Why is iTunes renaming my music?

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Why is iTunes renaming my music?

I noticed tonight that iTunes is selectively renaming my music. I listen to a lot of soundtracks, and I'm pretty anal about how I have them named. They're all named similarly, with identical formatting, and for some reason, iTunes picks and chooses certain albums to revert to how they were originally, or to change altogether. Some of my music is from the store, but a large majority of it is Amazon/Google and rips from the last decade, so a lot of it I've ruled out as the store overriding it.

For example: I have the Harry Potter album name as: "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)". Today I found it as "Harry Potter & The P". No idea why, had to manually change it back.

I also have the Incredible. "The Incredibles (An Original Walt Disney Records Soundtrack)" and it renamed it to "The Incredibles - OST". But, it only renamed 2 of the tracks to that album title. The rest of the tracks stayed as I had named them.

One that I can't figure out how to keep is Fringe. I bought it from the iTunes store, and I named it: "Fringe: Season 3 (Original Television Soundtrack)" and iTunes continually reverts it to the store's format of "Fringe - Season 3 (Original Television Soundtrack)". Would the store be reverting that itself for some reason? Or is it a victim of whatever is doing it to the rest of my stuff?

I can't figure this out, and it's seriously driving me nuts. I have some OCD about file organization and this is hitting all the right buttons. I first thought that maybe another program could be doing it, but I can't find any information on that either. I use Spotify to play local files sometimes, and Last.FM to scrobble.

Any help will be greatly appreciated! I'm updated to the current version, 11.3.1.2, on Windows 7.

Posted on Aug 27, 2014 12:37 AM

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Answer 1

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turingtest2

Level 10

272,871 points

Aug 27, 2014 1:58 AM in response to greycobalt

Go to iTunes > Preferences > Store and turn off

Show iTunes in the Cloud purchases
Share details about your library with Apple

On any iOS device go to Settings > Music and turn off

Show All Music

Close and reopen iTunes and/or reset the device and you should see your version of the metadata for each track rather than the original store data.

tt2

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Answer 2

greycobalt Author

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Aug 27, 2014 2:06 AM in response to turingtest2

Thanks! I had turned off the sharing option earlier, but I just went and turned off the Cloud one as well. I don't know if they reverted or not, as I already spent most of the night fixing it manually. 😝 I do appreciate the response though! Hopefully it'll stop happening now.

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Answer 3

greycobalt Author

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Dec 17, 2014 12:13 AM in response to turingtest2

Me again! I was hoping you'd be able to help once more. I turned on my cloud purchases to download music and see my movies, and it's happening all over again! Is there any way for it to not do this while I have the cloud turned on? Or do I have to be completely severed from the iTunes service? Also, while turning off the cloud did stop any future renames, it didn't reset after I reloaded iTunes, I had to do it myself manually. A very, VERY irritating problem. 😟

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Answer 4

turingtest2

Level 10

272,871 points

Dec 17, 2014 1:43 AM in response to greycobalt

Download all of your purchases to your computer.

Turn off iTunes in the cloud.

Use my script UpdateTagInfo to refresh the data.

Enable automatic download of new purchases or use the iTunes Store > Quick Links > Purchased route to access them.

tt2

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Answer 5

greycobalt Author

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Dec 17, 2014 2:18 AM in response to turingtest2

I did that in the meantime, as it's helped stem the flow of renamed tracks!

The reason I keep cloud purchases viewable but not downloaded is because of movies. I have a ton of movies in my cloud, but nowhere near the space I need to keep them all downloaded. Without seeing the cloud, it's just a blank slot. I'm hoping there's some way around this.

Unfortunately, the main reason I use iTunes is to organize my music, so would updating the tag info with your script revert it to what it had? Hasn't iTunes already overwrote that? I'm honestly not sure how the whole thing works, so I appreciate your help. Once I have the tags listed as I want them, is there a program other than iTunes I can/should use to force those tags into the file, so iTunes can't keep reverting them?

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Answer 6

turingtest2

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272,871 points

Dec 17, 2014 2:27 AM in response to greycobalt

I think what is happening here (when iTunes in the cloud is active) is that iTunes is reading the metadata from the store for your purchase history, and then matching that up with the files on your computer to show what is, and is not, in the cloud. But it uses the store version of the metadata instead of what is in the track. When you play the track it spots the difference and then any changes you'd made in the past show up again. If you made those changes to fix iTunes sorting & grouping issues then things will tend to break up/shift as that data changes.

iTunes in the cloud gives you access to qualifying past purchases from the store for as long as that content remains in the store. The rights holders may withdraw content without notice at any time. Disney did this a few months ago for certain titles. You shouldn't rely on that feature. Get a big drive large enough to hold all of your content, and a second drive for backup.

tt2

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Answer 7

greycobalt Author

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8 points

Dec 17, 2014 2:31 AM in response to turingtest2

That's my plan! I have the Blu Rays for everything I have in the store, but I like having the option of digital/physical whenever I please as well.

