Does latest iTunes on Windows 10 still copy some unchanged files on every sync?

Yes! It seems to be the Work field!

Take a bow, tt2. I am very grateful for all the help you give our community!

I am currently testing with 18 'bad' or problem files and one good one - which doesn't always sync, unlike the bad ones.

Indeed, the Work column was empty only in the single good file and non-empty in all bad ones.

So, I deleted Work field data from one of the bad ones and now it is good!

Also, the Work field does appear to contain data that was originally in the Grouping field.

I have usually set edited the Grouping field on imported mp3 files, to contain the date of a recording, if known, or, if that info was unavailable, the date of release. However, sometimes, I have set the Grouping field using tag editors other than iTunes, such as mp3tag_s.exe which shows this ID3v2.3 field as TIT1 (Content group description) as per the ID3v2.3 spec., as I recall.

Furthermore, looking at my entire collection, I am tempted to simply erase all of the Work field data or to selectively copy and pasting 'Work' field data back into Grouping in iTunes, but that will be a lot of work. I'd like to understand a few things to prevent this from happening in the future.

Previously, I had deleted all ID3 tag data using mp3tag_s.exe. Then, since this didn't fix the problem, I concluded that it had nothing to do with ID3 tag data, which is why I resotred to re-encoding from mp3 to wav and back to mp3: not do delete tag data but to re-encode streams, which I assumed was causing the problem. However, it appears that maybe mp3tag never deleted all the ID3 tag data in fields like Work, that it couldn't recognize? I don't know.

How did my Grouping data get into the Work field? 

Does 'Work' correspond to a documented ID3v2.4 or ID3v.2.3 field?

In the past, when I manually edited Grouping field song info using iTunes, I was able to verify that iTunes wrote that data to the ID3 TIT1 field so it was never an issue what software I used to edit this tag - it always displayed in iTunes.

However, I was just recently reading something about iTunes writing ID3v2.4 tags instead of ID3v2.3. Is that true with iTunes 12.10.10? Has the default ID3 type changed over time? Maybe that is part of the problem...

Just now, I added some Grouping data to a mp3 file in iTunes with an ID3v2.3 tag that previously had no value in Grouping (as seen in iTunes) or in TIT1 (as seen in mp3tag_s.exe, however, now after inspected it in mp3tag editor, instead of showing the data in TIT1 ID3v2.3 field, it displays the message:

> Unkown frame type (GRP1)

So I deleted the text in iTunes and re-inspected and the "Unkown frame type" is gone.

I am trying to tread carefully here since some day, hopefully, I will be able to port my metadata to a better platform so I'm leery of mixing TIT1 with "Unknown frame type (GRP1)"

Incidentally, I looked at the other link you posted but I have no file permissions problems. 

Ok. So I put this into google:

allintext:(copy itunes Work TIT1 ID3 tag to Grouping GRP1)

I found discussion thread here that explains the history and what used to be a solution that was available in iTunes 12.5, which Apple took away now. See:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7666294?page=2

It used to be possible to access the Work field by checking "Use work and movement" in the song info. Not possible anymore.

Unfortunately, unlike many other ID3 tags, iTunes does not read TIT1 ('Work' tag) dynamically anymore.

Which explains why, even though I deleted it using dBpoweramp, iTunes never re-read the mp3 file data after import so there was no way except to edit song data by hand, song by song.

I have found a workaround though, going album by album, using dBpoweramp windows extension.

If you have another editor that can remove ID3v2.3 TIT1 frames that will work just as well.

In my case, I organize all of my songs by album, in separate folders for each album or CD.

0. Sort iTunes song view by Work column; select the first song, then change to sort by Album.

1. Inspect Work and Grouping columns side by side in iTunes and manually copy any data you want to keep from Work into Grouping. At least song info lets you paste Grouping data into multiple songs at once, saving some labor.

2. Locate the album songs in Windows Explorer. 

3. Select the entire album of songs with Work data that needs deleting, in iTunes, right click and Delete from Library.

4. In Windows explorer, select all of the mp3 files in the album or CD folder.

5. Right-click and select Properties, and then go to the Id-Tag tab that dBpoweramp provides.

6. Select the tag named 'Style' [that is what dBpoweramp calls the TIT1 tag and REMOVE it, then APPLY, which rewrites the tag, then close the Properties dialog. [Other tag editing software may use a different label for TIT1]

7. Now you can add these edited mp3 files back into iTunes library by dragging and dropping.

8. View the files in song view and you will find that the troublesome Work field is now empty!

9. Sync your device and enjoy!

For awhile I was trying to write some plugins for MediaMonkey that would help port Library.xml over to their platform so I got to know the ID3 spec but that was over a decade ago and memory fails. Thanks for the history - it helps.

To answer my own questions, after more testing.

iTunes 'Work' field   = ID3v2.3 TIT1 frame (Content Group Description) (aka 'Style' in dbPoweramp)

iTunes 'Grouping' field = ID3v2.3 GRP1 frame 

iTunes song info dialog does not expose access to Work field.

Therefore, you cannot select a group of files in iTunes and delete the Work field data in all of them.

The only way, in iTunes to delete Work field data is manually in song view, one song file at a time.

I tried deleting TIT1 frame using mp3tag but it still appears in iTunes Work column.

I tried tested the sync problem after deleting Work (TIT1) data to this 'bad' file.

RESULT: the file still copies redundantly during sync - it is still a 'bad' file eventhough TIT1 has been deleted.

It appears that this Work (TIT1) data, while deleted from the mp3 file is still in the iTunes database so it still causes sync problems.

SOLUTION: I manually delete Work column from iTunes. 

Now the bad file is good - no longer copies redundantly.

There has got to be a better way. 

To sum up, I think, in the past, iTunes must have displayed TIT1 data in Grouping field but now it goes directly into Work instead of Grouping. I have always relied on the Grouping field to sort songs by recorded date, chronologically in format YEAR.MO.DAY

I think somewhere along the line, Apple broke this Grouping -> TIT1 ID3 field mapping, or the stopped copying TIT1 data to GRP1 or something, which creates duplication and sync problems. No doubt there were some frustrated engineers who would have loved to fix all this but the marketing guys won out.

I couldn't give up on finding a better way to delete data in the Work field without having to remove and re-add songs from the Library.

Initially, I thought iTunes 12.10.10 no longer had the option of editing this field in Song info dialog but I was mistaken!

Since I never used this before, it is a little hard to notice but here it is:

Select the song in song view; select song info.

The trick is that if you have only selected a single song, the 'song' field has up/down arrows instead of the "use work and movement" check box that many users have referred to: you need to click on the up/down arrow to switch from displaying the song title to display the "work name" field - which then can be edited / deleted.

If you select multiple titles, then you will see the check box and clear all that nasty data with one blow!

At least I think this will work. It crashed iTunes and it's late so I'll try again tomorrow.

SEE ALSO:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251683855?answerId=253238016022#253238016022

turingtest2 wrote:

Annoyingly Apple haven't exposed the Work field to the Windows script engine so I cannot write a script the simple swaps the values around. I have one for Macs, well two now (iTunes & Music).

Hmm. Well, maybe I should port my library to iTunes Mac Mojave. Then I could use your scripts?

I'm already stuck with obsolete iTunes 12.10.10 on Windows 7 and I've got other software stuck on Mojave.

Is iTunes on Mojave any worse that Windows 7?