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[Mastiff]

I have made my system totally without tags (several reasons, mainly backup), but I have a problem: Sometimes When I have played a track, it will suddenly change the name to "Tracknumber - Name". Any idea why this is?

[KingSparta]

Any idea why this is?

No

[Mastiff]

At least you're honest...

[KingSparta]

I think i have another music program that does do that however

[Mastiff]

Well, that's not the case here. I'm not unfaithful to MC! I have even removed the shortcuts to WMP!

[KingSparta]

I'm not unfaithful to MC

Listening to: 'It Wasn't Me' from 'Hot Shot' by 'Shaggy' on Media Center 12 (A Version Yet To Be Announced By JRiver)

[hit_ny]

I have made my system totally without tags (several reasons, mainly backup), but I have a problem: Sometimes When I have played a track, it will suddenly change the name to "Tracknumber - Name". Any idea why this is?

Sounds unusal, like rename from Properties got triggered.

[Mastiff]

No, no, I may have been unclear. It's the field name in the library that changes, not the actual filename.

[KingSparta]

It's the field name in the library that changes

Sounds Like Your Database May Have Something Wrong In It.

So In this case as i told you months Ago "Don't Do It" but no, don't listen to KS.

I thrown my body on the concertina wire so you could breach the strong hold of the beach only for you to be pushed back into the ocean. Now we watch your body float upon the glimmering water as we watch you drift out to sea to a deeper abyss.

[hit_ny]

I've been running with no tag updates to the files for a few months now and survived 3 lib corruptions to date tho did not deal with this particular prob as yet.

If tags are being replaced...then my suspicion is as follows.

The file has been modified in some way by an external app and MC thinks it must re-read the file tags again, i'm not sure if its file size difference that triggers the re-readt, or something else (Matt (?)). If you find the answer to this part you have solved the problem.

Any chance you open a media file in an app that then saved some tag info back. This possibilty can be discounted if your media is stored on a read-only parition.

I have noticed this happening when i replace an inferior quality rip with a better one, but want to retain all the tag info since its only the physical file i'm changing.

So in this case i substitute in the better files with the same filenames as previous and MC does not think anything has happened. But if i do a Locate->Inside MC for the album, MC will re-read the tags and substitute in any that are in the new better ripped file.

To prevent this happening, i tell MC to look at the tags via update library from tags, it does the replacement, then i copy back the fields one at a time, from backup fields of the same name.

So i have Artist (B), Album (B), Name (B), Track# (B), Date (year) (B) & Genre (B) for backup tags. I mention only these tags as they are basic tags that are filled by default hen i rip anything.

The actual fields are copied over to their corresponding (B) counterpart
-  then u replace the older files
- then update from tags
- finally re-copy from (B) back to the original fields.

After this, you can do a locate inside MC and MC will not modify the tags anymore, that is until it detects a file size change which should not happen since i'm not saving any changes to tags at all and no other apps are allowed to  save tags to the file.

[Mastiff]

King, I'll have a snappy comeback to that when I have done a few experiments over the weekend or early next week.

hit_ny, no chance. I haven't touched those files with anything except MC, and that's pure playback. I even use sfv to check them every now and then, and they haven't changed.

[KingSparta]

King, I'll have a snappy comeback to that

All Joking aside i wish the best for you

[Alex B]

I suppose the new tag is exactly the filename (= the default when you import tagless files to MC). It seems that something triggers MC to read the tag from file and since no tag is available MC uses the default system. Personally, I have not found that happening automatically with my tagless wav, avi, mpg, rm, doc, txt, pdf, png, tif etc files, but if I update them from tags MC replaces library data with info that is generated from the filename.

[runemail]

The subject of tag nudity is intriguing.

Im going that way with the next big upgrade to my library(upgrading my server and installing MC12).

Some usefull links/tips&tricks for someone about to go nude?

What happens when you sync to portable players, is the coverart etc. inserted?

[hit_ny]

The subject of tag nudity is intriguing.

