Value for year property in ID3 tags gets lost on export of mp3 file

[Holger Koch]

Binary package hint: audacity

When exporting an mp3 file that was previously imported to Audacity you get a prompt to edit several values of the embedded ID3 tag including a value for the year a track was released. But after saving this file you will find the value for the year being deleted.

I use Audacity version 1.3.12 with Ubuntu 10.04, but I have experienced this issue also in previous releases of Audacity.

To reproduce import an mp3 file with intact ID3 year property, then export this file and check the tag properties with a tag editor or in Nautilus with rightclick > properties > audio.

[David Henningsson (diwic)]

Confirmed, this also applies if you're saving a newly recorded file as mp3 and enter a year.

[Benjamin Drung (bdrung)]

Bug description from Ubuntu bug https://launchpad.net/bugs/581113

When exporting an mp3 file that was previously imported to Audacity you get a
prompt to edit several values of the embedded ID3 tag including a value for the
year a track was released. But after saving this file you will find the value
for the year being deleted.

I use Audacity version 1.3.12 with Ubuntu 10.04, but I have experienced this
issue also in previous releases of Audacity.

To reproduce import an mp3 file with intact ID3 year property, then export this
file and check the tag properties with a tag editor or in Nautilus with
rightclick > properties > audio.

[Benjamin Drung (bdrung)]

I forwarded it to upstream.

[Gale (gale)]

Created an attachment (id=62)
patch to fix year ID3 tag on Linux

[Gale (gale)]

(In reply to comment #0)
This happens because we force the frame for year to TYER. It's deprecated in
ID3v2.4 but if we don't use it, Windows Explorer and Windows Media Player can't
see the Year tag. I've done a patch (attached) to set the year frame on Linux
to the correct TDRC using ID3_FRAME_YEAR. Tested on Ubuntu 10.10 (Rhythmbox and
Nautilus can now see the Year tag) and on Win 7 (tag is still TYER). Mac people
said the Year tag is already seen correctly on iTunes/QT in Audacity-exported
MP3s so I suggest it should be left "as is" for Mac.

[Leland-audacityteam (leland-audacityteam)]

Created an attachment (id=94)
Writes both old and new year to tags...should fix both cases

Since ID3v2 allows for unrecognized tags, there's no reason not to write both
the old (TYER) and new (TDRC) tags. This should provide the year to apps using
ID3v2.3 or ID3v2.4.

Leland

[Gale (gale)]

The content of attachment 62 has been deleted by
    Gale Andrews <email address hidden>
who provided the following reason:

superseded by Leland's patch

The token used to delete this attachment was generated at 2011-02-26 23:00:40
GMT.

[Vaughan-audacityteam (vaughan-audacityteam)]

(In reply to comment #4)

On quick scan, it looks fine to me. Please commit it, Leland.

And I think you're still a very trusted developer, so probably best to go ahead
and commit these and let QA get at them directly, without waiting for me or
Michael to review. (He and I are the only developers automatically added to the
cc list.

Thanks for your help, Leland!

[Gale (gale)]

(In reply to comment #5)
> I think you're still a very trusted developer, so probably best to go ahead
> and commit these and let QA get at them directly, without waiting for me or
> Michael to review.
+1. Speeds things up. Everyone can still review the diffs.

[Leland-audacityteam (leland-audacityteam)]

Should this also be fixed for MP2 files as well?

Leland

[Leland-audacityteam (leland-audacityteam)]

(In reply to comment #7)
Stupid question...of course it should be fixed for MP2s as well. Fix
committed.

Leland

[Gale (gale)]

Thanks, Leland. Changed Status to "DEVEL-FIXED MADE".

Note we have a general Linux bug 264 that Benjamin started "Some apps do not
see exported MP3 metadata". Should we apply the idea of this fix to all our
named tags to address that? Could that ever fix all cases e.g where user writes
a custom tag?

There are some other issues about "not seen" tags in Bug 51 "Metadata
import/export occasionally non-orthogonal". I'm cool about having that as a
Summary bug, too. I think separate bugs would be better, with or without a
"summary" bug to organise them.

[Gale (gale)]

(In reply to comment #9)
Sorry not had much time to test this but will do so. One problem found - Winamp can't see the TYER frame if TDRC is written as well. I've reported it to Winamp here:
http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?t=333336

I'd tend to call this a limitation in Winamp, and doubt we would want to
only write TYER as we were doing previously because applications that
only read TDRC then can't see the Year tag.

[Gale (gale)]

(In reply to comment #10)
RESOLVED - FIXED despite id3 on Ubuntu now can't see the Audacity Year tag when it could before the committed fix.

Tested exported MP3 and MP2 containing Year tag (TYER and TDRC) on all three platforms (including WMP, VLC, Foobar and iTunes on Windows, iTunes on Mac and id3, eyed3 and Nautilus on Ubuntu 11.10 and 12.04.

The only problem was with id3 - it does not see MP2 or MP3 exported with the current TYER and TDRC tags, nor can it see TDRC on its own, only MP2 or MP3 files that have a single TYER tag. So id3 will lose out of this, but far more apps will gain. I'm still going to call it RESOLVED-FIXED as I don't see much else we can do, but have noted this in summary bug 51 and will write to id3. Paradoxically, Nautilus which could not see TYER on its own when the bug was raised now can, so id3 is out of step.

> One problem found - Winamp can't see the TYER frame if TDRC is written
> as well. I've reported it to Winamp here:
> http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?t=333336

Winamp have now fixed that issue.

The issue Winamp reported to us (Audacity non-default ID3 frames rewritten as TXXX) is already at bug 541.