Strange song title renaming issue in iTunes

[Inforne Complex]

I'm having an odd error with my Itunes 7. Randomly some of my songs will rename and include the Artist in the Song Title tag. It happens to only a small amount of my library and I have tried checking the id3 tags. I've had this issue in the past, it is not specific to iTunes 7 at all. Any ideas as to what could be causing this?

Specs: Windows XP SP2
iTunes 7.0.0.70
2 Gigs Ram
30 gig video ipod (5g)

Take a look below:

[jmmtn4aj]

Something else writing the ID3 tags? Perhaps an auto file-tagging program?

Or if you're talking about editing the ID3 tags in iTunes, then closing it and opening it again only to find out it's reverted- iTunes has been known to not write the tags 100% of the time. This includes song information and album artwork.

On the other hand, if it's none of the above, then you've got a rather peculiar problem

[Inforne Complex]

Originally Posted by jmmtn4aj

Something else writing the ID3 tags? Perhaps an auto file-tagging program?

Or if you're talking about editing the ID3 tags in iTunes, then closing it and opening it again only to find out it's reverted- iTunes has been known to not write the tags 100% of the time. This includes song information and album artwork.

On the other hand, if it's none of the above, then you've got a rather peculiar problem

Actually, I am quite an ocd-like person and need everything to be neat. I went through all 3500+ of my songs and checked each one to have the correct spelling, tags, and artwork. I'm pretty crazy about that so I'm sure the id3 tags are correct. I used the program "Tag & Rename" to do most of them. I also forgot to add that when I play the song iTunes it will correct the file and only display its song title as usual. I can actually play each song quickly by clicking them down the line and they will fix and even update on my ipod. After I close iTunes a few times though, the problem will resurface. Hmmm ...

[Inforne Complex]

Still nothing from anyone? I figured SOMEONE would know what might be wrong

[House4Ever]

Somebody else is having the same problem as me! I can't find a fix either. It's putting the file name in the song name field, but only for some files (about 1/4 of my 30 Gb library).

- All tags appear to be correct (they are fine in Windows Media Player for example)
- Right clicking "Get Info" temporarily fixes the song name
- Playing the track temporarily fixes the song name
- Restarting iTunes keeps the above "changes"
- Restarting the PC loses the above changes
- Tags on properly named tracks and problem tracks are both v. 2.3

Please help someone. I'm anal too and this driving me crazy.

Note: The same incorrect names appear on my iPod too, but there is no temp fix.

XP Pro
iTunes 7.0.1.8
iPod Mini

[House4Ever]

1. See the James Blunt album problem but the Prince album is OK

2. The "Get Info" information

3. The song is temporarily fixed

[Inforne Complex]

Originally Posted by House4Ever

Somebody else is having the same problem as me! I can't find a fix either. It's putting the file name in the song name field, but only for some files (about 1/4 of my 30 Gb library).

- All tags appear to be correct (they are fine in Windows Media Player for example)
- Right clicking "Get Info" temporarily fixes the song name
- Playing the track temporarily fixes the song name
- Restarting iTunes keeps the above "changes"
- Restarting the PC loses the above changes
- Tags on properly named tracks and problem tracks are both v. 2.3

Please help someone. I'm anal too and this driving me crazy.

Note: The same incorrect names appear on my iPod too, but there is no temp fix.

XP Pro
iTunes 7.0.1.8
iPod Mini

Thank you very much for your reply . That is EXACTLY the same thing that is going on with me. The tags are all v 2.3 and it only affects a small portion of my library. It is taking the song title directly from the filename, just as you said, but I tried correcting some of the file names and it still reverts them incorrectly back to what they were before, after a reboot.

XP Pro SP2
iTunes 7.0.1.8
iPod Video 30g (5g)

EDIT: Upon further investigation, I see that almost all of my affected songs are ones with things written in the comment box. I doubt this is the actual problem but just something that I noticed.

[lebkin]

The first thing I would check is if the song files are write-protected. It is possible that iTunes is making the changes when you play the file, but can not permenently write them to the file. So make sure nothing in your library is write-protected and see if that fixes the problem.

[moriond]

Originally Posted by lebkin

The first thing I would check is if the song files are write-protected. It is possible that iTunes is making the changes when you play the file, but can not permenently write them to the file. So make sure nothing in your library is write-protected and see if that fixes the problem.

This is a good thought, but I'd guess neither of these two is letting iTunes organize their library ("Keep iTunes Music Folder Organized" is probably unchecked, as well as "Copy Music to iTunes Music Library"). Though another question is whether any of these files are/were stored on a remote disk or removable hard drive.

