Writing iTunes Song/Artist/Album to ID3 tag?

[upaya]

i spend hours correcting all the incorrect album artist and song names in itunes but 'the beast' doesnt write any of the info to the song itself?

i first ran my collection through ieatbrainz - to find the anonymous data (but that doesnt change the tag just how itunes sees the song)

i have also ran it through MPFreaker for all the album covers and lyrics

now i need to make sure something permanently writes this info to the metadata of the file itself.

also, i use iratings to put stuff like play count and rating into the comments section of the file (great prog). The Filter& Tunebar are sweet progs too.


a premature thanks to anyone who can help -

[Essin]

What you are saying is that if you add the song to another iTunes all information is lost and Title/Artist/Album will be blank? Is that correct?

[upaya]

when you change the song or album info on the itunes interface (correcting the ID3 tag info) there doesnt seem to be a way to write that information to the song itself. all corrections i make are itunes dependent. i want the same artist/album/song info to be there no matter what audio player i use

basically i have an archos 504 160gb poratble mp3 player and non of the itunes info is displayed - only the original ID3 trash.

if only 'consolidate' function performed this for me.

cheers,
jak

[Essin]

Originally Posted by upaya

when you change the song or album info on the itunes interface (correcting the ID3 tag info) there doesnt seem to be a way to write that information to the song itself.

It gets written to the tags when you click OK. Or do you get an error message? Is the file locked? You should also the see the Date Changed info change.

[lynt]

Sorry to bump an older post, however Google led me here out of sheer desperation. I'm also having the problem of iTunes not actually writing any ID3 tags to my MP3's.

My MP3's live on a portable drive, and I sync maybe once a week, however if I remove my songs from the iTunes library, and add them back again, the ID3 data isn't retained.

I double checked this with MP3 IDX as recommended by Apple, and can confirm that iTunes doesn't write any ID3 data to the files.

My process is - updating the info on the file in iTunes, then using "Convert ID3 Tags", which appears to process all the files in my library, yet most files don't have their ID3 tags updated.

Any help or leads would be much appreciated.

[S2_Mac]

P'bly need more info from you.... Like, if you're using a Mac but your external drive is formatted for NTFS, the Mac won't write changes to disk. Or maybe you're using Windows and another media player ::koff koff:: is un-doing your changes.

With no other media mangling -- er, wrangling <g> -- apps running, try changing the Comment field for a single track -- enter some text, click OK to dismiss the Info box; then, with that same track selected in iTunes' display, hit Control-R (Cmd-R on Mac) -- has the file's Last Modified date changed to today?

Why are you converting ID3 tags? There's no need (nor purpose, really) to do so in the normal course of events.

[Skeeve42]

Or maybe your iTunes is managing your files meaning:
1) You add the file ~/mysong.mp3 to iTunes
2) You change ID3 information in iTunes
3) You check ID3 information in ~/mysong.mp3
4) You notice no change
what you missed here is
1a) iTunes copies the file to <iTunes Library Path>/Artist/Album/CDnum-Tracknum Title.mp3
and
5) check the file created under 1a)

Yes... Maybe a stupid assumption. But have you seen how many switchers (Aka. former WinDOS users) complain about iTunes copying their files destroying their carefully crafted folder hierarchy?

[lynt]

Hi guys,

Sorry, here's a little more clarification:

I'm using a Mac.
My portable USB drive is formatted as FAT32.
I don't allow iTunes to manage my files, I manage them manually.
I don't use any other player with these files as I use iTunes to sync these files to my iPod & iPhone.

Ultimately, my files are all in the one place, not managed by iTunes, on a portable FAT32 formatted USB drive, that won't have their ID3 tags updated.

Update: I can confirm, that files manually managed living on my Mac's own HDD, *do* get their ID3 tags updated. It looks like something to do with the portable drive perhaps?


Any help?

[bri-bri]

I've been having the same issue and its driving me crazy! According to scattered messages at discussions.apple.com itunes forum, other people are seeing the same thing.

I manage my mp3s manually, they exist on a shared network drive formatted as hfs+ and sitting on the firewire port of another mac (i have full r/w access). I often will create a temporary itunes library file tobwork on tagging, adding art, etc... on lots of new files, downloads, rips etc.. then delete that temp itunes folder to start again.

