Artist info missing

[creative-2008]

Started using Winamp for Android this week and have made in-app purchases for the Pro version as well as the Album Washer that gets the album art and updates the Metadata.

I have copied all of the CDs I own onto my laptop in M4A (AAC) format using the latest version of iTunes. I am now using the wireless sync option in Winamp 5.63 (for Windows) to move my music across to my Samsung Galaxy W mobile phone.

I have found that for some albums that artist info does not show up in Winamp on my phone, which is making it confusing to navigate. Some albums are fine though. This is the first issue.

Secondly, some of the albums that showed up the 'artist info' when they copied were missing the album art. So I used the option to connect to Gracenote to update the meta data and retrieve the album art. The album art was fine, but suddenly the artist information disappeared!

I have no clue what's causing it and have been trying various things to figure it out/correct it.

Has anybody else experience this problem? Any ideas for a solution? If anybody needs any more information just let me know.

[MrSinatra]

i am NOT saying this is the cause, just that it might be:

http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?t=346981

read that and the thread it links to at mp3tag.

[creative-2008]

It sounds plausible that it's the same type of thing. I had a problem before when I ripped CDs using WMP and then used WMP to sync to my Creative Zen V+ mp3 player. WMP was putting the artist in the 'artist' field, and the Zen mp3 player was trying to read the 'album artist' field.

If this is the case what I can't understand is why the Album Washer plug-in that is offered as an in-app purchase with WinAmp for Android is updating fields that aren't compatible with Winamp for Android!?

[creative-2008]

Further to the two problems I've already mentioned.

When WinAmp syncs to my phone it puts the files in the Android's internal memory. If I move the files to the external microSD card, then the artist info again disappears.

[MrSinatra]

i can't speak to that, but winamp has been known to do such things. (and so far i only use the free stuff) but did u read the mp3tag thread? i would try to delete any "extra" tag first, if they are in fact present. it worked for me.

i would also suggest getting tags straight on the computer before xfer. if done to standard, they should persist even thru xfers.

[creative-2008]

I did read it, but parts went over my head. I'll have another, more in depth read now.

All of the songs were ripped from CD to iTunes where the tags show up correctly. So I would assume that all of the meta data was correct before the transfer, however if I use the Album Washer to retrieve the artwork then I'm losing the artist info.

I'll read that thread again now and see what happens.

Cheers.

[creative-2008]

I've read that really carefully now, and *think* that I have the jist of it.

iTunes creates a set of tags that it can read and edit fine. Other apps are able to read these correctly, but unable to write to them to edit them. Therefore when an app tries to amend the tags instead of the existing tags being amended a duplicate set of tags are created? Winamp for Android is then reading the new set of tags.

Am I reading that correctly?

[MrSinatra]

almost. it seems there are two tag standards for mp4, itunes and a nero one.

itunes is by far the more universal. the problem is that a file can have both the itunes one and the nero one at the same time, and its very hard to know if they do.

the best thing to do then in such a case, is to try to delete the nero one altogether while keeping the data intact on the itunes tag.

dano said if you delete all the "totaldisc" values, then it will delete the nero tag. this worked for me. (the caveat is it wrote the nero values to the itunes values but i manually fixed that afterwards)

however, this may not be your problem at all to begin with. i would load your files into mp3tag 2.52 and see if any files have any "totaldisc" values to begin with. if not, then this is likely not your issue.

[creative-2008]

Okay, I'm downloading mp3 Tag now.

I'll see what it says. It could explain the errors caused by Album Washer.

[MrSinatra]

you'll probably need to create a "totaldiscs" column in mp3tag, but its not that hard to do. and after you get the mp4 tags straight, highlight them all, right click, and do mp3tags "optimize mp4 tags" function.

[creative-2008]

I've copied one of the affected m4a files from my phone back onto my laptop and opened it in mp3tag. I've attached a screenshot.

I've just this minute noticed that to the right of total tracks (when I scroll across) it has the value 13. Does this confirm your suspicion?

I've to fly out the door now. Might not be back infront my laptop until Sunday night. I will be back on this thread then though.

Cheers for your help buddy.