I definitely see how your theory is possible, but what about stuff that I didn't buy from iTunes? I've ripped all my Disney soundtracks from when I was a kid, and Hercules keeps resetting to a really nonsensical layout. I also bought the soundtracks to Fringe from Amazon and imported them into iTunes, and it keeps altering those as well. In both cases, what it's altering the files to IS NOT what the songs appear as in the iTunes store if you were to browse to their page. That's where most of my confusion comes from, where it's pulling this stuff from.

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Answer 8

turingtest2

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272,871 points

Dec 17, 2014 2:41 AM in response to greycobalt

Another potential cause of unwanted background changes is Windows Media Player. See Getting iTunes & Windows Media Player to play nicely for details.

There is also a potential issue with mp3 files where a file has multiple embedded tags. iTunes can update one, but then later read back unchanged data from another. Using the context menu Convert ID3 Tags > None several times followed by Convert ID3 Tags > v2.3 can fix this but it wipes out any embedded artwork. If tracks are in sensible album folders using my script CreateFolderArt before and after converting the tags will backup and then restore the artwork.

tt2

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Answer 9

greycobalt Author

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Dec 17, 2014 2:44 AM in response to turingtest2

I may have to try that after I've had a good night's sleep. 😉 Are the tags the reason my albums show artwork, but if I use "get info" on them, the artwork comes up as blank? On things I specifically know I've put artwork on, it shows nothing listed, yet still displays it on album view. I know these sound nit-picky, but I'm totally OCD when it comes my organization! This has been driving me nuts for a while.

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Answer 10

turingtest2

Level 10

272,871 points

Dec 17, 2014 3:20 AM in response to greycobalt

iTunes will show artwork for an album if at least one track has artwork associated with it. Artwork can be embedded in the tag if available (not for .wav files) or downloaded from the store and associated with the album. The multi-track get info dialog is bad at showing artwork, even when all tracks are from the same album. The single track version should show any art attached to the track on the artwork tab.

tt2

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Answer 11

greycobalt Author

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Dec 22, 2014 4:10 AM in response to turingtest2

Thanks! I've been tooling around after you've helped me a bit, and reading some of your posts to others for help. I just tried out removing the ID3 tags, with the plan to convert to 2.3 after I had done so. Unfortunately, setting it to "none" removed all my library changes, and they didn't come back when I converted to 2.3. Luckily I backed my library up before so I just did a quick restore.

Is there no way (or program) that will take all my current edits, place them into the files as a tag, and remove all old tags? Seems to me like that would have come up before for some people, and it's exactly what I need. I would lose my mind if I had to rename and reorganize my entire library, haha. 😟

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Answer 12

turingtest2

Level 10

272,871 points

Dec 22, 2014 5:20 AM in response to greycobalt

Without knowing exactly what tags are attached to the files at present it is hard to be sure what the best approach might be. The cleaning tags process I've described has certainly worked for me in the past, but there are other tools such Mp3tag or MediaMonkey that can be used to selectively erase either the ID3v1.x or ID3v2.x tag. I've also got a script called ExportImport that can be used to export selected details from the library, and then reimport them later. You might be able to use it to preserve the details that are currently getting changed.

tt2

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Answer 13

greycobalt Author

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8 points

Dec 22, 2014 10:48 PM in response to turingtest2

For your scripts, what's the best way to use them? I've got 60GB of music, so I assume it would take quite a while for them to work. I didn't notice any kind of progress bar or anything, so I wasn't sure where it was in the process. A lot of them look insanely useful though!

I suppose I can try a third party one, and experiment on a single album to see if it wrecks my library or not. I really wish there was SOMETHING I could just tell to tag my library, as is, right now, removing all others. I guess common sense to one person is crazy to another though, eh?

Regardless, thank you for your patience and putting up with my constant questions. It's very much appreciated!

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Answer 14

turingtest2

Level 10

272,871 points

Dec 23, 2014 2:43 AM in response to greycobalt

The progress bar only works if you can disable a setting called EnableLUA. Details on the scripts page. You would want to test with a sample album or two to start with. You'd also want to limit the exercise to mp3 files. If iTunes is resetting store values on your purchases that is a different issue.

tt2

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