Some MP3s not being recognised in library

RazMan · 16 Jan 2010

I have been rather frustrated by a seemingly random problem with Media Center and Media Player in Windows 7. Having recently 'committed' my MP3 collection to MP12 I was confused when some of the files were not 'seen' by the library, and quite often the missing files went unnoticed (literally) until I had cause to search for an album which I knew I had added recently. I then resorted to Windows Explorer, only to find the folder and files in their correct, logical place. I noticed that some of the tags were missing and so I tried to fill in the missing info (album, artist ets) using the 'properties' function, only to find that I was unable to edit them - any attempt to do so invoked an error message, [0x8007000: The data is invalid]

I then tried a shareware tag editor, MP3Edit, which also failed to edit the tags. Finally I used a prog called ID3-TagIT3 and changed the Tag version to v2.3 and voila! I could edit the tags and more importantly, Media Player recognised the files and my music collection instantly expanded.

It would appear that Window 7 and/or MP12 has a problem with some versions of MP3 Tags. I am a noob in this area so if someone could throw some light on this problem I would be grateful - I don't really want to edit thousands of files just to get them recognised by MP12! Is this a bug?

ignatzatsonic · 16 Jan 2010

I don't use WMP, but I have noticed tag oddities in the player I do use (iTunes). I notice this on no more than 1% of all mp3 and have never been able to eliminate it entirely. I tend to use mp3tag to do any tag editing I need, but I really only care about song title and artist name.

In some cases I might show, for instance artist A and song title B when viewed in Windows Explorer. mp3tag might agree with that , but when the properties of that same file are looked at in iTunes, it might show something different. In some rare cases, iTunes might not even show a title for the song, let alone a proper title tag.

The songs in question play fine and do not show any defects when analyzed with third party utilities.

I have just chalked this up to mp3 weirdness that I cannot control, but I'd like to hear better explanations myself.

The issue seems to exist on XP, Vista, and Win 7 and on more than 1 playback application.

mp3tag is a highly regarded tool, but you may have to live with some tagging issues. You could spend hours per day manicuring mp3s, but at some point you have to give it up if the files are at least seen and can be played.

RazMan · 26 Jan 2010

Update:

I have been through all of my mp3s with the excellent 'mp3tag' program, rewriting all of the tags and generally tidying things up. After this very lengthy process I then forced my Media Center library to rebuild itself. After a couple of days I noticed there were STILL some missing albums so I decided to investigate further.

I installed Media Monkey and set the library to the same directory which is on a networked NAS drive. I was amazed to see that there was a huge difference in the file count as follows:

Media Center / Media Player 12 = 9644 files
Media Monkey = 10588 files

A difference of nearly a THOUSAND FILES!!

What's going on here??

noobvious · 26 Jan 2010

RazMan said:

Update:

I have been through all of my mp3s with the excellent 'mp3tag' program, rewriting all of the tags and generally tidying things up. After this very lengthy process I then forced my Media Center library to rebuild itself. After a couple of days I noticed there were STILL some missing albums so I decided to investigate further.

I installed Media Monkey and set the library to the same directory which is on a networked NAS drive. I was amazed to see that there was a huge difference in the file count as follows:

Media Center / Media Player 12 = 9644 files
Media Monkey = 10588 files

A difference of nearly a THOUSAND FILES!!

What's going on here??

Look in the "Files to Edit" on Mediamonkey (as pictured below) You may find your answers there.....maybe some duplicates exist? I don't know how Media Center/WMP12 would act if there were dupes, but I've had excellent results with MediaMonkey, been using it for about a year now.

It may take some time to go through all of that , but your answers could well be there.

RazMan · 26 Jan 2010

Ahhhh it seems that I've got 996 files in my 'duplicate titles' directory in MM...... although I'm not quite sure how these 'duplicates' are identified. This might be because I have folders for each artist, with individual albums inside - often with the same title.

I must say that MM seems to be a very detailed, intuitive prog. I wasn't intending to use it as my mp3 player but now I am rather tempted, considering the trouble I am having with MP12.

noobvious · 26 Jan 2010

RazMan said:

Ahhhh it seems that I've got 996 files in my 'duplicate titles' directory in MM...... although I'm not quite sure how these 'duplicates' are identified. This might be because I have folders for each artist, with individual albums inside - often with the same title.

I must say that MM seems to be a very detailed, intuitive prog. I wasn't intending to use it as my mp3 player but now I am rather tempted, considering the trouble I am having with MP12.

Duplicate titles means just that. If you had a studio album and a live album, with the same song on both, that would be a duplicate title. Duplicate content, on the other hand, is something where you just have multiple copies of the exact same thing, probably in more than one place. That's where you can do some purging.

I do the same thing, Artist folder -->album subfolders inside. :)

RazMan · 26 Jan 2010

Then I don't understand where MM is finding these duplicates. I have been ultra diligent with my files and they have been very carefully filed with no duplicate names or content. I have only got one instance of an artist having a live & studio album but I labelled the folders as such. Either way that doesn't explain the 995 other 'duplicates'. Hmmm it seems I need to do a bit more digging

RazMan · 26 Jan 2010

I've just figured it out - I HAVE got duplicate tracks - for example I have Steely Dan's 'Babylon Sisters' on 'Gaucho' and 'The Best of Steely Dan Remastered'.
I've even got 1320 cases of 'inconsistent album art' .... which is very irritating for a geek like me

...... I'll end up with OCD at this rate ... aarghh!

Jeez, 10% of my files must be duplicates then

Thanks for the help Noob - :)

noobvious · 26 Jan 2010

RazMan said:

I've just figured it out - I HAVE got duplicate tracks - for example I have Steely Dan's 'Babylon Sisters' on 'Gaucho' and 'The Best of Steely Dan Remastered'.
I've even got 1320 cases of 'inconsistent album art' .... which is very irritating for a geek like me

...... I'll end up with OCD at this rate ... aarghh!

Jeez, 10% of my files must be duplicates then

Thanks for the help Noob - :)

Glad I could help!

Now you see a little bit of why I like MediaMonkey. So far it seems to do almost anything with my music that I need.

It will also grab podcasts for you, if you're into them..... which you can then either listen to on the computer, or load onto your MP3 player. If you decide you want to try that out, let me know, and I can talk you through the set-up process, if you like.

Any other questions about Mediamonkey, feel free to ask. I may not be a computer expert, but this is something I actually do have a clue about.