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[AndyCircuit]

After the re-organistion of my tags I noticed that the entires of Custom1, 2 and 3 can't be removed. I've deleted a few hundred and everything seemed fine (tag fields show up empty) but a check from a different machine showed them all up again. Tried again with another machine, with MC13, set to english or german but no luck. Its possible to change the content (or to 'overwrite' with a space) in all setups but not to clear the entry for good. So, writing the tags works obviously
Could be it's because my windows is not english. This last test would take some efforts on my side so please can somebody (with english Windows) check if he can see the same?
TIA

[glynor]

So you want it to remove the tags from the files, which it once added (and which were custom), that you've now removed the data from in MC, but you can't get it to remove the tag.  Is that correct?

Just to check, have you made sure to do these steps?

1. Delete all of the tag data from all of the files.  (This is easy in a batch in MC.  Just search the library for the tag to not be empty, make sure the Tag AW is showing the field in question, select all the files that result from the search, and then delete the entries in the Tag AW). *
2. Delete the Field completely out of Tools -> Options -> Library & Folders -> Manage library fields
3. Select all the affected files and do an Update Tags (from Library) to manually refresh the tags.

That's how I'd think it should work.  If you did all this, in that order, and the tag is still showing (hopefully empty) when you check the files externally, then I'd say that's a bug.

* Note: It could be argued that it should delete the tag at this point alone, but it could be argued the other way as well.  I don't know if that would count as a bug on its own.

[AndyCircuit]

Well, did some further testing and noticed the same with Genre, Album-Artist, Date.... It seems to be a general issue
You can change the value but you can't clear it.
That's no problem with standard tags but once you touch a sub field like custom you can't go back.
Once a value always a value
Overwriting with a space is not a satisfactory workaround because the fields show up if you choose "Show Tags With Values"
(apparently empty though)

[Alex B]

The normal behavior with all taggable file formats is to delete the corresponding file tag (including its header) when a library field value is emptied. This should always work if file tagging is enabled in "Options > General > Update tags when file info changes" and in the field specific settings: "Store in file tags (when possible)". This behavior can be avoided only by disabling tag writing.

I just tested this with a few FLAC files and it works as designed.

However, MC (specifically the currently loaded library instance) does not remove the library field value when something outside MC removes the corresponding file tag. MC can maintain metadata that exists only in the library. Perhaps you are experiencing this.

If you are using a Library Server client the situation may be different. I have not specifically tested how tag writing works when the changes are submitted to a server.

[AndyCircuit]

However, MC (specifically the currently loaded library instance) does not remove the library field value when something outside MC removes the corresponding file tag. MC can maintain metadata that exists only in the library. Perhaps you are experiencing this.

Thanks, that's it.
Only if MC never read the tags before the changes show up correctly. (It doesn't matter if the files were imported or checked by navigating to the folder within MC, once read the effect applies).
So, to see the correct tags on the other machines a all new fresh import is required.
No dealbreaker, glad to know my changes are written correctly after all.