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[sluizer]

I am using version 15.0.174 under XP.

I frequently am seeing the following: I add a new audio track to MC and put in a comment. The comment may be long or short. Later, after having ended MC and started it up again, when I look at the comment, some of it has disappeared. Sometimes the comment has been chopped off in the middle of a word, sometimes it is at the end of a word, sometimes a weird character has been added in place of the part that is missing. (When displayed in MC, the weird character shows up as a square, but when I go to "rename" the comment it shows up as a ?.)

This is not only annoying, it means that information that is important to me -- that I have saved for a reason -- is disappearing. I thought that it was unlikely that I am the only person to whom this has happened, but when I searched, I couldn't find anything else.

[Lasse_Lus]

different lines

[sluizer]

different lines

I don't think so. At first I thought that was the problem. So I carefully entered comments not pressing the <enter> key. The problem still happened. In addition, the comment is absolutely fine initially. I can read the entire thing. It's only after I leave the program and re-enter it that weird things happen. In addition, when I am entering a comment and press the enter key, the "rename" functionality ends. If there is a way to get an "enter" into a comment, I haven't figured out how to do it by typing. Finally, I also have these tracks in iTunes. The comments are perfectly fine there, but not in MC.

[Lasse_Lus]

you can check the "comment data" by export the file to .mpl and open in editor..then you see

you calso copy directly to an texteditor to see if there are any CR's

[sluizer]

you can check the "comment data" by export the file to .mpl and open in editor..then you see

you calso copy directly to an texteditor to see if there are any CR's

OK, I just exported a bunch of these tracks to an .mpl file. There were no CRs in the comments. Absolutely none.

Also, if I was entering a CR by mistake, it wouldn't be in the middle of a word.

[sluizer]

OK, I just exported a bunch of these tracks to an .mpl file. There were no CRs in the comments. Absolutely none.

Also, if I was entering a CR by mistake, it wouldn't be in the middle of a word.

I just looked at the .mpl file with emacs. There are control characters in some of the comments, including ^A, ^B, ^D, ^E, ^F, ^G and ^H. When a control character is in the comment, it is the last character of the comment. I can assure you that I am not typing control characters in my comments. In order to do that, I have to hold down the control key and I do not do that when I am typing text.

When I look at an exported playlist file from iTunes that has the same tracks, those characters are not there.

[Alex B]

Could you post an example comment that does not work?

MC does not support multi-line values in the default Comment field if that is what you want to have. Only the fields that have "Edit Type" set to "Large Value" can store line breaks.

Attached:
- A screenshot of the Comment field settings (a default, locked library field)
- A screenshot of my Comment 2 field settings (a custom aka user library field)

Log in to the forum if you can't see the attachments.

[Lasse_Lus]

MC does not support multi-line values in the default Comment field if that is what you want to have. Only the fields that have "Edit Type" set to "Large Value" can store line breaks.

nope, "large value" only gives you a larger place to edit the text and no lookup function otherwise there are no difference ..

[Alex B]

At least it is impossible to edit and display a multi-line value. (Perhaps a track info visualization can display it.)

EDIT

Apparently a multi-line can be seen in the tooltip.

[sluizer]

Could you post an example comment that does not work?

MC does not support multi-line values in the default Comment field if that is what you want to have. Only the fields that have "Edit Type" set to "Large Value" can store line breaks (shift+enter when typing directly in the field).

Attached:
- A screenshot of the Comment field settings (a default, locked library field)
- A screenshot of my Comment 2 field settings (a custom aka user library field)

Log in to the forum if you can't see the attachments.

I don't know what you mean by "an example comment that does not work". All of the comments originally were fine after I entered them in MC. None of them were multi-line. In fact, none of my comments are multi-line; I use semi-colons to separate different parts of the comment.