[MrSinatra]

not total tracks, totaldiscs, which i see IS there.

that would seem to suggest the presence of nero tags. make a column for totaldiscs, you need that first.

EDIT:

this all begs the question of if album washer is adding the nero type tags...?

[creative-2008]

My suspicion is that it is. I will recheck a new, separate file before and after on Sunday.

[creative-2008]

Right, I've removed all of the music from my phone (internal memory and SD card), deleted and reinstalled Winamp.

Then I've opened a music file (created by iTunes) in Mp3tag three times.

1) Before it has been sent to my phone.

2) Straight after it has been sent to my phone.

3) After it has been album washed.

I've attached the first two screenshots, but can't get the third attached, so will put it in my next post.

After the track has been 'album washed' the tags clearly change. However, the 'total discs' is present before and after. The track I chose was from a two disc box set. Maybe a bad choice in hindsight?

What is clear though is that Album Washer is changing the types of tags stored. I can do the same again with another track that is not part of a box set if that makes it clearer?

[creative-2008]

Final image, showing the track once it has been 'album washed.'

Edit: I've created a 'totaldiscs' column and have imported all of my iTunes library into Mp3tag. Every album, bar one, has a value between 1 and 3 in the totaldiscs column. The solitary album that contains no information is the only album that was ripped with WMP and then imported into iTunes, rather than being ripped by iTunes from CD.

I'm not sure where that leaves us.

[MrSinatra]

well, i am confused by this, but thats mostly b/c i don't know mp4 well and i've taken what Dano says as gospel. Dano made it sound like "TotalDiscs" were only on Nero made tags, and removing the field would remove the nero tag. if the files you made were made by ripping a CD with itunes, then i can't explain whats going on.

i would expect album washer to change the tags, so thats not a surprise.

regardless, the problems occur on the phone only after album washer operates on it, yes?

just as an experiment, use mp3tag on those album washed files to remove the TotalDiscs field and lets see what happens, if that fixes it, no change, whatever...

[creative-2008]

The problems with the artist not showing up appear to happen in three ways

1) When the tracks have been copied wirelessly using WinAmp, and are put through album washer

2) If they have been copied wirelessly using Winamp, and are then moved from the device's internal memory to the SD card using the stock android file browser

3) If they are copied to the Android phone (internal memory or SD card) via a USB cable and using Windows Explorer


I wonder if it is less to do with the tags or extended tags, and if there is a hidden database that Winamp creates when it wirelessly syncs the tracks. Then somehow the relationship between the M4A file and the record in the database is broken when it is album washed, or has its location changed.



In terms of removing the totaldiscs field, is this the right way to go about it. Connect the phone via USB, open the track with Mp3tag, right click on the track, extended tags, highlight the totaldiscs entry and hit the delete button?

[MrSinatra]

first, have a look at this thread again, i asked Dano about it:

http://forums.mp3tag.de/index.php?showtopic=16124

Originally Posted by creative-2008

The problems with the artist not showing up appear to happen in three ways

1) When the tracks have been copied wirelessly using WinAmp, and are put through album washer

lets take them one at time, as each "way" could have its own separate and distinct reason.

this one is the most interesting to me, b/c if you copy wirelessly i assume that means you are using winamp to sync the songs from pc to phone. they then work properly, but no longer do AFTER album washer. to me, thats a serious problem that winamp should want to fix asap. examination of the files before and after album washer may show why this is happening.

Originally Posted by creative-2008

2) If they have been copied wirelessly using Winamp, and are then moved from the device's internal memory to the SD card using the stock android file browser

i don't know much about this, but i have seen other numerous threads about internal vs sd card, moving files around, etc... i'd be willing to guess its buggy and not officially supported. search the winamp android forum for more info on this.

Originally Posted by creative-2008

3) If they are copied to the Android phone (internal memory or SD card) via a USB cable and using Windows Explorer

basically same answer. probably buggy and probably not officially supported.

and in fact, your phone uses ICS 4.0, right? thats not officially supported either.

