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iTunes problem when upgrading my Mac to macOS Mojave

mjzee

By mjzee
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lipi Newbie

lipi

Posted
Posted
7 hours ago, mjzee said:

Where would the settings for V1 and V2 tags be located?  I've never heard of them before.

Unless you're using MP3 encoded files, it's not gonna be the ID3 versioning. [*]

Select a file, then File->Convert->Convert ID3 Tags...

I don't know what "the wrong" version is according to Kevin. I suspect v1, because artwork was not supported in ID3v1, but that was also, you know, in the 20th century. ID3v2 was introduced in '98, so any file you are likely to have lying around will have ID3v2 tags. Where was I getting with this? Oh, right. If you want to screw around with the versioning, set it to 2.3 or 2.4. I have no idea what happens when you turn it from v2 down to v1, but I highly encourage you not to try. v2 added a lot of fields, and changed the sizes of fields. Turning v2 tags into v1 tags has the potential to be very lossy.

[*] Yeah, yeah, I know. Wave files, despite what is claimed earlier in this thread, can also take ID3 tags, and so can MP4 files. Whoopdeedoo. You're using ALAC or AAC like a good boy, right? No ID3 tags there (at least in iTunes...but this story is complicated enough as is).

mjzee Mentor

mjzee

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I chose a track, and tried converting the tags to 2.3 and then to 2.4; neither allowed artwork to be saved.  I then converted the track into Apple Lossless, and it DID allow the artwork to be saved.  So there's a clue.  However, I do have a ton of albums in mp3 format where the artwork was never lost, so I'm still not sure what's going on.

Kevin Bresnahan Mentor

Kevin Bresnahan

Posted
Posted
5 minutes ago, mjzee said:

I chose a track, and tried converting the tags to 2.3 and then to 2.4; neither allowed artwork to be saved.  I then converted the track into Apple Lossless, and it DID allow the artwork to be saved.  So there's a clue.  However, I do have a ton of albums in mp3 format where the artwork was never lost, so I'm still not sure what's going on.

Did you find a tag editor for Mac? I downloaded several freebies back when I had this problem and I think Mp3tag was the one I kept. https://www.mp3tag.de/en/

I was actually having an additional problem with some mp3 tags and that was my car was showing the wrong album artwork. It turns out, album artwork is found in several places in these tags and with Mp3tag, I was able to find the offending artwork and delete it. It fixed a lot of files that had the wrong artwork but it took many hours of editing to do it.

Good luck.

Kevin Bresnahan Mentor

Kevin Bresnahan

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, JSngry said:

Just curious, how do you use album artwork in your car?

It wasn't really a "use it" thing, I just happened to notice weird artwork one day. I had accidentally pasted in the wrong album art for several songs I had on a USB stick. I checked the songs at home and they were fine but when they popped up on the car audio player's screen (if I noticed it) it was wrong. In a few cases, it was actually some work spreadsheets that I accidentally pasted in as "album art" so I really wanted to figure out how the hell that happened. :)

It wasn't until I edited the actual mp3 tags that I found out that the artwork is in there in 3 places. Once I deleted all of the artwork entries and re-pasted in the correct artwork, everything was fine.

BTW, I have a boombox that plays CD-Rs filled with mp3 files. It was cool when it came out as it allowed me to play a lot of music on the back deck with a single disc. If those mp3 files had any artwork encoded into them at all, the first few seconds of each track got clipped. Somehow this boombox was "reading" the mp3 tag (it displayed the song artist & album) and if it encountered album art, it took too long to "read" it and it delayed the playback just enough to blank out a few seconds of the song. Weird, huh? :) I had to re-burn several CD-Rs with mp3s filled with no artwork.

JSngry Grand Master

JSngry

Posted
Posted
17 minutes ago, Kevin Bresnahan said:

. In a few cases, it was actually some work spreadsheets that I accidentally pasted in as "album art" so I really wanted to figure out how the hell that happened. :)

Indeed you would!

Scott Dolan Newbie

Scott Dolan

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, JSngry said:

Can you tag it for retrieval later? Because the way my memory is these days, I'd forget it almost as soon as I caught it.

While it's playing on your car stereo? I have no clue, though I'd think not. But with all the fancy gee whiz shit they build into cars these days, I wouldn't be shocked. 

My newest car is a 2011. It still has a boring old CD player. 

lipi Newbie

lipi

Posted
Posted
8 hours ago, JSngry said:

I'd like to have it by voice actvated command, so I can get excited and tell it DUE! WTF IS THAT? SEND ME THAT DATA FORSWOOTH!