Going taqless

..not exactly in my case, since i always rip with basic tags, but once that's done no tag updates are allowed.

You can read more here

[dlone]

Could it be possible that when MC is trying to read the tags the file is locked by an AV product making it to use a default value  ?
Probably not, but try excluding the file type from and AV program and see if it still happens

[hit_ny]

I only save artist, track number, track name and album name to the files. The rest is purely in the library. I tried to work without anything saved to the files, but it turned out that the track names could change to incorporate the track number as well, so I had to save some data to the files. Oh well, can't win 'em all.

I take it you have not solved this problem yet.

Is there a bug here ?, have not seen it to date. Still continue to beleive its possible to use MC's Library without having to save *any* tag updates to files.

Any time there is a filesystem change to any of the files (rare), i run an Update Libray from tags. I have backup fields before i do the change and then copy these over after running the update. Otherwise, the tags will change when you do a Locate->Inside media center.

The only time i can say i saw this happen is when i had a system crash, sound got locked up and i had to reboot. During the login screen i saw that XP had problems with some of the library files and renamed then. Most likely MC was writing to the library when system crashed. This is generally a red flag and i never trust the library that boots up, always restore from previous  backup.

System booted up, did my cursory library checks, all files in place etc. Then i did a Locate->Inside media center and noticed that the file tags had reverted back for some albums. At this point i restored from a previous library backup and all has been good since.

[Mastiff]

I haven't solved it, but then I haven't tried to run MC12 without any info in the files. Maybe worth a shot? Of course it means a full backup of everything and a new testing period. Still, I may try that.

[hit_ny]

it turned out that the track names could change to incorporate the track number as well

Assuming you are saying that the [Name] field of tracks is getting changed (presumably) back to its original [Name] field.

Not sure i understand what you mean when you say "incorporate the track number"

[name] = current name

becomes

[name] = original name

if you update (within MC) the Track# ?

I assume that you have update file when track info changes (unchecked) in Options->General and the Store file in tags unchecked for all Fields.

One sure way i know of to get the tags to revert back to original tags is to actually change the content of the files, but keeping filenames the same, which seems to imply that tag updates depend on a filesize change.

it does not happen if you *only* change filenames or the directory names they are in. Now if you change filenames or dir names outside MC, then they will be considered missing, but if you correct these later within MC, all should be good. So file modified date is not necessarily a trigger if there is a mismatch between  the date (of the file) and the one stored in MC for that file, provided you fix filename inside MC.

[Mastiff]

No. [Name] becomes a fusion of [Name] - [Track #]. And this happens without any changes to the files what so ever, simply by playing them. I'm not even sure if it happens to all files. And this is within the MC library, when I don't store anything at all in the files (no tags, no covers no nothing). 

[Alex B]

No. [Name] becomes a fusion of [Name] - [Track #]. And this happens without any changes to the files what so ever, simply by playing them. I'm not even sure if it happens to all files. And this is within the MC library, when I don't store anything at all in the files (no tags, no covers no nothing). 

So what is your filename rule? Is the following correct?

I suppose the new tag is exactly the filename (= the default when you import tagless files to MC). It seems that something triggers MC to read the tag from file and since no tag is available MC uses the default system. Personally, I have not found that happening automatically with my tagless wav, avi, mpg, rm, doc, txt, pdf, png, tif etc files, but if I update them from tags MC replaces library data with info that is generated from the filename.

[Mastiff]

Yeah, you're right. Filenames are in the format 01 - The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner.mp3 (Choosing an Iron Maiden track to demonstrate obviously has nothing  to do with me going to their concert in Oslo tomorrow - fourth or fifth time I see them in 25 years! )

[hit_ny]

Right so Alex does not see any automatic tag updates with tagless media, unless update library from tags is explicitly called. Neither have i as described above.

I'm beginning to think there may be a library corruption some where. But reading what you said in the past, you are very careful with those sort of thing. Only way to know for sure is if you can re-produce this (consistantly) with a test library.