# MP3Tag does not recognize Covers and Metadata **URL:** \ **Category:** Support\ **Created:** [March 30, 2025, 3:06pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/mp3tag-does-not-recognize-covers-and-metadata/68012 "2025-03-30T15:06:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![LyricsLover](https://community.mp3tag.de/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/c6cbf5/32.png) [@LyricsLover](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/LyricsLover)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2025, 9:17pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/mp3tag-does-not-recognize-covers-and-metadata/68012/21 "2025-03-30T21:17:29Z")
> [@L3Enc](#): > > With which arguments did you call EXIFTool to get the output as in the screenshot? `exiftool.exe -G7 -u "Royalty Free Music - 3, 2, 1 Funky Pop Hip Hop Rock Break Beat Loops.m4a"` ---
**Author:** ![LyricsLover](https://community.mp3tag.de/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/c6cbf5/32.png) [@LyricsLover](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/LyricsLover)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2025, 6:34am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/mp3tag-does-not-recognize-covers-and-metadata/68012/22 "2025-03-31T06:34:15Z")
> [@L3Enc](#): > > I can fix the files so that most of the important metadata is rewritten. Then they can also be used in MP3Tag. Please note that **m4a** is one of the very few music formats that [ExifTool](https://exiftool.org/#supported) can write metadata to - most are read-only. ExifTool can **R** ead, **W** rite and/or **C** reate files in the following formats: | File Type | Support | Description | EXIF | IPTC | XMP | ICC1 | C2PA | Other | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | FLAC | R | Free Lossless Audio Codec | - | - | - | - | R | R FLAC ID3 Lyrics3 | | M4A, M4B, M4P, M4V | R/W | MPEG-4 Audio/Video (QuickTime-based) | R/W³ | R/W³ | R/W/C | - | R/D | R/W/C QuickTime | | MKA, MKV, MKS | R | Matroska Audio/Video/Subtitle | - | - | - | - | - | R Matroska | | MOV, QT | R/W | Apple QuickTime Movie | R/W³ | R/W³ | R/W/C | - | R/D | R/W/C QuickTime | | MP3 | R | MPEG-1 layer 3 audio | - | - | - | - | R | R MPEG ID3 Lyrics3 APE | | MP4 | R/W | Motion Picture Experts Group version 4 (QuickTime-based) | R/W³ | R/W³ | R/W/C | - | R/D | R/W/C QuickTime | | MPC | R | Musepack Audio | - | - | - | - | R | R MPC ID3 Lyrics3 APE | | MPEG, MPG, M2V | R | Motion Picture Experts Group version 1 or 2 | - | - | - | - | R | R MPEG ID3 Lyrics3 | | OPUS | R | Ogg Opus audio | - | - | - | - | R | R FLAC ID3 Lyrics3 Opus Vorbis | | WAV | R | Windows digital audio WAVeform (RIFF-based) | R³ | - | R | - | R | R RIFF | | WMA, WMV | R | Windows Media Audio/Video (ASF-based) | - | - | R | - | - | R ASF | ³ Non-standard format ---
**Author:** ![Florian](https://community.mp3tag.de/user_avatar/community.mp3tag.de/florian/32/5759_2.png) [@Florian](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Florian)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2025, 8:03am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/mp3tag-does-not-recognize-covers-and-metadata/68012/23 "2025-03-31T08:03:22Z")
Mp3tag expects a four-character MP4 atom identifier consisting of printable ASCII characters, where the trailing null character `0x00` as found in the FourCC of the `ilst` → `url` atom is treated as invalid. ---
**Author:** ![LyricsLover](https://community.mp3tag.de/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/c6cbf5/32.png) [@LyricsLover](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/LyricsLover)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2025, 8:18am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/mp3tag-does-not-recognize-covers-and-metadata/68012/24 "2025-03-31T08:18:28Z")
Thank you very much for your analysis. With trailing null character `0x00` in `ilst` → `url` atom you mean this output line `[ID-url00] Unknown urlx00 : https://tidal.com/browse/track/39529646` in the Exiftool output [above](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/mp3tag-does-not-recognize-covers-and-metadata/68012/11)? ---
**Author:** ![Florian](https://community.mp3tag.de/user_avatar/community.mp3tag.de/florian/32/5759_2.png) [@Florian](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Florian)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2025, 8:21am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/mp3tag-does-not-recognize-covers-and-metadata/68012/25 "2025-03-31T08:21:27Z")
Yes, its atom identifier is `0x75` `0x72` `0x6C` `0x00`. This translates to `url` with one trailing `0x00`. ---
