Hi,
Thx for offer, I remember something like that and as it was isolated case at the time it was fixed for you. Lets see first what SashaD3 will send me.

My memory is not to be trusted after 7 years, but I believe MiPi sent me a "trial" version of id3lib.dll. When MM ran with that dll it would correctly interpret ID3v1 tags containing Windows-1250 encoding. "Synchronize Tags" would then rewrite the MP3 metadata with valid ID3v2 tags. After that, the official MMW4 would correctly display the data.

There was some problem with the fix that caused problems for some users so the changed dll was never included in the official MM (as far as I know).

I may have a copy of the trial id3lib.dll somewhere, but I'm sure I should not give it out without permission.

SashaD3 wrote: ↑Tue Nov 04, 2025 8:15 am The dev (MiPi) hit the nail on the head: the files have data saved in ID3v1 using Windows-1250 encoding (for those diacritics like Č/š/Ž), but the ID3v2 tag is empty but set to UTF-16, which confuses MM4.

Hmmm, can you send me few sample files DL links in PM so that I can check them out, specifically as I have number of tracks in Cyrillic Tags and MM previously preferred UTF8 over UTF-16/Windows 1250 (CE), but would like to confirm suspicions.

Oh man, the dreaded corrupted/mismatched character encoding issue! I've run into this with older files too—where the tag looks fine in one program (like an old version of MM or a simple viewer) but shows up as Chinese or weird junk in a newer one. It usually boils down to ID3v1 tags not supporting international characters correctly, and then a newer player misinterpreting the empty ID3v2 tag's encoding setting.

The dev (MiPi) hit the nail on the head: the files have data saved in ID3v1 using Windows-1250 encoding (for those diacritics like Č/š/Ž), but the ID3v2 tag is empty but set to UTF-16, which confuses MM4.

Since you can't touch the original library owner's PC, and you want to keep the data from the ID3v1 tags, your best bet is to find a way to force-migrate the data from v1 to v2 and set the correct encoding.
If you want an easy online fix for a batch of files without installing a new desktop app, sometimes using a web-based tag editor can do the v1-to-v2 conversion when you save, especially if it handles those encodings. It's a quick way to clean up the encoding errors without messing with the database upgrade path.

Good luck! This is a messy one.

Sometimes it is a windows-10 problem. I had this problem and I found the following solution.
Check your mp3 file properties, ie right-click on a mp3 file and select properties. If the title and/or other info looks Chinese, then check the language settings of your pc as follows.
1. Open settings -> Language -> Click on “Administrative language settings”
2. In the section “Language for non-Unicode programs” check the setting. If it is different than the regional settings language, press “Change system locale” and set according to your locale
3. Try to Add/Rescan with some new mp3 files. If it is ok then clear the mediamonkey database from the mediamonkey menu -> File -> Clear Database, and then reload all mp3 from the beginning using Add/Rescan files to the Library

MiPi wrote: ↑Mon Oct 15, 2018 8:43 am pokeefe0001: just look at private messages here, I have offered you solution for your specific case, which should solve your problem without need of deleting any metadata.

Thank you. That solution worked I implemented your fix, ran a short test which looked good, and then rescanned the whole library. Everything is displayed correctly.

Thank you.

MiPi wrote: ↑Mon Oct 15, 2018 8:43 am pokeefe0001: just look at private messages here, I have offered you solution for your specific case, which should solve your problem without need of deleting any metadata.

Thank you. I will try what you sent. (I may not get to it today, though.)

Actually, your earlier suggestion of "Tools - Advanced tag management - Clean ID3v2 tags" seemed to work in a small test. I need to try it on a larger sample to see what data is lost. I may not lose anything critical since everything in the MM database was acquired by scanning the library. If I go through the earlier suggested process of updating the original MMW2 database I suspect I would have more data to lose.

Tools > Advanced Tag Management > Clean ID3v2 tags cleans the ID3 version 2 tags from the file, not the database. To rewrite database values to the files you'd use Tools > Advanced Tag Management > Synchronize Tags.

pokeefe0001: just look at private messages here, I have offered you solution for your specific case, which should solve your problem without need of deleting any metadata.

