cannot edit tags in m4a files

[Bruce Culbertson]

Rhythmbox cannot edit m4a tags.

For example, I right-click on a song and the "properties" window opens. I change a field, for example "title", and then click "close". A window opens saying "Error while saving song information. File corrupted during write." The title is unchanged in the song, as can be seen in the Rhythmbox window and can be verified with another program like Easytag.

Additional details that might be useful:
* The permissions on the m4a file are -rw-rw-rw-
* Though the error window says the "File corrupted during write", the m4a file is in fact not even modified
* There is no problem with mp3 files; for example, the process described above can be used successfully to change the title of an mp3 song
* I used to be able to edit m4a tags in Ubuntu 12.10; this problem arose when I upgraded to Ubuntu 14.04 LTS.

Although there exist other programs to tag m4a files, they do not provide a useable work-around. If you use such a program to change an m4a tag, then the music library comes inconsistent with Rhythmbox's "rhythmdb.xml" database.

Thanks for your help.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 14.04
Package: rhythmbox 3.0.2-0ubuntu2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.13.0-30.55-generic 3.13.11.2
Uname: Linux 3.13.0-30-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
ApportVersion: 2.14.1-0ubuntu3.2
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: Unity
Date: Fri Jul 11 11:42:44 2014
ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/rhythmbox
InstallationDate: Installed on 2014-04-25 (77 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 14.04 LTS "Trusty Tahr" - Release amd64 (20140417)
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_US
 PATH=(custom, user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: rhythmbox
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Luc Pi (oluc)]

As I understand, rhythmbox was using a GStreamer plugin to edit m4a tags, named qtdemux (for "Quick Time demuxer")

But this plugin disappeared(?) since Ubuntu Precise.

It appears in Ubuntu Lucid [1], but is not anymore in Ubuntu Trusty [2]

Lucid has gstreamer0.10-plugins-good 0.10.21-1ubuntu2 [3]
Trusty has gstreamer0.10-plugins-good 0.10.31-3+nmu1ubuntu5 [4]

[1] http://packages.ubuntu.com/search?suite=lucid&arch=any&mode=filename&searchon=contents&keywords=qtdemux
[2] http://packages.ubuntu.com/search?suite=trusty&arch=any&mode=filename&searchon=contents&keywords=qtdemux
[3] http://packages.ubuntu.com/lucid/gstreamer0.10-plugins-good
[4] http://packages.ubuntu.com/trusty/gstreamer0.10-plugins-good

[Bruce Culbertson (bruceculbertson)]

Is it simple to install the qtdemux plugin? Would this cause other problems?

How can we get qtdemux back into current Ubuntu releases? Are there political/philosophical obstacles?

[Bruce Culbertson (bruceculbertson)]

I am the person who originally reported this bug and I continue to be unable to edit m4a tags with Rhythmbox. I appear to have qtdemux installed on my 14.04 system (although I did nothing to explicitly install it) so perhaps qtdemux (or its absence) is not causing this bug. I ran "gst-inspect qtdemux" and it said qtdemux is in /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gstreamer-0.10/libgstisomp4.so, which indeed exists on my computer and seems to include qtdemux.

[gcincilla (gcincilla)]

I have the same problem here using Ubunto 14.04 and Rhythmbox 3.0.2.

Please, is there any workaround?

[Bruce Culbertson (bruceculbertson)]

Yes, there is a better work-around than I first realized. What I recently
learned is that, every time Rhythmbox starts running, it checks the
date-modified of every track and compares it to the date of its database.
 If the track has been updated, it reads the metadata from the track and
updates its database. So, you can use a music tagging program (I like
EasyTag) to change a track's metadata and then the changes will show up in
Rhythmbox when you restart it. I've done this successfully a number of
times. In the past, I've somehow gotten Rhythmbox's database hopelessly
corrupted, so I don't entirely trust it, but this procedure has worked
fine. It would be more convenient, though, to be able to make changes
directly in Rhythmbox.

On Sat, Aug 30, 2014 at 2:50 AM, gcincilla <email address hidden>
wrote:

> I have the same problem here using Ubunto 14.04 and Rhythmbox 3.0.2.
>
> Please, is there any workaround?
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1340907
>
> Title:
> cannot edit tags in m4a files
>
> Status in “rhythmbox” package in Ubuntu:
> Confirmed
>
> Bug description:
> Rhythmbox cannot edit m4a tags.
>
> For example, I right-click on a song and the "properties" window
> opens. I change a field, for example "title", and then click "close".
> A window opens saying "Error while saving song information. File
> corrupted during write." The title is unchanged in the song, as can
> be seen in the Rhythmbox window and can be verified with another
> program like Easytag.
>
> Additional details that might be useful:
> * The permissions on the m4a file are -rw-rw-rw-
> * Though the error window says the "File corrupted during write", the
> m4a file is in fact not even modified
> * There is no problem with mp3 files; for example, the process described
> above can be used successfully to change the title of an mp3 song
> * I used to be able to edit m4a tags in Ubuntu 12.10; this problem arose
> when I upgraded to Ubuntu 14.04 LTS.
>
> Although there exist other programs to tag m4a files, they do not
> provide a useable work-around. If you use such a program to change an
> m4a tag, then the music library comes inconsistent with Rhythmbox's
> "rhythmdb.xml" database.
>
> Thanks for your help.
>
> ProblemType: Bug
> DistroRelease: Ubuntu 14.04
> Package: rhythmbox 3.0.2-0ubuntu2
> ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.13.0-30.55-generic 3.13.11.2
> Uname: Linux 3.13.0-30-generic x86_64
> NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
> ApportVersion: 2.14.1-0ubuntu3.2
> Architecture: amd64
> CurrentDesktop: Unity
> Date: Fri Jul 11 11:42:44 2014
> ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/rhythmbox
> InstallationDate: Installed on 2014-04-25 (77 days ago)
> InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 14.04 LTS "Trusty Tahr" - Release amd64
> (20140417)
> ProcEnviron:
> LANGUAGE=en_US
> PATH=(custom, user)
> XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
> LANG=en_US.UTF-8
> SHELL=/bin/bash
> SourcePackage: rhythmbox
> UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
>
> https://bugs.la...

[Joshua Detwiler (jdetwiler)]

I just encountered this in Ubuntu 19.10 with Rhythmbox 3.4.3. I had just replaced some MP3 files with FLAC files and then wanted to edit metadata for consistency with my library. I got the same error "File corrupted during write."