Numbers for Genres? [Resolved]

[Ernie_D]

Just installed version 4.7 Beta2 build 3011.and scanned my media folders.

I have no ID3V1 tags in any of my files but yet the drop-down list for genres shows numbers from 0 to 135 not inclusive of all numbers between. I'm assuming that SS is converting common ID3V2 tags to ID3V1 format and adding them to the list as numbers.

I used KID3 on a Linux system to manually add/check all tags and manually remove all ID3V1 tags. In fact, I'm sure that all the tags are ID3V2.3/4 if it matters any to Subsonic.


There seems to be an inconsistency in importing/displaying the genre info: For example, Some of my files have the genre 'Beat", and the word "Beat" does not show up in Subsonic's Genre drop-down list, but the number 135, representing the "Beat" genre does. Yet, "Blues" shows up as both the number "0" and the the word.

Is this a bug in Subsonic, a problem with the tagger, or a setting I've missed in Subsonic to display only the textual version (ID3V2.*) of the genre?

Thanks,


Ernie_D

[BKKKPewsey]

Were you using SS before? or is this a new install?

[Ernie_D]

BKKKPewsey asked:

"Were you using SS before? or is this a new install?"
_____________________________________________

Never used SS before. I just discovered its existence. My first attempt to install SS from a freebsd package failed because of an unavailable dependency (lame). Then I downloaded the standalone version, unpacked it and it ran and set up with no problems.

Ernie_D

[BKKKPewsey]

The reason I ask is that 4.7 beta is very new (and beta ) but there is certainly no problem like that with 4.6.
Can you check (if you already haven't done that) that your ID 3.2 genre tags are correct.
As far as I know SS does not read the ID3.1 genre tag (or any other tag) and just displays the 3.2 tags (including multiple tags)

[Ernie_D]

I don't understand what you mean by "Can you check (if you already haven't done that) that your ID 3.2 genre tags are correct" The ID3.2.* genres are textual, not based on an ID number, therefore, they are not limited to the ID3V1 list.

Also, In checking the files that Subsonic referenced with those numbers, they correctly crossed the ID3V2 textual genres. that were added to the random play list. I used bot KID3 and EASYtag to verify that the the files in the random play list crossed to the ID3V2.3 genre and that the file did not have an ID3V1 tag.

So I will install the 4.6 version and see how how that does.

Thanks,

Ernie_D

[BKKKPewsey]

Yes I do know what the ID3.2 tag specification is but just because its textual doesn't stop it from containing numbers.
If you use a tag program to copy from ID3.1 to 3.2 some will copy the number and not correctly change it the correct text.
This especially true if the files have been tagged with extended winamp genre.
I have over 120K files all with genre's and not a number to be seen - that's in both SS 4.6 and 4.7 beta

[Ernie_D]

Yes I do know what the ID3.2 tag specification is but just because its textual doesn't stop it from containing numbers.
If you use a tag program to copy from ID3.1 to 3.2 some will copy the number and not correctly change it the correct text.
This especially true if the files have been tagged with extended winamp genre.
I have over 120K files all with genre's and not a number to be seen - that's in both SS 4.6 and 4.7 beta

Thanks for your feedback.

So, since you had no problems with either version, assuming you did a rescan after upgrading to 4.7 beta and I tried version 4.6 with the same result, I got to assume that it is the taggers, although I would not think it be the same problem with two different taggers.

If they contained numbers, I would have noticed when I edited them. As stated earlier, the SS genre numbers correctly crossed to the equivalent textual representations of that genre as displayed in both KID3 and Easytag. I spent weeks verifying the correct information on each of the 38,000+ files I manually edited (one folder at a time), So any tags I copied from V1 to V2 would have been noticed: Although the taggers might keep an internal reference to it, I would not think that both taggers would do that.

I understand what you are saying about the extended ID3V1 genres, but the SS drop-down genre list has both a numeric id and a textual reference for all genres except "Beat" type. It excludes the word "Beat" in it's list. That does not seem consistent and appears to be a bug, assuming SS is working correctly in the first place. Others may be missing, but (lack of) the word "Beat" is the one that caught my attention.

So, my next experiment is to remove all tags from the one album that has the "Beat" genre and manually add back the ID3V2 info and see how it shows up in SS after I rescan the folders. I will be using a sound editor, with tagging capability so there should be no vestiges of the previous tag. I will be thoroughly disgruntled if I find out both taggers have the problem.

Regards,

Ernie_D

[BKKKPewsey]

As a bit of further information I removed the ID3.2 genre tags from 1 album but left the ID3.1 tag in place.
Re-scanned into my 4.7 test server and checked what genre was showing in SS - nothing!!
So confirming that SS does not read the ID3.1 genre tags.

It will interesting to find out what software (or should that be crapware) out that is doing this as I cough!
acquire a number of albums where the genre is something like 95 or 96
(I normally blame iTunes as that's an easy target )

[Ernie_D]

And my little experiment proved that both Easytag and KID3 keep an internal representation of the original ID3V1 genre ID, but display the textual version.

Actually, I had two albums that displayed the "Beat" genre in Easytag and KID3. I used the audio editor to recreate fresh V2 tags on the one album. Rescanned the folders and the files in that album show up under the word "Beat", the other still shows up as "135" the numeric ID for "Beat".

That is a problem with applications based on Linux, that I hadn't been aware of until now. As almost all Linux software is open source, many of the ideas are "borrowed" and the bad gets transferred to the new software, along with the good. The good thing about open source software is that if I think there is a bug, and I do with these taggers, I can report it to someone and something might be done about it.

I just tried one tagger called "Tagtool" that displayed no ID3V2 tag information although it recognized that V2 tags existed but not V1 tags which I had explicitly removed with the previously mentioned taggers.

I haven't been able to find another Linux based tagger that even partially works. I may be stuck with the sound editor (Audacity) although it will take considerable time as the raw wave data has to be rewritten to disk along with the tag data.

Regards,

Ernie_D

[BKKKPewsey]

Have a look at Puddletag http://www.webupd8.org/2011/01/puddleta ... ditor.html

[Ernie_D]

One Final note:

I downloaded and installed mp3tag, a Windows app, and it displayed the numeric ID's in the ID3V2 tags for the files in question. I am definitely thoroughly disgruntled and will give the managers of KID3 and Easytag projects a piece of my mind.

Puddletag, the one for my Linux distribution, did not work on my system. It gave me a dbus error and aborted. don't feel like trying to debug it. I may try to build from source at some later time.

I've been trying to get completely away from Windows and I am running mp3tag via Wine (Wine is not an emulator) in Linux. I guess this is as far away from Windows as I can get.

Again, Thanks for your assistance, On my own, I would have never questioned two taggers having the same problem or at the least it would have taken me a lot longer to check them out.

Regards,

Ernie_D