**Author:** ![L3Enc](https://community.mp3tag.de/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/8491ac/32.png) [@L3Enc](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/L3Enc)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2025, 12:20pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/mp3tag-does-not-recognize-covers-and-metadata/68012/26 "2025-03-31T12:20:55Z")
> [@Florian](#): > > Mp3tag expects a four-character MP4 atom identifier consisting of printable ASCII characters, where the trailing null character `0x00` as found in the FourCC of the `ilst` → `url` atom is treated as invalid Hi Florian, thanks for the feedback and especially for your great tool. If I understand it correctly, it should be sufficient if I just remove the URL tag so that MP3Tag can read the file afterwards without errors. I'll try it out as soon as I'm back home. ---
**Author:** ![LyricsLover](https://community.mp3tag.de/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/c6cbf5/32.png) [@LyricsLover](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/LyricsLover)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2025, 1:31pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/mp3tag-does-not-recognize-covers-and-metadata/68012/27 "2025-03-31T13:31:36Z")
You could try it with `exiftool -ItemList:all= -TagsFromFile @ -ItemList:all "Royalty Free Music - 3, 2, 1 Funky Pop Hip Hop Rock Break Beat Loops.m4a"` In my own test (with ExifTool v13.25\_64) this will remove the "wrong URL" and the remaining iTunes fields becomes readable in Mp3tag. (It creates a \*\_original file, just to be sure 😉 and for comparison). According to this ExifTool [forum entry](https://exiftool.org/forum/index.php?topic=16974.msg91040#msg91040), it should be possible to delete a single iTunes tag, but I could not find a working syntax for the mentioned "Unknown\_urlx00" tag. ---
**Author:** ![L3Enc](https://community.mp3tag.de/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/8491ac/32.png) [@L3Enc](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/L3Enc)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2025, 5:51pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/mp3tag-does-not-recognize-covers-and-metadata/68012/28 "2025-03-31T17:51:16Z")
I am now experiencing the same thing. I can't manage to delete just the broken URL tag. and your command actually produces the same result as the one posted above, which rewrites all tags. In both cases the iTune tags are lost, but that doesn't bother me too much. ```auto ---- iTunes ---- REPLAYGAIN ALBUM GAIN : -10.39 REPLAYGAIN TRACK GAIN : -10.39 REPLAYGAIN ALBUM PEAK : 0.906661 REPLAYGAIN TRACK PEAK : 0.906661 ``` For me this is now a workaround that I can live with. Thanks to everyone for the really great support. ---
**Author:** ![ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/user_avatar/community.mp3tag.de/ohrenkino/32/4843_2.png) [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2025, 5:30am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/mp3tag-does-not-recognize-covers-and-metadata/68012/29 "2025-04-01T05:30:26Z")
2 posts were split to a new topic: [Use VLC as alternative tagger](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/use-vlc-as-alternative-tagger/68035) ---
**Author:** ![LyricsLover](https://community.mp3tag.de/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/c6cbf5/32.png) [@LyricsLover](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/LyricsLover)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2025, 9:38am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/mp3tag-does-not-recognize-covers-and-metadata/68012/30 "2025-04-01T09:38:32Z")
Just as an idea how to preserve the field contents (if necessary): You could use a tool like ExifTool or MediaInfoCLI to **export** these values. Then you can customize and **import** the useful values in Mp3tag with Convert -\> Textfile - Tag. For example the CLI variant of MediaInfo with `MediaInfo.exe notreadable_in_mp3tag.m4a > MediaInfoExport.txt` creates a file with the content [mentioned above](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/mp3tag-does-not-recognize-covers-and-metadata/68012/15). If you reduce this exported content to the values you really need (manually or with a script) from ```auto replaygain_originator_code : 011011000000 isrc : USHM81064896 url : https://tidal.com/browse/track/39529646 ``` to `011011000000:USHM81064896:https://tidal.com/browse/track/39529646` then you can import these values back in Mp3tag into the matching fields with Convert -\> Text file - Tag ![image](https://community.mp3tag.de/uploads/default/original/3X/4/b/4b7d3418c7cb63297929177351ba27453931fd3b.png) Of course, you will need to change the field names in the Format string to match the values you want to import. The result for above example: ![image](https://community.mp3tag.de/uploads/default/original/3X/9/d/9ddc97fa428a7ad7442c30a991ac1855a2118f2c.png) (_The field names in Alt + T are automatically sorted in ascending alphabetical order._) ---
**Author:** ![system](https://community.mp3tag.de/uploads/default/original/2X/c/ce7035d426cb755a7916793326d23b465222a407.png) [@system](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/system)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2025, 1:50pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/mp3tag-does-not-recognize-covers-and-metadata/68012/31 "2025-05-21T13:50:01Z")
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