Considering both Amazon and Google (and, I wouldn't be surprised, Apple, too) are working on getting their respective digital assistants in cars, you'll soon have your dream: "Alexa/Google/Siri, I love that song" and boom, added to your playlist of favourites.

 

13 hours ago, mjzee said:

I chose a track, and tried converting the tags to 2.3 and then to 2.4; neither allowed artwork to be saved.  I then converted the track into Apple Lossless, and it DID allow the artwork to be saved.  So there's a clue.  However, I do have a ton of albums in mp3 format where the artwork was never lost, so I'm still not sure what's going on.

Did you have a look at what the tag version was before you converted to 2.3/4? Was it, by any chance, ID3v1 or v1.1? If so, I think I can take a stab at what happened.

Before ID3v2, you could not store album art as a tag. Like Steve Gray mentioned above, iTunes used its own database to keep track of your artwork (just like it still does today with your ratings and playlists). There is a folder named Album Artwork in ~/Music/iTunes. My best guess is that apart from losing your .itl and .xml files, the upgrade also lost your Album Artwork folder. The only files that would be affected are those that do not store their own artwork, which will (at a minimum) be all files using ID3v1.x tags.

mjzee Mentor

mjzee

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Posted
15 hours ago, lipi said:

Did you have a look at what the tag version was before you converted to 2.3/4? Was it, by any chance, ID3v1 or v1.1? If so, I think I can take a stab at what happened.

Before ID3v2, you could not store album art as a tag. Like Steve Gray mentioned above, iTunes used its own database to keep track of your artwork (just like it still does today with your ratings and playlists). There is a folder named Album Artwork in ~/Music/iTunes. My best guess is that apart from losing your .itl and .xml files, the upgrade also lost your Album Artwork folder. The only files that would be affected are those that do not store their own artwork, which will (at a minimum) be all files using ID3v1.x tags.

Intriguing.  I'm looking at a track now that lost its artwork, and its id3 tag is v2.3.  Others are v2.2.  (None are v1.1)  You might be onto something with the idea that the upgrade lost some of the Album Artwork files.  I still have an "Album Artwork" folder, but perhaps the upgrade erased some of its subfolders.  But that doesn't explain why iTunes is not allowing me to add artwork to some of these albums.  What could be preventing that from happening?  Because it does allow artwork to be added to other albums.  I'm going to look at the tag editor that Kevin mentioned above.  BTW, thanks to y'all for helping me along with this mystery!

lipi Newbie

lipi

Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, mjzee said:

Intriguing.  I'm looking at a track now that lost its artwork, and its id3 tag is v2.3.  Others are v2.2.  (None are v1.1)  You might be onto something with the idea that the upgrade lost some of the Album Artwork files.  I still have an "Album Artwork" folder, but perhaps the upgrade erased some of its subfolders.  But that doesn't explain why iTunes is not allowing me to add artwork to some of these albums.  What could be preventing that from happening?  Because it does allow artwork to be added to other albums.  I'm going to look at the tag editor that Kevin mentioned above.  BTW, thanks to y'all for helping me along with this mystery!

Huh. OK, next theory: command-I on a song (Get Info), File tab, date added & date modified. (Alternatively, right click the song list, and select Date Added and Date Modified as columns to show. Or use View->View Options and enable the same two fields under Stats.)

Are all the songs with missing artwork similar in their dates, by any chance?

As to what can cause artwork to not be addable, it could be any of a hundred things. It all boils down to this being a complex piece of software, and, worse, one that has to maintain data from release to release. QA for something like this is a nightmare and 100% coverage of user scenarios is simply impossible: you aim for 80% and are relieved if you make it. It's a freakin' miracle it works as well as it does!

mjzee Mentor

mjzee

Posted
  • Author
Posted
2 hours ago, lipi said:

As to what can cause artwork to not be addable, it could be any of a hundred things. It all boils down to this being a complex piece of software, and, worse, one that has to maintain data from release to release. QA for something like this is a nightmare and 100% coverage of user scenarios is simply impossible: you aim for 80% and are relieved if you make it. It's a freakin' miracle it works as well as it does!

I agree.  I'm hoping my issue will be fixed in a future update.

Bluesnik Enthusiast

Bluesnik

Posted
Posted
On 14/11/2018 at 5:06 PM, Kevin Bresnahan said:

I downloaded several freebies back when I had this problem and I think Mp3tag was the one I kept.

I've worked with Mp3tag over many years and can only say it's a very good editor.

  • 4 weeks later...

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