MM3 mangles tags...

[wutzin]

Hi,

I have noticed the following behavior:
some newly tagged mp3 files have corrupted tags with the content of some tags showing up in other tags (eg the content of comments tag showing up in the lyrics tag).

I noticed the problem after rebuilding my library - on some files, the ratings were gone. I noticed that these files had lots of garbage characters in some of the tags (mostly artist or trackname tag). I have been getting used to the phenomenon that MM apparently screws up some tags by adding garbage characters (most of them show up as hollow square characters).

However, now it seems like MM is messing up the entire tag structure of a file, thus killing the rating tag and truncating the comments tag. In some cases, the remainder of the comments ends showing up in the lyrics tag.

I am using MM3 version 3.2.0.1294 under OSX Snow Leopard in a virtual machine running WinXP SP3 under Parallels Desktop 4. Both the media library as well as the mp3 files are from the viewpoint of MM located on mapped (virtual) network drives that point to the local harddisk of OSX.

[rovingcowboy]

my guess is that it is something to do with running through the vm. it might be you need to get updated vm code from sunmicro did you check for any updates to that?
might also be something to do with the different fonts used on osx it might not have some of the same sub's that windows is saying to use. find a program that works for you that lets you see your fonts and the subfonts used by them. then find out what the ones windows want. and get them and add them to your system font folder. leave them there or add them as sub's to the fonts of your system. its tricky to add too many fonts though. so make a new folder and call it fonts1 that is what windows does then you can add more in there.

[wutzin]

hey, thanks for the suggestions. To check whether it is a vm problem, I had a look at the file modification dates of files that show the problem of mangled tags - and it turns out that quite a number of them were last modified BEFORE I switched to a Mac (and thus had to start using MM under a virtual machine).
The "square characters" in tags problem is NOT a font problem though - because the characters are ADDED/APPENDED to the existing tags. For instance:
A title tag like this:
Wie liegt die Stadt so wüst (Trauermotette für gemischten Chor a cappella, RMWV 4/1)
will suddenly read like this:
Wie liegt die Stadt so wüst (Trauermotette für gemischten Chor a cappella, RMWV 4/1)偉卌;ᜀ;䰀楥畴杮›慍瑴楨獡䨠湵呧䍒K;;吱䕙R;;㤱㐹䑔䍒;Ԁ;㄀㤹倴偏M;渀䁯浥楡lÿ;刀䅇D;䀈㼀轐Ⲇ吀塘X; (with most of what is displayed here a chinese characters showing up as squares in MediaMonkey).

So the problem it seems is not that MediaMonkey is incorrectly displaying correct characters, but that MM is for some reason disregarding the tag boundaries within the MP3 file, which means that MM suddenly starts treating random data that follows a tag as part of that tag.
My theory that MM is not respecting tag boundaries is also supported by the fact that e.g. parts of the comments tag start showing up at the end of the lyrics tag.

Example:
A file with the following tags:
comments:

Jacques Brel wrote this song in 1963 for the soundtrack of a crime thriller entitled "Un roi sans divertissement" about a serial killer in a small snowy village around Christmas time who kills nine apparently for no other reason than he was bored. The movie title comes from a quote from Pascal that a king without diversions (un roi sans divertissements) is miserable. Brel asks, with all the lovely and pleasant things in this too short life, why must it be that men are bored? Guitar accompaniment by Barthélemy Rosso.

Lyrics:

Pourtant il nous reste à tricher
Être le pique et jouer c?ur
Être la peur et rejouer
Être le diable et jouer fleur
Pourtant il reste à patienter
Bon an mal an on ne vit qu'une heure
Pourquoi faut-il que les hommes s'ennuient ?

will suddenly start looking like this:
comments:

Jacques Brel wrote this song

<- truncated!
Lyrics:

Pourtant il nous reste à tricher
Être le pique et jouer c?ur
Être la peur et rejouer
Être le diable et jouer fleur
Pourtant il reste à patienter
Bon an mal an on ne vit qu'une heure
Pourquoi faut-il que les hommes s'ennuient ? 佐䵐;฀;潮敀慭汩;;佃䵍;ᰈ;堁塘;Jacques Brel wrote this song in 1963 for the soundtrack of a crime thriller entitled "Un roi sans divertissement" about a serial killer in a small snowy village around Christmas time who kills nine apparently for no other reason than he was bored. The movie title comes from a quote from Pascal that a king without diversions (un roi sans divertissements) is miserable. Brel asks, with all the lovely and pleasant things in this too short life, why must it be that men are bored? Guitar accompaniment by Barthélemy Rosso.䍔乏;ࠀ;䌀慨獮湯佃䵍;⨀;堀塘潓杮⵳䉄䍟獵潴ㅭ䰀瑡乥杩瑨※敍慬据潨祬塔塘;픀;䴀獵捩慍楧⁣慄慴䄀䕧䉁䌶桇浢楣㜫桌ㄹ䥲ㅔ杴䝁癃䈴㈱慤㕘䙔杄䝁㘷䅉杂䡁呫穋村⽄牪䡯楁慆䅁潚椯慣核摚杕䝁灳㠫㑘䝄歩䤵末䭁䅁啚渱晧浇啉䍰䥥㑹啯权敕故㥐漴奺䡨䥯㕆畨㝐偙䔹浃㔴婯㉌慓浢坉桵⽅半桡㍢甲八临獖㡲灇䍦獺㙆啴䭯杗獦吽塘X̀;畍楳䵣条捩䘠湩敧灲楲瑮䄀剑䱡㔫㑒瑺䡵㑐敧塒䔶っ煓䉒䌸䵏ㅊ敷䉮䵷獂䵧䅙啲㡃䭁䉧㡇先噑䅢〱⭃卧䅋兺但䝧䅫潋癁䍧䅬奍䑂䝁䄲䕚䵂䑧䄲㡌灁䍁⽍㡰丯楲千䰰䅫来䉡㍧㠱偁䅣䐫瀵㜯⽖㍨匯⽐⽳睪䵂眯⼰潰湂㉐䅤䱂⼫㝐⽲戴䐯ㅶ⼲晲㈯⼯⽵樯㐯⽙䐹氯⭦⽖稫㠯⼯⼲䤯牁欱䙵䱒婌畷㝗戴橑砯㡴塰䍧支㠸穧㕴楦⼸⽮样橦⽡晨䄸晦㠯扯報爯⭮瘸儳牶㥆⽸⼹㥦⽍偺䜯㠯⼵塺樹㑐⽇偬愫㝐⽺穹刯⭦䌵橕杸噦硧噅祓䅎䑶獡䡭晦䍬杓㍦桑⼵䥐䙂啷⽦䵸塊啁䅙䵗䕏乧⽭䰱嘯䑧⽮欸佅䩑䅉杄䍁⽶⽗䐵爯䅷䄲啍潁䍷䅔獇婁䉧䅎啊䅥慷㌹䑚摈䩨䵥歬祃䜸䨲歕噊䜫䝷啫䥘㕶䉩漱䅋䕑䈯奱潌㕧䉐䥡慆佧䉆睎⽂呷䄰材晁䅑

<- content of comments tag plus random garbage characters appended

I also noticed that on quite a few files that haven't lost their ratings and that haven't had garbage characters added, the comments tags have been truncated. (like in the example above).

The problem is: this doesn't occur with all files, so I don't know how to reproduce it... It is as annoying as the old MM2 problem of disappearing artwork (would seemingly randomly happen to some files - thank God and the dev's this is now fixed).

Any ideas/suggestions?

[rovingcowboy]

only other thing i can think of for your font trouble is you need an updated set of fonts.

did you try and see if mac has any updated fonts or if you need to get them from the microsoft.com/download site?

[wutzin]

only other thing i can think of for your font trouble is you need an updated set of fonts.

ahem, I don't care about the fact that the chinese characters are displayed as squares (I probably simply would have to install chinese font support on my windows xp install) - but I DO care about the fact that Mediamonkey garbles up my tags by inserting the chinese characters in my tags!!!

[rovingcowboy]

oh i was going the other way thought you wanted only the chinese characters. sorry.



must be a code in the vm that monkeys code does not like. that is removing the tag boundry ending.
but what is causing the junk being added to the tag is seeming like the other posts of junk in the tags which is another program that messes with tags. which one i don't know.

[wutzin]

hmmm - but I've had that issue already before I switched away from my WinXP and started using MM under a virtual machine.
The only thing I can think of is that I occasionally use MusicIP (the standalone app, as well as trixmoto's MusicIP tagger script) - and afaik it saves the PUID into the tags. Maybe somehow MM and MusicIP don't like how they each write tags???

[tomvincent@inbox.com]

I have found that MediaMonkey has damaged an untold number of files, screwing up all manner of fields:



or maybe http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid= ... 1648148066

You can see that there is almost no connection between the song info and the file name. Turns out all but one of those files should have the names from the filenames rather than the tags shown.

How do I find out the extent of the damage caused by MM and how to stop it?

[Lowlander]

Make sure you have Infer Track Properties disabled under Tools > Options > Library. This is the only function that messes things up by itself and it does so when you add tracks to your library (thus merely disabling it has no effect). Any other tagging is done/initiated by the user.

[rusty]

I want to clarify lowlander's comment:
When 'infer track properties is enabled', MM doesn't mess up existing tags. What it does is infer metadata for tags that have no metadata in the tag (unless the user has changed the configuration settings to give priority to filename-based metadata i.e. via Tools > Options > Library > Infer Track Properties > Use Inferred Properties then tags).

Wutzin,
I'd like to get to the bottom of the problem you describe:
-What version of MM are you using?
-Can you share a sample file with the problem?
-Can you share a file that doesn't have the problem, and describe repro steps that will trigger the problem?

Thanks.

-Rusty

[tomvincent@inbox.com]

I didn't do any tagging. The files were originally added when I ripped the original CD. Since then, I don't think I've done anything with/to that album. Now, 'infer' shouldn't damage the existing info, which the image clearly shows occurred. I have a support ticket in for this horrific error but haven't heard anything yet.

[rusty]

I'll check out the ticket. There is no such known issue though.

-Rusty