Here is one example comment. It was entered in MC and was fine after being entered. I know that because I almost always hover the mouse over the comment after entering it, in order to check it. In addition, this is the form that the comment currently shows up in when I look at it in iTunes:
     0:06 clapping extro; originally from 1976, recorded for Chicago's WXRT Sunday Night Unconcert series

Then, after exiting MC and starting it up again some number of times (I can't be sure how many), here is the comment as it shows up in MC today. The * represents a square, which I can't type:
     0:06 clapping extro; original*

Here is what is showing up in the .mpl file, where ^D represents control-D:
     0:06 clapping extro; original^D

[Alex B]

0:06 clapping extro; originally from 1976, recorded for Chicago's WXRT Sunday Night Unconcert series

- is what wanted to see. It works for me (but I didn't try iTunes).

Is the file format MP3?

I think iTunes may add some of its own metadata and possibly change the tag format. If you have Auto-Import enabled MC may detect the change and reread tags. If the changed format is not fully compatible (for some odd reason) something like you described may happen.

[sluizer]

- is what wanted to see. It works for me (but I didn't try iTunes).

Is the file format MP3?

I think iTunes may add some of its own metadata and possibly change the tag format. If you have Auto-Import enabled MC may detect the change and reread tags. If the changed format is not fully compatible (for some odd reason) something like you described may happen.

The file format is MP3.

I don't think that I have auto-import enabled, but I am not sure how to check this. I looked at the documentation, but it wasn't helpful because it didn't indicate where I could go to check.

[Alex B]

The setting is "Options > Library & Folders > Auto-Import > Configure Auto-Import... > Tasks > Update for external changes".

It will reread the file tags if the file date has changed. It works when Auto-Import is set to run in background and also when Auto-Import is started manually.

However, it would be good to find out if the problem is really caused by external tag changes (iTunes?).

It might help if you could create two small test file sets. Use one set strictly only with MC and the other set with MC, iTunes and other programs you normally use. Depending on the results the JRiver developers may want to have sample files for analysis (if the files actually go "bad" outside MC).

[sluizer]

The setting is "Options > Library & Folders > Auto-Import > Configure Auto-Import... > Tasks > Update for external changes".

It will reread the file tags if the file date has changed. It works when Auto-Import is set to run in background and also when Auto-Import is started manually.

However, it would be good to find out if the problem is really caused by external tag changes (iTunes?).

It might help if you could create two small test file sets. Use one set strictly only with MC and the other set with MC, iTunes and other programs you normally use. Depending on the results the JRiver developers may want to have sample files for analysis (if the files actually go "bad" outside MC).

I have just checked and "update for external changes" is checked. Thanks.

[rick.ca]

I see exactly the same result in [Comment] for some tracks, but I have no idea when or how this happened. I do not use iTunes. Prior to switching to MC, I save various bits of album information in the field (i.e., the same data was recorded for every track of the album) for compilation albums. Soon after, I copied most of this information to several other fields, but did not delete it from [Comment]. I've noticed the truncation before, but didn't pay much attention because the data lost was redundant. Some observations and deductions...

• Because I copied the data to other fields at some point, I'm reasonably sure the corruption did not exist prior to using MC.
  
  
• 17% of my albums with comments are affected. Most are MP3. Some are FLAC, but those are re-rips which have had the original tags written back to them. I otherwise have no album comments written to FLAC files.
  
  
• Sometimes all of the tracks in an album are affected, sometimes it's all but a few, most often it's "most" (e.g., 2/3).
  
  
• The comment is consistently truncated at 29 characters. It most often ends with a control code (i.e., the 30th character), but sometimes not. The length would seem to suggest this has something to do with the ID3v1 Comment field being written to the ID3v2.3 COMM field.
  
  
• I import playlists created by TrackYearLookup plugin to set [Year] for compilation albums. I don't know why it would impact [Comment] but I've tested the current version and find it does not. I don't see any indication or pattern that would suggest earlier versions of this plugin were involved.
  
  
• I use the Foobar2000 Lyrics Grabber plugin to write lyrics to tags. I see no indication this is the cause either.

