# List of Genres with ; reduced to just 1 item after action
**URL:** https://community.mp3tag.de/t/list-of-genres-with-reduced-to-just-1-item-after-action/64724
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [May 18, 2024, 9:12pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/list-of-genres-with-reduced-to-just-1-item-after-action/64724 "2024-05-18T21:12:10Z")
**Posts on this page:** 12
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@krissasaur](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/krissasaur)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2024, 9:12pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/list-of-genres-with-reduced-to-just-1-item-after-action/64724/1 "2024-05-18T21:12:10Z")
Also, maybe unrelated so making a new post, why does it sometimes append and other times does not?
If I have this:
And run this:
it becomes this:
But then if I run this again, it works as intended? (I was messing w/ brackets seeing if I could figure something out so ignore the differences between these haha)
And I can add multiple?? So why does the FIRST one delete everything?:
And then if I run this:
It works?? and it fixes it???
But if I just do it first as stated in my last post it deletes everything?
I must be doing something wrong and I do not understand why it is behaving like this.
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### Author:  [@krissasaur](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/krissasaur)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2024, 9:13pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/list-of-genres-with-reduced-to-just-1-item-after-action/64724/2 "2024-05-18T21:13:17Z")
That is a screenshot from mp3tag.
My layout (and I am just using this group as a test subject, so genres are a mess rn haha)
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### Author:  [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2024, 9:15pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/list-of-genres-with-reduced-to-just-1-item-after-action/64724/3 "2024-05-18T21:15:47Z")
> [@Remove duplicate tags?](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/remove-duplicate-tags/64703/19):
>
> I am confused. It is working perfectly for ORIGLYRICIST, but I tried using it for genre and it just deletes all but the first one?
Over here it looks like that:
and as there are no duplicates the string should stay as it is.
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### Author:  [@krissasaur](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/krissasaur)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2024, 9:16pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/list-of-genres-with-reduced-to-just-1-item-after-action/64724/4 "2024-05-18T21:16:48Z")
It is deleting it when I do it a certain way though...... maybe I should make a video...
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### Author:  [@krissasaur](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/krissasaur)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2024, 9:26pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/list-of-genres-with-reduced-to-just-1-item-after-action/64724/5 "2024-05-18T21:26:40Z")
I seriously am just so confused and feel so sorry towards you lmao. [https://youtu.be/ooL0Nq2mWyM](https://youtu.be/ooL0Nq2mWyM)
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### Author:  [@krissasaur](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/krissasaur)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2024, 9:33pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/list-of-genres-with-reduced-to-just-1-item-after-action/64724/6 "2024-05-18T21:33:13Z")
I just noticed something.
the ones that break look like this at the bottom:
But like this above.
could the `\\` be breaking it?
EDIT: I found a workaround:
No idea if this is the best way though haha.
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### Author:  [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2024, 9:35pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/list-of-genres-with-reduced-to-just-1-item-after-action/64724/7 "2024-05-18T21:35:39Z")
Please show me the column definition for Genre.
The double backslash indicates a multi-value field which you can check in the extended tags dialogue Alt-T where you should see several fields of the type GENRE
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### Author:  [@krissasaur](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/krissasaur)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2024, 10:17pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/list-of-genres-with-reduced-to-just-1-item-after-action/64724/8 "2024-05-18T22:17:39Z")
What do you mean by column definition?
This?
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### Author:  [@MotleyG](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/MotleyG)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2024, 11:43pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/list-of-genres-with-reduced-to-just-1-item-after-action/64724/9 "2024-05-18T23:43:59Z")
From here you can see you have combined separate genre fields with the value definition. This means you could have two, three, or even more separate genre fields. If you want a single one separated by a semicolon; use the Action MERGE for the genre field. Then run your new Action to create the ones you want.
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### Author:  [@krissasaur](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/krissasaur)
#### Post date: [May 19, 2024, 12:32am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/list-of-genres-with-reduced-to-just-1-item-after-action/64724/10 "2024-05-19T00:32:48Z")
Isn't that what I did here? [Remove duplicate tags? - #26](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/remove-duplicate-tags/64703/26)
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### Author:  [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)
#### Post date: [May 19, 2024, 5:39am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/list-of-genres-with-reduced-to-just-1-item-after-action/64724/11 "2024-05-19T05:39:57Z")
> [@krissasaur](#):
>
> What do you mean by column definition?
>
> This?
Yes, exactly.
It shows that all the data from the genre fields, as many as there may be, is displayed as a list separated by semicolon.
This means that you do not have the semicolon in the fields but only in the display of the column.
This also means that any action that does not also use `$meta_sep(genre,;)` instead of the simple GENRE or %genre%, only addresses the first of the genre fields and the rest is ignored i.e. discarded. That is what you see when starting the actions.
It could be that you also have single genre fields but they have a manually created list of genres, separated with a semicolon. This is hard to distinguish from the multi-value fields.
My suggestion would be that you modify the column definition
Value: `$meta_sep(genre,\\)`
to make them look like in the tag panel.
All those that then appear as e.g. `korean\\pop\\boy band` have their data in multi-value fields,
all those that then appear as e.g. `korean;pop;boy band` have their data in single field.
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### Author:  [@system](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/system)
#### Post date: [June 18, 2024, 5:40am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/list-of-genres-with-reduced-to-just-1-item-after-action/64724/12 "2024-06-18T05:40:25Z")
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