Thank you for your time working on this.

Please forgive me but I really don't know MediaMonkey or MP3 metadata at all. I use MediaMonkey, but I don't know how it works. In "Tools - Advanced tag management - Clean ID3v2 tags", does that just clean the MM database or does it actually rewrite the MP3 files with cleaned up metadata?

I have no idea how to parse the ID3 format so I'm not sure of the significance of what I see. When I view the MP3 files with a display tool (HxD) I see the title in basic Latin characters (without diacritical marks) in the ID3 data. Is that the v1 tag data you mention? At the end of the file there is something just labeled TAG that contains the title with the diacritical marks (but still using the Windows-1250 code page).

Is there a tool that parses and displays MP3 metadata? It would help me understand your description of the problem.

I have analyzed this more deeply and the main problem is, that the files have mismatched ID3 v1 and ID3 v2 tags. They contain empty title tag v2, but with encoding set to UTF16, and title is saved to v1 tag, but saved as Windows-1250 ASCII. It is in fact bug in MM, it should not leave encoding from v2, if the tag content is read from v1 (because v2 is empty). I will fix this for the next version of MM, it is rare situation, you are probable the first who experienced this.

One easy solution for you could be Tools - Advanced tag management - Clean ID3v2 tags. It will clean ID3v2 tags and re-scanning will read your ID3v1 tag correctly (and subsequent synchronizing tags will write ID3v2 correctly). But I am not sure, if this is usable for you, as this will delete all tags, that are written to ID3v2 and not to ID3v1 tag (like composer, custom tags, etc). Cleaning ID3v1 tags will fix this too, but it will delete e.g. the titles, as they are written to v1 only. Or you can wait for the fixed version.

MiPi wrote: ↑Sat Oct 13, 2018 4:46 am These files contain title only in ID3 tag v1, but this version of tag does not have standard for international characters, it should contain only pure ASCII. That is why it is displayed problematically, MM does not know, which character encoding is used.

That certainly explains everything I see. Windows' File Explorer does not display the data at all because it contains invalid data. An MP3 diagnosis tool I tried displays the Title data but with a blank for the š. The old WWW2 displays the titles because its Tag display option is set to "UTF-16". The equivalent option in MMW4 is "ASCII + UTF-16 (when needed)". I guess it thinks UFT-16 is not needed if ID3v1 doesn't support it.

Actually, I'm not sure about what I just said. The Tag option seems to be for saving MP3 metadata rather than for displaying it.

But now what? Is there any utility that will convert ID3v1 tags to ID3v2 while keeping the data that is present but invalid for ID3v1? I see a lot of tools mentioned on the web, but most are over 10 years old and none mention I've seen actually mention what is done with invalid data.

These files contain title only in ID3 tag v1, but this version of tag does not have standard for international characters, it should contain only pure ASCII. That is why it is displayed problematically, MM does not know, which character encoding is used. I've entered this to our bug database and I will look, whether we can handle it better: https://www.ventismedia.com/mantis/view.php?id=15147

I'll try the database conversion this weekend (and the database conversion is a good idea regardless of my metadat problem), but I just realized I may be on the wrong path.

I found and (after making sure I PC had a recent backup) tried an online MP3 tag repair program. It found nothing wrong and displayed the title of the file as "U Šest". Windows Explorer display nothing, MediaMonkey displays Chinese characters, and my browser displays the correct title ... all sourced on the same MP3 metadata. I vaguely remember reading that there is a character encoding that was dropped in Windows 10. If the Windows 7 equivalent of File Explorer (which I think was just called "Explorer") correctly displays the title then this problem probably has nothing to do with MediaMonkey at all. It's a Windows character display problem.

Hi,
Instructions on upgrade http://www.mediamonkey.com/support/inde ... e/View/56/

MMW2.x: https://filehippo.com/download_mediamonkey/2310/

MMW3.x: http://www.mediamonkey.com/support/inde ... monkey-325

That is why I suggested no uninstalls just installing in Separate folders so that you can easily revert back if something goes wrong even you have backed up everything.

You can try to do it on your PC with his MediaMonkey.mdb and if all goes well then you should try to Locate files on your pc prior to syncing Tags.