[sluizer]

I have stopped using iTunes and I am getting more of these truncated comments than I ever did before. So clearly the problem is NOT iTunes. It is occurring in tracks that I have just added to the database and are not in iTunes.

This problem is unbelievably annoying: I use the comme nt field to put in information that is important to me and JRiver is destroying it. Since I don't have a copy, that information is then lost. This is absolutely horrible behavior for a database. After all, the purpose of a database is to store information and retrieve it when requested, NOT delete it wantonly.

Did you ever fix this problem?

[sluizer]

So, is there any way to retrieve this information from library backups? I regularly back up the library, but I have not figured out whether restoring the library will destroy the current version of the library.

I must say, that despite all the nice features in MC, I am very close to giving up on it and returning to using a program that does not destroy my information wantonly.

[rick.ca]

Having gone to the trouble to explain the problem, it is annoying that has apparently been ignored.

So, is there any way to retrieve this information from library backups? I regularly back up the library, but I have not figured out whether restoring the library will destroy the current version of the library.

Once you've created an up-to-date backup, there should be no concern about restoring from older backups. For such a long-standing problem, I would wonder what you might find in them, but it's worth a look. If you find data worth recovering, I suggest you copy it to a custom field configured to be saved in tags, then Update tags (from library). Restore your current backup, add the same field, and Update library (from tags). From there, consolidate whatever good comment data you have in the new field. I doubt the same problem will affect it, or we'd be hearing a lot more about it.

[sluizer]

Having gone to the trouble to explain the problem, it is annoying that has apparently been ignored.

Once you've created an up-to-date backup, there should be no concern about restoring from older backups. For such a long-standing problem, I would wonder what you might find in them, but it's worth a look. If you find data worth recovering, I suggest you copy it to a custom field configured to be saved in tags, then Update tags (from library). Restore your current backup, add the same field, and Update library (from tags). From there, consolidate whatever good comment data you have in the new field. I doubt the same problem will affect it, or we'd be hearing a lot more about it.

I totally agree with you about that. You certainly managed to figure out more about the problem than I ever did.

Thanks for the information about restoring from backups. I figure that if I go back to the date a new track was added, that's probably my best chance for retrieving the information. But it seems like this problem can pop up at any time (since tracks are modified when they are played or if you add new information), so restoring the information won't be a permanent fix.

This is a huge problem for me and I think that I'm just going to try and restore the information and then abandon MC. A database that constantly messes up is no good to me.

[rick.ca]

This is a huge problem for me and I think that I'm just going to try and restore the information and then abandon MC. A database that constantly messes up is no good to me.

Is there some reason you have to use [Comment] and rely on the file tag? It would be a shame to give up on the best available media manager simply because it requires the data to be stored in a different field.

[sluizer]

Is there some reason you have to use [Comment] and rely on the file tag? It would be a shame to give up on the best available media manager simply because it requires the data to be stored in a different field.

Frankly, if the problem is happening in Comment, I have absolutely no confidence that it isn't happening elsewhere. I've just noticed it in comments.

The best available media manager is one that is reliable and doesn't mess up its database. Right now, MC does not meet than criterion for me.

[JimH]

Before you accuse MC of causing problems with your tags, it would be nice if you can isolate the problem and give us instructions for reproducing it.  It's a serious charge, and it could be done by any software (including Windows).

I see that you're using MC15.  Please try MC16.  Even if there were a bug in 15, it won't be fixed now.

[sluizer]

Before you accuse MC of causing problems with your tags, it would be nice if you can isolate the problem and give us instructions for reproducing it.  It's a serious charge, and it could be done by any software (including Windows).

I see that you're using MC15.  Please try MC16.  Even if there were a bug in 15, it won't be fixed now.

It is not just me who is having the problems. I have been having them for a long time and reported them before 16 was released and nothing was done. Someone else in this thread has given you a ton of information about the problem and still you did nothing. I am not throwing good money after bad.