please give a short explanation what’s not working as expected or what you’re trying to achieve. It’s best to know any details about the problem at hand and especially, what steps you’ve already tried to solve it by yourself. Helpful information also includ…
---
### Author:  [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)
#### Post date: [February 4, 2024, 4:00pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/how-to-fix-mass-of-mp3-wrong-times-after-editing-50000-songs-times-all-wrong/63682/10 "2024-02-04T16:00:29Z")
> [@Dick\_Harpees](#):
>
> change the songs stated times
No. The length is part of the audio header that is not handled by MP3tag.
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### Author:  [@Dick\_Harpees](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Dick_Harpees)
#### Post date: [February 4, 2024, 4:01pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/how-to-fix-mass-of-mp3-wrong-times-after-editing-50000-songs-times-all-wrong/63682/11 "2024-02-04T16:01:05Z")
Because I'm pretty sure it was using the mp3tag program that made the times jump in some way. I figured maybe you'd heard something like this before.
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### Author:  [@LyricsLover](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/LyricsLover)
#### Post date: [February 4, 2024, 4:02pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/how-to-fix-mass-of-mp3-wrong-times-after-editing-50000-songs-times-all-wrong/63682/12 "2024-02-04T16:02:33Z")
> [@Dick\_Harpees](#):
>
> I'm pretty sure it was using the mp3tag program that made the times jump in some way
Mp3tag does not touch the audio part.
Therefore it is nearly impossible that Mp3tag is the cause of your "time jumps".
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### Author:  [@Dick\_Harpees](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Dick_Harpees)
#### Post date: [February 4, 2024, 4:03pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/how-to-fix-mass-of-mp3-wrong-times-after-editing-50000-songs-times-all-wrong/63682/13 "2024-02-04T16:03:14Z")
No experience with the iTunes comments? I kind of thought it might have been the reason they got messed primarily. Over 160GB of iTunes files and all have the same 2x of the proper time.
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### Author:  [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)
#### Post date: [February 4, 2024, 4:05pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/how-to-fix-mass-of-mp3-wrong-times-after-editing-50000-songs-times-all-wrong/63682/14 "2024-02-04T16:05:10Z")
It is time to come up with some real facts and stop guessing.
What did the analysis with MP3diags reveal?
Could you supply one of the messed up files?
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### Author:  [@electrojack](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/electrojack)
#### Post date: [February 4, 2024, 8:05pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/how-to-fix-mass-of-mp3-wrong-times-after-editing-50000-songs-times-all-wrong/63682/15 "2024-02-04T20:05:17Z")
I think **MP3val** could be the program for you:
> MP3val is a small, high-speed, free software tool for checking MPEG audio files' integrity. It can be useful for finding corrupted files (e.g. incompletely downloaded, truncated, containing garbage). MP3val is also able to fix most of the problems.
[https://mp3val.sourceforge.net/index.shtml](https://mp3val.sourceforge.net/index.shtml)
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### Author:  [@LyricsLover](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/LyricsLover)
#### Post date: [February 4, 2024, 9:13pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/how-to-fix-mass-of-mp3-wrong-times-after-editing-50000-songs-times-all-wrong/63682/16 "2024-02-04T21:13:02Z")
mp3val and MP3diags are both suggested tools in the linked support thread:
> [@How to check files for errors?](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/how-to-check-files-for-errors/44633):
>
> It’s required and often helps to reduce support cycles to check files for errors before filing a bug report. Symptoms of erroneous files are often missing or wrong bitrate or length audible blips or skips tags seem to be sticky and cannot be removed There are some really good tools to check the files for errors, namely MP3 Diags — identifies many different issues in MP3 files Website: [http://mp3diags.sourceforge.net](http://mp3diags.sourceforge.net) Download: [MP3 Diags - Getting MP3 Diags](http://mp3diags.sourceforge.net/010_getting_the_program.html#binWindows) If the font size in MP3 Diags is …
Now we have to wait until @Dick_Harpees tells us the result of his checks.
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### Author:  [@MotleyG](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/MotleyG)
#### Post date: [February 4, 2024, 10:27pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/how-to-fix-mass-of-mp3-wrong-times-after-editing-50000-songs-times-all-wrong/63682/17 "2024-02-04T22:27:09Z")
I have been using iTunes since the day it became available for Win. And mp3tag for almost as long. I have never had this experience with the song length changing when making tag edits in either program.
The time is calculated based on the actual song length and is not one that can be edited by mp3tag.
Was there anything else done since you ripped these so long ago? Maybe some audio editor function was used to add gaps or blanks spaces?
If you use a free editor like Audacity you can open one of the offending files a clearly see if there is a silence of audio at the end of the track.
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### Author:  [@Dick\_Harpees](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Dick_Harpees)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2024, 7:43am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/how-to-fix-mass-of-mp3-wrong-times-after-editing-50000-songs-times-all-wrong/63682/18 "2024-02-06T07:43:55Z")
I have a lot of these to fix. I know for a fact that my John Mellencamp album was playing at 2x the would be length. If there is a solution I will find it. I was looking for a way to fix all the files at one time. I will try MP3Val. I guess there could also be issues with the Micro SD card. It's hard to tell these problems are not existing on my other phone which has other issues with the app and the files. I guess if I were going to try to reproduce it on your files you could try and delete the comment (a large block of coded information put there by iTunes when it ripped the file). That's what I figure caused my problem with these iTunes files because I deleted all those comments. I figure there must be something wrong because of that.
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### Author:  [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2024, 8:00am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/how-to-fix-mass-of-mp3-wrong-times-after-editing-50000-songs-times-all-wrong/63682/19 "2024-02-06T08:00:52Z")
> [@Dick\_Harpees](#):
>
> a large block of coded information put there by iTunes when it ripped the file).
The size of the tag data does not alter the length of the audio part.
Could you supply one of these inflated files?
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### Author:  [@Dick\_Harpees](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Dick_Harpees)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2024, 8:11am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/how-to-fix-mass-of-mp3-wrong-times-after-editing-50000-songs-times-all-wrong/63682/20 "2024-02-06T08:11:03Z")
sure. In fact it is not only the ones from iTunes as I have made a screenshot of some files I have acquired more recently by download or by using mp3 cutter app (android) to slice into individual songs. I made this screenshot and it includes the windows explorer from the removed microSD of the defective phone files instance, the connected phone of the correct phone files instance, and thirdly the mp3tag's opinion of the defective files which does not reinforce the windows explorer's opinion of these files length. Just look at how messed up that seems:
and how do I upload a music file? the upload button supported types do not include mp3.
[Next page](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/how-to-fix-mass-of-mp3-wrong-times-after-editing-50000-songs-times-all-wrong/63682.md?page=2)