MP3Tag does not recognize Covers and Metadata

[L3Enc]

Hello everyone,

after a rough search in the forum I found entries in which the playback programs from Apple & Co have enriched metadata or fed it externally. In my case, however, I am firmly convinced that I have a whole set of M4A files that contain metadata that is not recognized by MP3Tag.

Do you have any idea why this might be?

Why I am so sure.
I have copied some of the files to a VM without internet access that is freshly installed. Nevertheless, Windows Properties dialog, Windows Media Player and e.g. DBPowerAmp show me metadata such as cover, lyrics and others, which are simply missing in MP3Tag.

Do you have any tips for me?

[LyricsLover]

Please press Alt + T (View -> Extended Tags) on the same M4A-song loaded in Mp3tag and show us a screenshot.

[L3Enc]

WOW, thats fast...
and here is the requested Screenshot.

[LyricsLover]

And now please two more screenshots of your
File -> Options -> Tags -> Mpeg
and
File -> Options -> Tags -> Ape, Mpc
to check what kind of tags you read into Mp3tag from your files.

[L3Enc]

Here we go

and as a goodie, you can see the strings in the File itself

[LyricsLover]

Strange thing.

Maybe you can check this file for errors with Foobar:

How to check files for errors?

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 Download: MP3 Diags - Getting MP3 Diags If the font size in MP3 Diags is …

Or - if possible - you could share such a song with us?

[L3Enc]

Sorry for the delay but lunch was ready

File Integrity Checker show "not errors".
But Foobar is also not able to show Metadata.

Due to copyright reasons I do not want to share the file here. I am looking for another file that I can share without hesitation and has the same problem.

[LyricsLover]

@L3Enc

I am looking for another file that I can share without hesitation and has the same problem.

That would help to identify the reason.

As you see from the file content screenshot there are some metadata inside your file.
The question is now if these are really m4a files or some other format with wrong file extension?
Or if a 3rd party app does not write these metadata according to the standard?

Do you know for sure, which program has written these metadata in your case?

[L3Enc]

MP3 Diag does not work... maybe because all files are M4A.

Anyway, i have a copyright free file with the same error.
You can download it here.

http://e.pc.cd/QVmy6alK

[L3Enc]

Unfortunately I can't say for sure which tools are used to write the metadata. There are a lot of python scripts and libraries.

I'll see if I can untangle this a bit.

[LyricsLover]

@L3Enc

You can download it here.

I can confirm that I cannot read the existing metadata either in Mp3tag.

ExifTools shows a lot of metadata. The interesting part:

Unfortunately I can not tell you, what exactly is wrong with your current metdata.

[L3Enc]

Thank you very much for your support, but what other options do we have?
I mean, some tools can obviously read the data without any problems, but Mp3Tag and foobar, for example, have their problems with it. This proves neither a “bug” in the reading nor in the metadata writing tools.
I think it needs a developer who is really familiar with the file formats and can debug their own routines and compare them with the standard.

[LyricsLover]

@L3Enc

I think it needs a developer who is really familiar with the file formats and can debug their own routines and compare them with the standard.

That and you should investigate your "... lot of python scripts and libraries."

[poster]

Mediainfo shows the tag content.
When you write any tagfield with Mp3tag, Mediainfo does not show the content anymore, only the just written tagfield.

[LyricsLover]

