# Special Character Problem
**URL:** https://community.mp3tag.de/t/special-character-problem/18906
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [April 19, 2017, 8:48pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/special-character-problem/18906 "2017-04-19T20:48:40Z")
**Posts on this page:** 13
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@veysely](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/veysely)
#### Post date: [April 19, 2017, 8:48pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/special-character-problem/18906/1 "2017-04-19T20:48:40Z")
Hi, all of my mp3 files are in v2.3 format. My problem is there is character problem in some Turkish songs but not all.
Example:
TITLE = Şıkıdım it is true
TITLE = Beyhude Ge通ti Y过llar it is wrong original =\> Beyhude Geçti Yıllar
---
### Author:  [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2017, 6:52am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/special-character-problem/18906/2 "2017-04-20T06:52:55Z")
Check the cheracter encoding - it should be V2.3 UTF-16.
You could create a column for it with the value "%\_id3v2\_character\_encoding%" and sort by it.
If some of the files are messed up, you could try to convert the tags with an action of the type "Convert codepage" - no guarantee that it works.
---
### Author:  [@veysely](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/veysely)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2017, 6:22pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/special-character-problem/18906/3 "2017-04-20T18:22:49Z")
> [@ohrenkino](#):
>
> Check the cheracter encoding - it should be V2.3 UTF-16.
> You could create a column for it with the value "%\_id3v2\_character\_encoding%" and sort by it.
>
> If some of the files are messed up, you could try to convert the tags with an action of the type "Convert codepage" - no guarantee that it works.
Thanks but all of them are v2.3 UTF-16
---
### Author:  [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2017, 6:32pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/special-character-problem/18906/4 "2017-04-20T18:32:04Z")
> [@veysely](#):
>
> Thanks but all of them are v2.3 UTF-16
Now they are.
Which program tagged them before? No, this is a rhetoric question.
I am afraid that you have to re-tag the files manually.
---
### Author:  [@veysely](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/veysely)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2017, 8:12pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/special-character-problem/18906/5 "2017-04-20T20:12:56Z")
> [@ohrenkino](#):
>
> Now they are.
> Which program tagged them before? No, this is a rhetoric question.
> I am afraid that you have to re-tag the files manually.
I dont know before. What do you mean re-tag manually? What should I do?
---
### Author:  [@poster](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/poster)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2017, 2:42am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/special-character-problem/18906/6 "2017-04-21T02:42:44Z")
> [@veysely](#):
>
> I dont know before. What do you mean re-tag manually? What should I do?
Look for all the wrong characters and replace them with several actions in an action-group.
In the replace-action you can copy & paste the wrong character in the "original"-field.
For your example:
Field: \_ALL
Original: 通
Replace with: ç
You have to define such an action for every wrong character and combine them in an action group.
---
### Author:  [@veysely](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/veysely)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2017, 5:10pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/special-character-problem/18906/7 "2017-04-22T17:10:06Z")
> [@poster](#):
>
> Look for all the wrong characters and replace them with several actions in an action-group.
> In the replace-action you can copy & paste the wrong character in the "original"-field.
>
> For your example:
> Field: \_ALL
> Original: 通
> Replace with: ç
>
> You have to define such an action for every wrong character and combine them in an action group.
I did explain wrong, sorry. In proggramme it looks ok but in phone some of them look wrong. All utf8 btw.
---
### Author:  [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2017, 5:13pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/special-character-problem/18906/8 "2017-04-22T17:13:18Z")
> [@veysely](#):
>
> I did explain wrong, sorry. In proggramme it looks ok but in phone some of them look wrong. All utf8 btw.
See here for character coding problems: [/t/2785/1](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/2785/1)
But if you have UTF-8 then it looks as though you saved V2.4 tags - the more compatible standard is V2.3. So perhaps that is the problem.
---
### Author:  [@veysely](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/veysely)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2017, 7:09pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/special-character-problem/18906/9 "2017-04-22T19:09:09Z")
> [@ohrenkino](#):
>
> See here for character coding problems: [/t/2785/1](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/2785/1)
>
> But if you have UTF-8 then it looks as though you saved V2.4 tags - the more compatible standard is V2.3. So perhaps that is the problem.
Thanks for your help but i cant solve the problem. I saved all with v2.3 tags.
1. Anlıyorsun Değil Mi - Barış Manço
2. true
---
### Author:  [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)
#### Post date: [April 23, 2017, 6:45am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/special-character-problem/18906/10 "2017-04-23T06:45:53Z")
> [@veysely](#):
>
> I did explain wrong, sorry. In proggramme it looks ok but in phone some of them look wrong. All utf8 btw.
OK, so now we have your statement that the files have UTF-8 and UTF-16 encoding.
I wonder how you checked that.
One of the truths in data processing is: if all files have the same properties then they should behave in the same way.
So either you do have a different character encoding in the files - this would then explain the different appearance in the player - or they are messed up already because a previous program did not know how to handle the tags. But then they should appear just as bad in MP3tag.
You could also check if you have just ID3 tags (v1 and/or V2) or also APE tags in the files.
Get rid of the APE tags and see what you get.
---
### Author:  [@Gawlesh](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Gawlesh)
#### Post date: [May 29, 2018, 11:00pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/special-character-problem/18906/11 "2018-05-29T23:00:43Z")
First of all thanks for all replies, they lead me to solution.
I had the same problem for my Turkish songs as well for a long time.
Solution is to use ID3v2.4 UTF-8 tag for Turkish charactered song names.
Also I have checked in my Samsung phone everything works perfect.
---
### Author:  [@skeleton](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/skeleton)
#### Post date: [May 30, 2018, 8:17pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/special-character-problem/18906/12 "2018-05-30T20:17:33Z")
I have fought the special character problems in my large collection and the solution for me was to export all my data to text and then use Notepad++ to load the file and scan it for non-ASCII characters. Then I could edit the data with MP3TAG to remove them. My data is all in English, but a while back I travelled to eastern Europe and added a number of albums. After cleaning the special characters I'm able to load and manipulate all my data, and to populate it into a SQL Server database in my native language. Maybe this will help some of you with this problem
---
### Author:  [@system](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/system)
#### Post date: [February 9, 2026, 12:26pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/special-character-problem/18906/13 "2026-02-09T12:26:47Z")