Files transferred to K850i have truncated metadata

[Alexander Jones]

Binary package hint: rhythmbox

When moving files to my Sony Ericsson K850i via Rhythmbox's MTP functionality, the metadata is encoded in a way that the device does not seem to like. (This is when Rhythmbox converts FLACs to MP3 on-the-fly.)

Example: "Push", "Strange World (2000 Remake)" goes to "Pu", "Strange World (20".

This is observable both when playing music back off the device in MTP mode and when browsing on the phone itself. (I guess, in MTP mode the software on the phone itself parses the metadata.)

Looking at the files over UMS mode shows that the metadata is intact as far as GStreamer is concerned.

It seems the bug is in Sony Ericsson's parsing of ID3v2.4 tags. Version 2.4 tags may not actually be supported, and there is no way to force Rhythmbox to use (the more widely supported) 2.3 because taglib apparently doesn't support it.

http://developer.sonyericsson.com/thread/38307
http://developer.sonyericsson.com/thread/34798

[Alexander Jones (alex-weej)]

I sent another track over UMS that wasn't encoded by RB:

Paul Van Dyk - Live At Global Gathering 2007 => Paul V - Live At Global

Seems to be about half the length...

One other that I had just tagged with EasyTag came out perfectly, though.

Above & Beyond - Trance Around The World #201

Maybe there's nothing to be done here. The phone is just a buggy piece of closed source shit.

[Pedro Villavicencio (pedro)]

Thanks for the report, it's ok if we close this report then? otherwise you may want to fill this upstream since you have the device, thanks.

[Basilio Kublik (sourcercito)]

Hi there
We are closing this bug report because no further information was provided, as described in the previous comments.Thanks again for taking the time to report this issue and help to make Ubuntu better, don't hesitate to submit bug reports in the future. If you are able to report this upstream at http://bugzilla.gnome.org, please do it, so the developers of the application could work on this and request you any information they might need.

Thanks again!

[Alexander Jones (alex-weej)]

Investigating this now. Seems ID3v2.4 is not very well supported on this phone, but ID3v2.3 works fine...

[Pedro Villavicencio (pedro)]

leaving this as incomplete then pending on the information Alexander is going to provide, thanks you.

[Pedro Villavicencio (pedro)]

We are closing this bug report because it lacks the information we need to investigate the problem, as described in the previous comments. Please reopen it if you can give us the missing information, and don't hesitate to submit bug reports in the future. To reopen the bug report you can click on the current status, under the Status column, and change the Status back to "New". Thanks again!.

[Alexander Jones (alex-weej)]

K850i (and my previous phone, K750i) seems to have a faulty implementation of ID3v2.3. There needs to be some way for us to note that it only supports as new as ID3v2.2, perhaps in a HAL property. The "suppported formats" list of MIME Media Types is just not descriptive enough.

Furthermore, if this is the only resolution, the ID3 mux element in GStreamer needs to support muxing to an older version.

I will continue my investigations, but please understand that reverse engineering takes ages.

[Alexander Jones (alex-weej)]

Damnit I meant 2.4 when I said 2.3 and 2.3 when I said 2.2 :P

[Dereck Wonnacott (dereck)]

Thanks for doing the research here! Marking as 'triaged' because there should be enough information for developers to take a look at it.

In summery the Sony Ericsson K850i (and my previous phone, K750i) both require mp3 files to have ID3v2.3 tags rather than ID3v2.4 tags.

[Stéphane Maniaci (stephh)]

I can confirm this on my Sony Ericsson v630i. Thanks for investigation !

[Pedro Villavicencio (pedro)]

Thanks for the report Alexander Jones , It has been a long time without any comment or a duplicate in this bug report and It is possible that the bug has been fixed. May you please try to reproduce it with the latest Stable Release of Ubuntu the Natty Narwhal and add the respective comments to the report? You can learn how to get that release at http://www.ubuntu.com/download . Thanks again and we appreciate your help.

[Alexander Jones (alex-weej)]

I doubt this was fixed, but whatever. Thanks

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for rhythmbox (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]