# \[X\] Mp3tag fails to read tags of files with a '?' (question mark) in the filename
**URL:** https://community.mp3tag.de/t/x-mp3tag-fails-to-read-tags-of-files-with-a-question-mark-in-the-filename/7945
**Category:** No Bugs
**Created:** [February 16, 2009, 5:20pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/x-mp3tag-fails-to-read-tags-of-files-with-a-question-mark-in-the-filename/7945 "2009-02-16T17:20:59Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@garmur](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/garmur)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2009, 5:20pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/x-mp3tag-fails-to-read-tags-of-files-with-a-question-mark-in-the-filename/7945/1 "2009-02-16T17:20:59Z")
I'm using Mp3tag v2.42c, but the bug is also present in 2.42. Basically, the program will not read any tag information from a file which contains a '?' (question mark) in the filename. I have tested this with both FLAC and MP3 files. All you need to do to recreate is temporarily rename any file to contain a '?'.
I'm also aware that the '?' is invalid in filenames on FAT filesystems, and I'm not sure how Windows deals with those characters even on NTFS as I'm using Linux (Mp3tag works 100% through WINE).
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### Author:  [@Florian](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Florian)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2009, 9:38pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/x-mp3tag-fails-to-read-tags-of-files-with-a-question-mark-in-the-filename/7945/2 "2009-02-17T21:38:54Z")
This is most likely a limitation of the Win32 functions I'm using to open files and I don't plan to introduce any workarounds for this.
Kind regards,
Florian
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### Author:  [@Moonbase](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Moonbase)
#### Post date: [February 18, 2009, 11:00pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/x-mp3tag-fails-to-read-tags-of-files-with-a-question-mark-in-the-filename/7945/3 "2009-02-18T23:00:48Z")
Mp3tag is a Windows application and probably uses the Win32 namespace for filenaming, _not_ the POSIX namespace (which wouldn’t make much sense on a Win machine due to the difference in »special characters« for the filesystem).
While using the POSIX namespace under Win32 is perfectly legal (at least on NTFS filesystems), probably no one will ever do it for native Windows applications. So you might want to avoid characters in audio file names that will break in the Win32 namespace, notably U+0000 (NUL) / (slash) \ (backslash) : (colon) \* (asterisk) ? (Question mark) " (quote) \< (less than) \> (greater than) and | (pipe). Any other UTF-16 code unit (case insensitive) can be used.
_Hint:_ When renaming files using Mp3tag, you can use a _function_ on the rename, like (example):
**$validate(%artist% - %title%,_)_**
which will automatically replace characters invalid for the Win32 namespace for filenames with an underscore »«.
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### Author:  [@Florian](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Florian)
#### Post date: [December 28, 2018, 2:24pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/x-mp3tag-fails-to-read-tags-of-files-with-a-question-mark-in-the-filename/7945/4 "2018-12-28T14:24:53Z")
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