The symptom is... new blank itunes folder. drag mp3 files to the library window of itunes. it reads them in (not copies). i make changes, embed album art and so on. now quit itunes. delete itunes folder. restart itunes which makes a new blank itunes library. drag the same (supposedly now edited) mp3s into itunes. they are back with no tags again... OR if I had corrected incorrect tags the incorrect ones are back.

one weird thing i noticed though is that the embedded artwork remains.

I think this is a conflict between version 1.x tags and version 2.x tags in the latest version or 2 of iTunes... I didnt have the problem until sometime this fall.

I DID try to update tags to latest (2.4) first and it has no effect.

BUT... one thing that SEEMS to fix this problem (i have to test more to make sure), is to on any new mp3s, first update tags in iTunes to NONE. THEN make changes and add artwork... it seems once you start adding tags it creates a v2.3 set for you (why not the latest 2.4 i dunno). Now things seem to work.... so, after deleting ALL tags and starting from scratch they seem to stick from that point on.

I'd also appreciate any other info or people's experiences.

[bri-bri]

Well, I'm about to waste.. .i mean spend some time here to see if the new iTunes 7.6 fixed this issue... I'm not feeling too hopeful given that almost every update to iTunes for a long time has been focused on buying stuff (now renting stuff)... so much so that it seems that actual music playing and library functions are a side effect! ;-)

Anyway.. has anyone else tried this out yet? I'll report back here after i test the tagging features on some tracks.

[bri-bri]

Still broke. This is seriously messed up. It was the same issue in 7.5 and is now obviously present in 7.6. I would guess that many people don't see it because they never do anything with their mp3s after they are in the library, or if they make tag changes they never have to reimport the files. Or they don't care.

I've spent a LOT of time over the past 6 months cleaning up tags, adding details, adding artwork and ripping CDs and now have about 500gigs of tunes in my library. The symptom is the same.. after I've changed or added tags they look fine. If I then bring them into itunes on another mac (this is a shared drive) the edited tags all disappear and revert to either what they were before my edits, or disappear completely. Interestingly (maybe a hint as to whats happening) if I embedded artwork in the file, IT stays, but other tags revert/disappear.

What is the deal here? I can't really see any pattern, some mp3s were downloaded, some were ripped by me, some are CBR others VBR. I have full read/write permissions. MOST of the time I can edit tags and it sticks. its about 10-15% of them that have problems. I've also tried changing the tag to NONE to remove it and then create a new one but that doesnt consistently fix things either. Its either a conflict between the iTunes database and the embedded tags as someone has suggested (it writes changes to the database but doenst change the embedded ID3 and there's no way to tell) or perhaps a conflict between different ID3 versions.

I'd like to hear how other people have got around this... Looks like I've got about 15% of six months of on again off again work down the drain since the tags don't exist in the files (or they're corrupt now).

[Tosk]

I can confirm that this problem STILL exists in iTunes for Windows 7.6.

However, I can also confirm a previously mentioned workaround for this problem.

As it's been mentioned, you need to set your entire library to ID3v2.3. Once this is done, any added files from now on will be added with ID3v2.3 which appears to be the only ID3 implementation working in iTunes. Now, you're probably wondering: how do I fix all my MP3s in iTunes?

I'm assuming that there's a difference in the tag information between your iTunes library and your actual MP3 collection (The information in iTunes is different than that in your files and you can't change it with iTunes).

To synchronize your iTunes library with the tags in your files, select ALL of your music in iTunes and right-click, going to Get Info. Go down to the Comment section and put in anything. I put in the number one (1). Then click OK. This will forcibly rewrite ALL the Comments sections in ALL your MP3s However, once finished, you can remove the comment if you wish. Consequently, this will force iTunes to rewrite the ID3v2.3 tags for all your MP3s with the tag information it currently has in the library. Once this is completed, you should be able to edit your library at will and iTunes will correctly write the ID3v2.3 tags to the files when you close the Information dialog.

I'm running Windows XP SP2 with iTunes for Windows 7.6. My library is 17.65 GB large. I've tested the above on my library and it worked. YMMV.

-- Tosk

[bdander]

Thank you Tosk. This is brilliant. Saved me a ton of work.

[giovanni_fg]

Tosk, you're great, thanks a lot! I've been dealing with the problem for months! How did you find out about this effective solution?

[xstalkrx]

Ok so when I change the name of the mp3 file on my computer... how do I get it to automatically make that change in itunes?

I tried the 1 in the comments section but I don't see the benefit of it? Please help a n00b out.