ID3 tags not recognised

[Kevin Steen]

Rhythmbox 0.9.0 as supplied with Ubuntu 5.10 doesn't recognise any of the ID3 tags of MP3 or OGG files. EasyTag and Audio Tag Tool show the files as having valid tags and the 'file' command lists the files as 'MP3 file with ID3 version 2.3.0 tag'. All files imported are categorised as Unknown.

[Kevin Steen (skyguy)]

Problem also occurs in backports version (0.9.1) and seems to be a gstreamer problem - MP3 files are playable but the ID3 tags are not recognised. Installing gstreamer0.8-mad solves the problem, allowing decoding and playback of MP3 files.

[Brunellus (luigi12081)]

with gstreamer0.8-mad installed, mp3s can be decoded and played back, but tags are still malformed. Even if the id3 tags are edited in EasyTag and the folder 're-imported' into rhythmbox, rhythmbox does not show the new tags, but rather the old ones.

Particularly a problm with multi-artist compilation CDs ripped with grip.

Workaround: tag right the first time-- make use of "multi-artist" tagging on your ripper/encoder if you can.

[zoqaeski (zoqaeski)]

This is my biggest woe with rhythmbox. Every single track gets given new tags, and for some odd reason it resets the genre of the track to 'blues'.

[MSchadone (mike-schadone)]

I am having the same problem, but I am unsure where the problem lies. In fact, if view the properties of the MP3 file in Nautilus, it shows the old tag which is propagated in RhythmBox. EasyTag, id3 and id3v2 all show the new (updated) tag.

I have attached a specific MP3 that I downloaded to reproduce this issue.

                    Old tag New tag
TITLE: Rip It Out Rip It Out
ARTIST: Ace Kiss
ALBUM: Ace Frehley KISS - Ace Frehley Solo
YEAR: 1978 1978
COMMENT: -= RipZ bY -=CubJ=- (blank)

I wish I had the time to parse this file with a hex editor to see if the old information is being held in the file itself, or perhaps it is being stored persistently in a database.

[MSchadone (mike-schadone)]

Suddenly I had the time to take a look into the offending MP3 file with the hex editor. Apparently when the ID3v2 tag is written, it does not touch the ID3 tag (this may be by design). So, Nautilus and RhythmBox are both reading the persistent ID3 information though the ID3v2 information has been updated.

Suggestion: For files that persist old ID3 information, use a generic ID3 tag editor to update the tag information with the updated ID3v2 information manually.

For the developers, any new technology should be backwards compatible for at least a few steps. When software utilizes an ID3v2 technology, it should persist this information in a reasonable way to the outdated (but sometimes used) ID3 technology.

Hopefully, this will be addressed, but admittedly it is a minor headache.

[MSchadone (mike-schadone)]

Further, it seems that this particular file had multiple ID3v2 tags written to it. Using a tool to remove the tags will delete the last tag written bring the old tag up to be edited or removed. I suggest removing, then adding a fresh tag with your choice of information.

The tool that I used to do this is 'kid3'. This has solved my problem which is not in fact a problem of persisting ID3 <> ID3v2, but MP3's holding more than one of each version of the tag.

[Alvaro Kuolas (kuolas)]

This bug is from 2005, What version of Ubuntu are you using now? I'm having some troubles with Rhythmbox under Hardy... no good vibes.

[MSchadone (mike-schadone)]

I'm using Hardy Heron. If I didn't mention it (or, perhaps wasn't clear), I did find a fix. The
MP3 had multiple ID3v2 tags (this should be possible). When I would remove one, it would in fact
just blank the last one. From here, I would continue to remove the tag as if I hadn't already
removed it, essentially removing the older tag eventually.

Alvaro Kuolas wrote:
> This bug is from 2005, What version of Ubuntu are you using now? I'm
> having some troubles with Rhythmbox under Hardy... no good vibes.
>

[Jouko Holopainen (jouko-holopainen)]

My problem is that SanDisk Sansa player started claiming the album is "unknown". I checked with "mp3info" and it said "does not have an ID3 1.x tag."

The problem occurs *only* after changing the tags in Rhythmbox (with Ubuntu 8.04), when lame created them it worked.

Apparently either the player does not support (fully) v2.x tags or the Rhythmbox makes some other error. I tried kid3 and it shows nothing in "Tag 1" and everything in "Tag 2: ID3v2.4.0".

In any case I wonder what is the reason to use v2.x tags? Is there a way to stop Rhythmbox using v2.x (and "only" use v1.x) tags?

[Jouko Holopainen (jouko-holopainen)]

Ugh ... I think my "version" of the problem fits better to bug 120538 than this one, though the bugs seem related.

[Martin Mai (mrkanister-deactivatedaccount-deactivatedaccount)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. This bug did not have a package associated with it, which is important for ensuring that it gets looked at by the proper developers. You can learn more about finding the right package at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/FindRightPackage . I have classified this bug as a bug in rhythmbox.
For future reference you might be interested to know that a lot of applications have bug reporting functionality built in to them. This can be accessed via the Report a Problem option in the Help menu for the application with which you are having an issue. You can learn more about this feature at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ReportingBugs.

[Martin Mai (mrkanister-deactivatedaccount-deactivatedaccount)]

To solve the Problem with the tags, you just need to remove the ID3v1 Tag (and probably also the APETAG at the End of the file). You can use "easytag" to remove the ID3v1 Tag and "exfalso" with "quodlibet-plugins" to remove the APE-Tags.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

the bug has been opened years ago? is that still an issue in intrepid or jaunty? could you add an example to the bug?

[MSchadone (mike-schadone)]

I cannot confirm. The problem was with mp3's having multiple tags written to them and RhythmBox not
being able to identify that fact. I have not found any program that writes multiple tags of the
same version to an MP3 file (which was not the issue with RhythmBox); therefore, I cannot produce a
test.

1. A source MP3 file has multiple ID3v2 tags written in the meta data.
2. RhythmBox is unable to rewrite the tag (it writes to the first one, but displays the last one).
3. RhythmBox is not responsible for the creation of second or subsequent ID3v2 tags in the same MP3.

So, there is no way to test this scenario. Multiple ID3v2 tags are against the standard and appear
to be the issue here and not RhythmBox.

Solve: Use a program designed specifically for ID3 tag manipulation and remove all ID3 tags from the
file (i.e. remove tags multiple times until it shows up blank), then create your own tags. This
will fix the issue with RhythmBox and any other media player which displays ID3 tag data.

Mike

[Martin Mai (mrkanister-deactivatedaccount-deactivatedaccount)]

Closing the bug since it's not caused by rhythmbox.