Originally Posted by creative-2008

I wonder if it is less to do with the tags or extended tags, and if there is a hidden database that Winamp creates when it wirelessly syncs the tracks. Then somehow the relationship between the M4A file and the record in the database is broken when it is album washed, or has its location changed.

good guesses, worth investigating.

Originally Posted by creative-2008

In terms of removing the totaldiscs field, is this the right way to go about it. Connect the phone via USB, open the track with Mp3tag, right click on the track, extended tags, highlight the totaldiscs entry and hit the delete button?

well, thats one way to do it. to be honest, Dano's replies confuse the hell out of me, so i'm not sure what he's talking about, but the way i manage my collection, is i always delete ANY reference to ANY discnumber or totaldiscs tag, b/c i don't need them since i put the cd# in the album tag.

so what i do, is i scan in my files in mp3tag, sort the column totaldiscs (for instance), highlight all that have an entry, and then use the "tag panel" to "blank" the value. you need to customize the tag panel, not hard to do.

i realize my answers here aren't much help, but its basically going to take your own observations of before/after compare/contrast to figure this out. and frustratingly, the problem in your case may be due to ICS, which may mean there isn't a quick fix.

here are some links to relevant issues:

http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?t=328490

http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?t=327036

and you can find more on sd/internal issues.

when winamp first put out the app, i noticed problems in wifi vs USB, as seen here:

http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?t=331309

[creative-2008]

My phone is running Android 2.3, which is the latest update for my device. So it's not an ICS issue.

I downloaded a seperate app (I forget the name as I write) that lets you sync 20 songs wirelessly as a trial. This syncs them to the SD card, with all of the artist info etc, and the album art! I'm tempted to give up on Winamp and purchase this, but after having spent £5 on Winamp I don't really want to spend £5 on another app in case there are problems down the line. (The app gets some negative reviews saying that album art gets muddled from one album to another).

In contrast to this experience I went shopping for a new car stereo during the week. I'm after one with USB and to test them out I copied some of the folders created by iTunes onto my USB stick. I plugged it into a Sony unit (not a particuarly expensive one), and it recognised the artist/track name/album without any problems. So simple and seamless. If only the Androids worked as simply as that.

On a second note, it's clear from my experience with this other app that Android apps are capable of syncing iTunes music wirelessly to the SD card successfully. If only Winamp had these capabilities.

I'm going to run a few more of my own tests to try and get to the bottom of the Winamp issue. If that doesn't work I'm simply going to give up on it. I've already wasted a decent amount of time, and been very frustrated with it.

Thanks for your help MrSinatra. I'll post the results of my own little tests at some point over the weekend.

[MrSinatra]

i hope you keep working on it. i'd also suggest that it might be an idea to not use album washer, and instead do this:

arrange your music on your HD as ..\artist\album\files.mp3

put a Folder.jpg in each album folder.

get the tags straight first on the HD. mp3tag is great for that.

i have android 2.3 as well, and after i configured things to my liking, both the usb and wifi sync worked fine, and the art, tag info, etc. all was there.

i can't recall tho if i was using internal or SD card memory tho... i seem to think that maybe that was something i determined not via winamp, but via the droid? i dunno...

this all shouldn't be that hard though, and album washer def should not be making things worse!

[creative-2008]

Were you using M4A (AAC) files that had been ripped with iTunes though? As far as I'm concerned the tags are correct and I don't really want to alter them with Mp3Tag.

My music is in the "artist/album/track.m4a" format as you suggest. However if I do a folder copy to the Android it doesn't know who the artist of the track is.

[MrSinatra]

Originally Posted by creative-2008

Were you using M4A (AAC) files that had been ripped with iTunes though? As far as I'm concerned the tags are correct and I don't really want to alter them with Mp3Tag.

My music is in the "artist/album/track.m4a" format as you suggest. However if I do a folder copy to the Android it doesn't know who the artist of the track is.

i only have a handful of m4a files and i don't think i put any on my phone, and i don't have album washer.

but what i am suggesting is that if you are using album washer, you must not be happy with the files tags/art. you should be able to get them straight on the HD, before you send them to the phone, and ergo not need album washer.

also, as i mentioned, i think only syncing is supported, i have seen others report issues about trying to bypass sync and copy files/folders directly.