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Author Topic: MC changed dates in tags during initial library import  (Read 623 times)

innergeek

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MC changed dates in tags during initial library import
« on: August 18, 2024, 11:15:45 am »

Downloaded MC32 to test drive (long time MediaMonkey user who finds MM5 to be useless) and after the initial import of my music library I find that MC has arbitrarily appended the release year data with grossly incorrect data. For example, of the 34 albums in my library by the artist B.B. King, MC has appended the date info in the tag with 6/21/1905 (or 6/27/1905 or other dates in the year 1905) for 28 of those albums. If I look at the tags of those albums using MP3Tag, I see that the year tags now read "1972\\1905-05-25".

3 questions:
  • Why did MC do this?
  • Is there an simple method for undoing this change, or am I stuck manually editing tags for a library of 1929 artists with 8436 albums?
  • Is there a way to prevent this from happening when scanning another library on a different computer?
If this is what I am facing with the first exposure to MC, why would I want to give good money for this program?
Computer is running Windows 11.
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zybex

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Re: MC changed dates in tags during initial library import
« Reply #1 on: August 18, 2024, 12:18:01 pm »

This is because of this:
https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,139015.msg964137.html#msg964137

In short, MediaMonkey likely tags the "Date" as a simple year, while MC interprets it as a full timestamp. So 1972 and 25.05.1905 are just different interpretations of the same value. When MC imported the files it [wrongly] assumed the year number was a full timestamp.

[Note to dev team: it's better to assume any date value below 2100 to be a single year, not a full 1900-based timestamp]

You can fix all files in one go in MC by using an Expression language formula, but first I'd like to confirm what MC sees on those files. Can you please open the Audio->Files view, right-click on the column headers, select "Add Expression Column" and type "[Date,0]" ? Then tell us what values show up for the affected files.
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Matt

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Re: MC changed dates in tags during initial library import
« Reply #2 on: August 18, 2024, 12:50:27 pm »

Could someone mail me a sample file that shows the problem?  I'm matt at jriver.  Thanks.
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Matt Ashland, JRiver Media Center

innergeek

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Re: MC changed dates in tags during initial library import
« Reply #3 on: August 18, 2024, 05:00:42 pm »

zybex, thanks for the link.

I actually hadn't used MediaMonkey for ripping and tagging for a while now, I had been using EAC for ripping and MP3Tag to pull metadata in. But yes, MP3Tag had been pulling in just the 4 digit year for the date field.

After adding the My Expression column, I see that where the date field has the 1905 date posted, the My Expression field has the actual release year from the ID3 tag.

I have also replied separately to Matt's question as well.
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zybex

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Re: MC changed dates in tags during initial library import
« Reply #4 on: August 18, 2024, 05:54:08 pm »

You can fix all your dates like this:
- Make a backup with CTRL+SHIFT+B, just in case
- select all affected files in the Audio->Files view (careful, do NOT select files with a good date). Alternatively, use this Filter in the top-right to show only files with bad dates: [date]=<2100  -[date]=[]
- open the Tag editor panel under the left-side Tree
- find the Date tag (it should say "varies")
- enter this formula there:  =convertdate([Date,0],1,1)
 
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innergeek

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Re: MC changed dates in tags during initial library import
« Reply #5 on: August 18, 2024, 06:57:54 pm »

Thanks for the step by step instructions. MC is saving tag changes to nearly 90,000 files. This could take a while.
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