# Windows Media Player 10 rejects MP3Tag's use of Unicode TLEN.

**URL:** https://community.mp3tag.de/t/windows-media-player-10-rejects-mp3tags-use-of-unicode-tlen/9208
**Category:** General Discussion
**Created:** [October 26, 2009, 1:22pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/windows-media-player-10-rejects-mp3tags-use-of-unicode-tlen/9208 "2009-10-26T13:22:29Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
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### Author: ![gvm](https://community.mp3tag.de/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/48db29/32.png) [@gvm](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/gvm)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2009, 1:22pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/windows-media-player-10-rejects-mp3tags-use-of-unicode-tlen/9208/1 "2009-10-26T13:22:29Z")

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This is just a "heads up" for MP3Tag users about Microsoft's recent security update KB968816, which causes some unpleasant side-effects when using MP3Tag with Windows Media Player 10.

MP3Tag (legitimately) uses Unicode for all (AFAIK) ID3 fields, but Windows Media Player 10 (and possibly other versions) regard Unicode as invalid for the TLEN field, once KB968816 is installed.

The result is that any MP3 file that has had its TLEN tag written by MP3Tag that were playable before KB968816 are now unplayable.

I've requested that Microsoft look into this. Details are here: [http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsg...78-39d7b355910b](http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/en-us/default.aspx?dg=microsoft.public.windowsxp.music&tid=93b45385-c345-4fd9-9b54-a35c4a8f6d0f&cat=&lang=&cr=&sloc=&p=1&mid=e7311eeb-04aa-4009-a078-39d7b355910b) and here: [http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsg...00-10cf83e7ad5a](http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/en-us/default.aspx?dg=microsoft.public.windowsmedia.player&tid=3216f2df-39eb-4536-b4a2-b59a5f00dc60&cat=en_US_783621db-7288-406a-b831-ce7ec6ec0188&lang=en&cr=US&sloc=&p=1&mid=43bcd3fa-b075-477c-9c00-10cf83e7ad5a) .

Switching off Unicode use in MP3Tag using the appropriate option _would_ prevent this, but (AFAIK) would lose the use of Unicode in all of the other fields as well, which would be a Bad Thing.

Although Microsoft seem to be clearly wrong in doing this, it is questionable whether there's any advantage in having a Unicode TLEN, since this field can only ever contain the characters "0" to "9" (any comment, Florian?).

Regards,

gvm

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