@poster You are right about Mediainfo

General
Complete name                            : C:\Temp\Royalty Free Music - 3, 2, 1 Funky Pop Hip Hop Rock Break Beat Loops.m4a
Format                                   : MPEG-4
Format profile                           : Base Media / Version 2
Codec ID                                 : mp42 (mp42/dby1/isom)
File size                                : 5.45 MiB
Duration                                 : 2 min 19 s
Overall bit rate mode                    : Variable
Overall bit rate                         : 329 kb/s
Album                                    : 300 Scratches Drum Loops, Beats, Ringtones & DJ SFX
Album/Performer                          : Royalty Free Music
Part/Position                            : 1
Part/Total                               : 2
Track name                               : 3, 2, 1 Funky Pop Hip Hop Rock Break Beat Loops
Track name/Position                      : 1
Track name/Total                         : 77
Performer                                : Royalty Free Music
Recorded date                            : 2010-08-30
Encoded date                             : 2015-07-06 02:58:25 UTC
Tagged date                              : 2015-07-06 02:58:25 UTC
Writing application                      : Dolby Media Generator 3.8.3
Copyright                                : 2010 Ultimate Sound Effects Library
Cover                                    : Yes
REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_GAIN                    : -1.3
REPLAYGAIN_ALBUM_GAIN                    : -6.26
REPLAYGAIN_ALBUM_PEAK                    : 0.672663
REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_PEAK                    : 0.810513
replaygain_track_gain                    : -1.30 dB
replaygain_track_peak                    : 0.810513
replaygain_originator_code               : 011011000000
isrc                                     : USHM81064896
url                                      : https://tidal.com/browse/track/39529646

Audio
ID                                       : 1
Format                                   : AAC LC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Audio Codec Low Complexity
Format profile                           : AAC@L2
Codec ID                                 : mp4a-40-2
Duration                                 : 2 min 19 s
Bit rate mode                            : Variable
Bit rate                                 : 320 kb/s
Maximum bit rate                         : 329 kb/s
Channel(s)                               : 2 channels
Channel layout                           : L R
Sampling rate                            : 44.1 kHz
Frame rate                               : 43.066 FPS (1024 SPF)
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Stream size                              : 5.31 MiB (97%)
Encoded date                             : 2015-07-06 02:58:25 UTC
Tagged date                              : 2015-07-06 02:58:25 UTC

[L3Enc]

That sounds plausible. If Mp3Tag does not recognize anything when reading, then it will delete everything it identifies as invalid or unknown when writing.
But I've also had it the other way around.... If I edit and save the metadata with another tool, it is sometimes (completely) visible to Mp3Tag. But I'm no longer quite sure which tool I used

[MotleyG]

@L3Enc

I found entries in which the playback programs from Apple & Co have enriched metadata or fed it externally. In my case, however, I am firmly convinced that I have a whole set of M4A files that contain metadata that is not recognized by MP3Tag.

Can you advise which program was originally used to rip or download these files? Other than those with DRM protection from long ago there shouldn't be any issues I can think of that should cause mp3tag to come up empty.

[Doug_Mackie]

@L3Enc

I think it needs a developer who is really familiar with the file formats and can debug their own routines and compare them with the standard.

Good luck on finding one, especially since some of the tags in your screen shot are proprietary.

Perhaps you should contact the collection vendor and ask how best to read and write their tags. If it's the Tidal collection, try them.

[L3Enc]

Unfortunately not with certainty. There are some files in my collection that have this error, but they have been lying more or less untouched on the disk for many years. I've only just realized that the tags on some of them are broken. But I started ripping my first discs maybe 30 years ago and have changed or tried tools from time to time, e.g. to insert covers or lyrics afterwards or to normalize metadata, so I can't say how this happened.... and naming and guessing 20 tools now is probably not helpful.

I think I'll just try to rewrite the tags with another tool so that they are readable again with MP3Tag. That will probably take the least amount of time.

Thank you all for the great support. I was hoping that I was just missing a switch or something and it would work in MP3Tag.

[L3Enc]

With a simple

exiftool -r -overwrite_original -all= -tagsfromfile @ -all:all %DIR%

I can fix the files so that most of the important metadata is rewritten. Then they can also be used in MP3Tag.
Even if not all tags are copied, that's enough for now. Maybe this will help the next reader.

If anyone has any other suggestions, they are welcome. At the moment I still have the original to apply better fixes.

@LyricsLover
With which arguments did you call EXIFTool to get the output as in the screenshot?