There are a few more clues from House4ever's information:

- Right clicking "Get Info" temporarily fixes the song name
- Playing the track temporarily fixes the song name

When you play the track iTunes reads the tags in the actual file. Most of the time it uses the information stored in its library database files (iTunes Library.itl and iTunes Music Library.xml), and this gives fast access for the various smart playlist and other functions. Clicking "Get Info" is also supposed to force checking the tagging information and update the library database information if there are inconsistencies. However, we've had evidence in the Books and Spoken Word forum that since iTunes 6 that using "Get Info" sometimes doesn't finish the updates, while playing the track always does. (This is likely to be a timing/file length issue for audiobooks which may not apply for your song tracks).

The other thing that happens when the tracks are checked is that iTunes does error checking and resolves inconsistencies -- for example if the library files had managed to tag the files one way and the actual file information said something else, this should be updated. What's puzzling is that the it sounds as though the change is being made, but it's not "sticking" -- almost as though you can't write the changes into the iTunes Library.itl file :

- Restarting iTunes keeps the above "changes"
- Restarting the PC loses the above changes

Here's are a couple of checks that you can make as tests.

• Take one of the problem song files and separately use "Add to Library" to create a duplicate entry. (You can always find and delete this entry by searching for it and using a smart playlist criterion like "Date Added is after xxxx" -- just make sure that when you delete the entry you say no to moving any files to the trash). Does this now consistently appear with the right information? (I'm wondering if somehow the editing change after the original addition to the iTunes Library is the problems; would this be well-behaved if the tags had been correct at the time of entry?)
• Again try one of the problem songs, create a new playlist from selection, and then do an "Export Songlist" in xml format. Go and take a look at the file. Are there two entries for Name? (The lines will look like:
  <key>Name</key><string>xxxxxx</string>
  If there is more than one entry the last one is probably being used). Try doing this both before and after you do "Get Info" or play the file and see whether there are any differences.

I'm not sure what's going on, but it sounds as though the library files are resetting to the other names for some reason. It may have to do with the tagging fields in the original files.

[phronk]

I thought I was the only one having this problem.

Just to add to the above, this seems to happen to me only with older mp3 files, and only with single songs that I have downloaded. It has never happened to an album I have imported myself or with purchased music.

Thanks Moriond for the suggestions. I will check back here later to try them and help you guys figure it out.

[House4Ever]

Fixed!!!

Everything appears to be good now. Fingers crossed.

Here's what I did:

- Selected all tracks in iTunes for an album where I was having the issue
- Chose "Get Info" and "Info"
- Deleted the comment/made it blank for those tracks

As expected, because I had selected "Get Info" the tag was fixed, however, it appears to be permanent as I've restarted my PC several times and the proper tags are still there.

FYI, this happened to tracks that I had ripped from my own CDs and downloaded tracks so there's no rhyme or reason to it. I had also deleted my iTunes library and re-imported all music but that hadn't fixed anything.

Let me know if it works for you too.

Individual tracks are not so easy to do as the "Get Info" and comment change doesn't work for a bunch of miscellaneous files.

[House4Ever]

I also closed by going to File and Exit - not the 'x'. Don't know if that helped at all to "save" the tags.

[House4Ever]

Originally Posted by moriond

Again try one of the problem songs, create a new playlist from selection, and then do an "Export Songlist" in xml format. Go and take a look at the file. Are there two entries for Name? (The lines will look like:
<key>Name</key><string>xxxxxx</string>
If there is more than one entry the last one is probably being used). Try doing this both before and after you do "Get Info" or play the file and see whether there are any differences.[/LIST]
I'm not sure what's going on, but it sounds as though the library files are resetting to the other names for some reason. It may have to do with the tagging fields in the original files.

Here's my test:

Before "Get Info":
<key>Name</key><string>Heather Small - Holding On (Sharp Club Vocal).mp3</string>
<key>Artist</key><string>Heather Small</string>

After "Get Info":
<key>Name</key><string>Holding On (Sharp Club Vocal)</string>
<key>Artist</key><string>Heather Small</string>

[Inforne Complex]

Thanks alot for helping out with this everyone :-). I mentioned in an earlier post that mine seemed to be fixed by deleting what was in all the effected files comment boxes and it seemed to fix it. It now seems that House4Ever has gotten the same results. Now, if that really is the solution, does anyone have an explination as to why the comment box would affect the tags?

[House4Ever]

Inforne Complex, I'm not entirely sure that it is because we deleted the comments - I believe it's because we made a change to the tag which forced iTunes to re-save the tag information in it's library. However, that doesn't change the face that iTunes shouldn't have had a problem in the first place. BTW, thanks for finding a solution.

Getting my tags fixed for albums was easy enough but 70% of my library is individual tracks - I don't seem to be able to mass edit groups of them so I still have the problem with lots of tracks.