Q: Songs changing tags before my eyes as I play them, help!
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Aug 11, 2015 2:12 PMby Limnos,Without any backup you have very limited options. You can try rebuilding using a copy (this time) of a previous library folder, but there can be various reasons for tags changing including them being corrupt in the original files and then there is absolutely nothing you can do without a backup. Some more background on what you have done recently would help. Did iTunes just suddenly decide to do this today, or did you just not update until today? Also how severe are these changes? Is it just a few modifications you did changing back or are tracks taking on completely different identities? Also did you subscribe to Apple Music or match? (Yes, please answer my questions, you'd be surprised at the number of people who completely ignore it when we ask questions .)
ASC user turingtest2 help document: Empty/corrupt iTunes library after upgrade/crash - https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-6561
If you don't see your content after updating iTunes - https://support.apple.com/kb/HT203225
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Aug 12, 2015 8:33 AMby Garrett Bryant,THANK YOU for replying! I numbered your questions and will reply below
Limnos wrote:
(1) Did iTunes just suddenly decide to do this today, or did you just not update until today? (2) Also how severe are these changes? (3) Is it just a few modifications you did changing back or are tracks taking on completely different identities? (4) Also did you subscribe to Apple Music or match?
- I updated iTunes that day each time an update was available. The reason I am just now noticing this anomaly is because I listen to my library typically as top-down by most recently added ("sort by: Date Added") bc I am often listening to new things and also listen primarily on my iPhone. Thus when I went to listen to some old stuff this week on my MB Air I witnessed this mess.
- The changes are pretty dang severe. It's happening with a LOT of my music. I can't find the pattern to it at all. I have noticed what exactly changes, which is pretty much everything in the songs tags become the tags of an incorrect song by another artist, the file is then moved to that artist's folder and the file is renamed with the new and wrong info with a 1- before it, like "1-blahblahblah.mp3". The only thing that remains the same is the song itself and the cover art.
- I guess I kinda answered that above.
- I did subscribe to Match for a long while, but cancelled it several years ago.
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Aug 12, 2015 10:05 AMby Limnos,Does not sound good. Information for files is stored in two places. Most files have information in the file itself. When you add a file to iTunes the information is read from the file and iTunes uses it to generate its own listing in the library file. If you use a third party editor to edit the information in a file iTunes will re-read the file the next time you play it and update its database. If you edit the information in iTunes the information gets changed in the library file and also in the file itself. This is what I am concerned may be happening with your files unintentionally -- iTunes is using a corrupt library to re-write all the identification information to your files.
Try playing various files outside of iTunes, say with Quicktime player. Does the Quicktime information window show the wrong information? If it does then the alteration is pretty severe and cannot be repaired easily. It is the equivalent to a 4 year old not only removing all the labels from the cans in your pantry but also then sticking them back on the wrong cans. There is no way to undo it without listening to each song and re-labeling it from memory. This is why we make backups of everything on a computer we value.
I would back up your media files at this stage to at least to to limit the damage being done. If most of these are iTunes Store purchases you can always re-download your library with the correct data embedded in the files. If they are not you can try using a previous iTunes library to rebuild your library (links earlier), but this may not help those files which got re-labeled.
This kind of mess-up is not uncommon with users of NAS.
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Aug 19, 2015 9:12 AMby Garrett Bryant,SO, after trying several different ideas from several different forums it's pretty much just screwed. So without abandoning my whole built library, can anyone think of any way to automagically find which files are messed up and/or how to repair them? Or at least some app or service that can scan my library and find the erroneous files so I can scrap the crap and replace them if possible?
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Aug 19, 2015 9:28 AMby Limnos,If you bought them from Apple re-download them.
For other tracks you can do a web search for applications which compare the audio fingerprint with a database and try to identify based on that. I have never done this so I can't provide more information other than the name MusicBrainz comes to mind.
Other than that I don't know of a way. Only you really know if something that sounds like a Mozart symphony is labeled "Roll over Beethoven" by The Beatles isn't quite right. There isn't any file characteristic that says the tag data it contains is not correct. Since I do not let iTunes organize my music I can also use my own file names and I use a script to write complete basic song information to each file name as a backup should I accidentally mess up the tags. The other thing, of course, is to backup your library frequently. I also double check my library for damage before overwriting an earlier backup.
