# Replace treats %Artist% as a literal
**URL:** https://community.mp3tag.de/t/replace-treats-artist-as-a-literal/61321
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [June 21, 2023, 2:24pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/replace-treats-artist-as-a-literal/61321 "2023-06-21T14:24:00Z")
**Posts on this page:** 11
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@dec](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/dec)
#### Post date: [June 21, 2023, 2:24pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/replace-treats-artist-as-a-literal/61321/1 "2023-06-21T14:24:00Z")
can you spot any error? i cant.
it obvious finds the TBA string becuase that is what it replaced
immediately after, it did another odd thing. when i chan
ged back and tried again, it just ignored it.
see 3rd screenshor.
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### Author:  [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)
#### Post date: [June 21, 2023, 2:31pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/replace-treats-artist-as-a-literal/61321/2 "2023-06-21T14:31:39Z")
Please show us the exact data in the field TITLE in both cases.
The second screenshot does not show the same section of the dialogue (missing preview) as the third.
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### Author:  [@dec](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/dec)
#### Post date: [June 22, 2023, 4:45am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/replace-treats-artist-as-a-literal/61321/3 "2023-06-22T04:45:12Z")
UPDATE
i have discovered a NEW problem that might be causing this fault as a consequence.
i discovered that now i cannot edit the Title fleld, ONLY the Title field: you can type in the field, but it does not save.
but conversely (perversely?), i just ran a CutLeft Action to tructate te first two char of Title and that worked fine.
but it seems to me that this problem here, where it simply will not replace a text string in the Title, is related
can't send any screenshots because there is nothing to see; but something seems to have locked the field from manual editing.
yet i think i was editing this field just a day or so ago, along with Filename and Artist: i don't think that Artist coudl be the only field i edited
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### Author:  [@dec](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/dec)
#### Post date: [June 22, 2023, 4:50am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/replace-treats-artist-as-a-literal/61321/4 "2023-06-22T04:50:26Z")
i will try to replicate
(w/o stuffing my data - i have since done all those chnages manually, given there were only about 20 or so and i have actually FINISHED all the global fixes to all the data, incl dedups,normalization, although i am a bit worried because my total track count in down quite a bit, but that might just be all the dups i removed.).
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### Author:  [@dec](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/dec)
#### Post date: [June 22, 2023, 5:05am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/replace-treats-artist-as-a-literal/61321/5 "2023-06-22T05:05:06Z")
pls see attached
this is what happened (or didn't)
the action replaced the text string (248) with the Artist field as a literal - which i am not surprised as i showed in previous screen shot that MP3Tag was putting quotes around the field name - and i have checked a dozen times, and i cannot see any error with the field name
then the other problem occurred - it would not let me edit the field, ie it would not save my edit, to change back to t
he original value (but Undo eventually did go back to the original)
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### Author:  [@poster](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/poster)
#### Post date: [June 22, 2023, 5:09am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/replace-treats-artist-as-a-literal/61321/6 "2023-06-22T05:09:48Z")
You cannot use a placeholder (in your case %artist%) in an action of the type "Replace".
> **[Replace – Mp3tag Documentation](https://docs.mp3tag.de/actions/replace/)**
>
> Documentation on the Replace action type that can be performed as Quick Action or as reusable workflow from Action Groups. Mp3tag is the universal Tag Editor.
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### Author:  [@dec](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/dec)
#### Post date: [June 22, 2023, 10:10am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/replace-treats-artist-as-a-literal/61321/8 "2023-06-22T10:10:50Z")
yes. it certainly seems so. 🙂
why is that?
so that rtaises the question you don't answer: so what do you use instead???
and while you are at it, just what is the functional difference between Copnvert and actions?
and btw, i had a go at 'Guess Valuews' but i can't make sense of it
so finally, on that point, and what has frustrarated me before - where are EXAMPLES of all these? the Manual very briefly desciobes function eg Cutleft, Len, etc, but has almost no examples of any. Examples would make all the difference in understanding and usage WITHOUT many mistakes and lost time & effort and having to ask lots of Support questions
Thank you
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### Author:  [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)
#### Post date: [June 22, 2023, 10:27am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/replace-treats-artist-as-a-literal/61321/9 "2023-06-22T10:27:37Z")
> [@dec](#):
>
> and while you are at it, just what is the functional difference between Copnvert and actions?
Here is a thread that deals with the converters and their equivalent in actions - if there is one:
> [@Move files with action instead of converter](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/move-files-with-action-instead-of-converter/58179):
>
> Hi @ohrenkino Is it possible to create an action for this? Converter\>Tag-Filename And for the ones here [image]
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### Author:  [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)
#### Post date: [June 22, 2023, 10:30am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/replace-treats-artist-as-a-literal/61321/10 "2023-06-22T10:30:55Z")
> [@dec](#):
>
> where are EXAMPLES
The examples can be found in the [HowTos](https://community.mp3tag.de/c/howto/30)
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### Author:  [@dec](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/dec)
#### Post date: [June 22, 2023, 12:17pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/replace-treats-artist-as-a-literal/61321/11 "2023-06-22T12:17:00Z")
> [@dec](#):
>
> yes. it certainly seems so. 🙂
> why is that?
> so that rtaises the question you don't answer ... so what do you use instead???
so that rtises the question you don't answer: so what do you use instead???
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### Author:  [@Florian](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Florian)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2023, 9:34am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/replace-treats-artist-as-a-literal/61321/12 "2023-06-23T09:34:37Z")