Strange things going on with MP3s...

Yolina

Right, this has been driving me nuts for some time, hoping anyone can help

I have a bunch of MP3s from on my computer where everything is fine regardless of player used. Everything is also fine when the same files are transferred to an Android device.

However, when those same files are on a WebOS device (HP TouchPad) and on a USB key plugged into my car (Toyota) head unit, about 20% of the files are not displayed correctly by the player and are lumped in an "unknown" folder when sorted by artist, and the album is also "unknown" which obviously also means that they don't get "called up" by a playlist.

All the files are correctly sorted in the directory structure (Artist folder then Album sub folder)
All the files have the same id3 tag format
Some of the codecs are different but I couldn't see anything obvious like a certain codec consistently not displaying

It is the same files that are not displaying correctly both in WebOS and on my car player.

My TouchPad is dual boot, so when booted in WebOS I've got files in the "unknown" artist & album folders in the player but when booted in Android everything is showing as it should.

The only thing common to these files is that they've been ripped from my CDs - but then as the same time, I've got other tracks ripped from my CDs which aren't having this issue. No problems whatsoever with purchased mp3s or what I converted from my vinyls

Obviously there's something wrong *somewhere* but I've run out of ideas and I am at a loss here. Didn't bother me too much when it was just the TouchPad having that problem because obviously I can boot in Android, but now that I've found that I am having the same problem in the car, I'd like to solve it.

Many thanks in advance

scooby359

My only guess would be that either the file names are too long so the car and webos can't recognise them, or there are invalid characters in the names which the systems can't understand.. Have you tried changing the file names?

Yolina

Unlikely as taking for example:
artist: "Peter Murphy"; album: "Deep"; song name: "the line between the Devil's teeth" displays absolutely fine.

but artist: "Peter Murphy"; album: "Dust"; song: "your face" gives me both unknown artist and unknown album

No problem with other tracks which happen to have (very) long album names or characters such as ü or (
Example: no problem with artist: "Einstürzende Neubauten"; album: "80-83 strategies against architecture" or with a track with the actual filename "02 Yü-Gung (Fütter mein Ego).mp3"

It's just some artist and album tags aren't read properly. I will probably dig out the CDs at some point and re-rip them to see what happens. But even if that does work, I would really like to understand why those tracks are doing that, otherwise it's just going to be one of those things that bugs me

Im_just_careful

Don't re-rip the CDs. Your problem is with the iD3 tags.

I use http://www.mp3tag.de/en/ to sort this out.

Take a copy of all your MP3s and then correct all the tags (twice as there are 2 different tag formats).

It is a job which takes some time but it is worth it !

Yolina

Thanks I was just looking at that actually. Will give it a go in the next few days.

But why would 2 CDs ripped one straight after the other end up with one having tags not read properly by WebOS and the car, whilst the tags for the other one are fine? And obviously no issues with with anything when using Windows or Android :think:

Im_just_careful

My guess is that one set of tags (either the ID3v1 or ID3v2) are used on one device and the other on the other and the data written by the CD ripper (which comes from Gracenote, FreeDB or similar sources) was correctly written for one but not the other.

I've found compilations are very hard to get how I like them and don't get me started on iTunes......

See :-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ID3

for more than you will ever want to know on the subject.

Yolina

Every single track is tagged with both v1.1 and v2.3. The car player is very unfussy and is happy with v1.0, 1.1, 2.2, 2.3 and 2.4 for mp3s on a USB stick. So I would think that if one format wasn't written correctly, it would just use the other - but maybe it doesn't!
Not sure about WebOS but that I'm not too bothered about that.

I will have a go at "fixing" the tags (well will try with just a couple first to see if it makes a difference or not ) but the whole thing is just so irritating!

Yolina

Yeeeeessssssssss the tag editor found some bad tags in one format. The stuff I've "fixed" is now read correctly in WebOS and my car player.

So basically Windows and Android go: bad tag, can't read, but oooh look there's another one that I can read so I'll use that instead.

And WebOS and my car go: bad tag, can't read, there might be another one that I can use but nah, can't be ar*ed.