Tag display problem

[Ranmaru]

I'm new and I hope this is the right forum for this.

I recently bought a J3 from Amazon and I am very happy with it. The sound quality is seriously amazing! However, there is a problem with browsing the songs. My files are all properly tagged (with ncmpc++, all ID3v2) but after copying large numbers of music over, some albums get randomly messed up. For example, my first three artists are A-Mei, Alphaville and Alice Cooper, and sometimes there's only one of them visible in the artists browser. I open this one, select an album, and then all the files are scattered in this album. First come the correct tracks of this album, after that the file names of everything else that has been devoured by this. When I restart the player, the problem sometimes disappears, but when it does, the same thing happens to the last albums in the list. Restart again, and it's the first albums again that get messed up.

It's not a problem with the tags, I suppose, because they do get displayed properly sometimes and my mpd/ncmpc++ displays them correctly as well. And I keep my music organized pretty neatly, so I always make sure my tags are correct. Unless they get messed up during cp -r ~/Music/* /media/cowon/Music/, which wouldn't make any sense, I don't see how there could be any problem with them.

All files are on internal storage, not on an SD card.

When I browse in folder view, this does not happen. However, since a large number of my files is Asian music and for some reason Asian filenames don't get displayed properly in folder mode, I'd prefer using the tags to browse my files.

Has anyone any idea what might cause this problem.

Thank you!

Ranmaru

[andrew_berge]

Weird. Have you tried a database update? (Settings -> System)

[checkmate134]

Ouch. Sounds painful

I was going to say that the J3 recognizes the same artist with different capitalizations or an extra space at the end as a different artist, but that doesn't seem to be the problem.

I'm not sure if this helps, but I had a similar problem with my video files once. (When I say similar, I mean not exact. My browser was displaying identical, but random, files listed 1395813958 times - and 1395813958 is not an exaggeration.) I sync my music using Media Jukebox, which automatically makes a .m3u playlist(s) on the J3. However, the playlist wasn't in the J3 compatible format, and this screwed up my browser in certain menus.

I guess my advice would be to try deleting all your .m3u files (or other playlist files) or removing them and then trying again. It fixed the problem for me.

And from my experience, the J3 does fine with Asian characters in folder browsing. Like I said on another thread, as far as I know unicode characters are displayed perfectly pretty much everywhere on the J3 (given that you don't use a user font).

[Ranmaru]

Thanks for the suggestions. I tried a database update but it didn't help. I also upgraded to the current firmware, which also didn't help. After that, I just copied everything again and, well, nothing changed. Apparently, I cannot play said files at all. Even if I select them in the folder mode, where they are at least displayed correctly, the J3 throws an "invalid file" error at me. And no matter how often I delete and re-transfer the files, that doesn't change.
At first I thought it might be a problem with the files themselves, but they play without any problem on my computer, and there is no reason to believe that they're corrupted.

I believe it might indeed be a problem which occurs during copying the files over to the device; that for some reason they get corrupted during the copy process, but I have no idea why that would happen and, more importantly, no idea what I could do to prevent it.

Also, the Asian characters in folder browsing do definitely not get displayed properly. Even with the files that play flawlessly and are not corrupted. o_O
And no, I don't use a user font.

[andrew_berge]

Just to be sure, we are talking about mp3 files, right?

[nieh]

I had some similar issues while syncing non-mp3s to the J3 in the past. You're better off just dragging and dropping everything.

[Ranmaru]

Originally Posted by andrew_berge

Just to be sure, we are talking about mp3 files, right?

Yes, the files in question are all MP3.

Originally Posted by nieh

I had some similar issues while syncing non-mp3s to the J3 in the past. You're better off just dragging and dropping everything.

Do you mean every single MP3 individually? I actually did copy the folders one by one after deleting the problematic files (that is, the artist folders, not every single album). Or do you mean that actually using a GUI file manager over the command line?
Truth be told, I don't see how this would actually make a difference. Except, of course, if the J3 has problems handling copying a large number of files in a single command.

[checkmate134]

Yeah, I don't see how it would make a difference either. Anyhew, I've recopied ~30gb of music onto my J3 on several occasions, none of which resulted in errors.

Did you try reformatting your J3?

[Rodster]

Hey fellas here's my problem albeit slightly different. Sometimes the order of my songs in the album are in the wrong order. Most of the time 90% they are spot on but other times they are off.

Here's my scenario. I have a Zune Pass monthly subscription and I copy my downloaded files over to my iAudio 10. The easiest way for me is to convert them over by using SoundTaxi.

Like I said 90% I can just drag and drop and everything is fine. The 10% of the time the album order is wrong. I've tried using MP3Tag and Mediamonkey to no avail. I've gone as far as to update the database in system settings.

Any ideas?

[Ranmaru]

Originally Posted by checkmate134

Did you try reformatting your J3?

In fact I have not. Can I simply format via command line or do I need a special program for that? And, which file systems can the J3 operate with? I'd like to use ext3 or even ext4, but maybe that won't work.
As far as I can tell, it's preformatted in vfat ... I guess I would have to use that again.

[DSperber]

Originally Posted by Rodster

Hey fellas here's my problem albeit slightly different. Sometimes the order of my songs in the album are in the wrong order.

In folder view (Library -> [Folders]) everything that gets displayed is purely alphabetical by external name... folder or file. This is a "physical" view of storage on the J3, exactly as if you were browsing your J3 with Windows Explorer when it is connected to the PC via USB. Purely alphabetical by external name. Cannot be anything but alphabetical in any list shown.

On the other hand, if you display "logically" (meaning any presentation based on the "tags database") now you are NOT seeing any external names whatsoever... not external folder names nor external file names. You are actually seeing INTERNAL tag field values, for album, artist, title, genre, and year. And thus it is important for you to have exactly what you want in those internal tag field values, because that's what the J3 rebuilds the tags database from at each boot... exactly the value in the tag fields. You're best advised to have identical values on both internal tag fields and external folder/file names, else you are going to confuse yourself... but caveat emptor.

If you have a missing or blank tag field, then "unknown" will be substituted as a tag field value placeholder for that music file in the tags database.

The "logical" browse starts with Library -> [Artists], Library -> [Albums], Library -> [Songs], Library -> [Genres], or Library -> [Years]. Again, any artists or song titles or albums shown in these presentations are from the internal tag fields, not from the external folder/file names.

If you logically browse a single album (either Library -> [Albums], or Library -> [Artists] -> albums by that artist and select one of those albums) then the order of the songs presented in that single-album list is TRACK NUMBER ORDER, based on the tag field "track number" value in the music files. Again, the assumption is that each track number tag field value is filled in with a legitimate number (either n, nn, n/m, n/mm, nn/mm, with or without leading zeroes, etc.).

Any other presentation of songs that is not from a single album will be alphabetical by title (i.e. tag field "title"). This is true for all the other logical "tags database" browsing options, and also for the [All Tracks] option for a particular artist. Again, the alphabetical list is from the internal "title" tag field value, not from the external folder/file name.

[Rodster]

Thanks for the explanation but most of it went over my head.

What I was referring to is the songs are playing out of order. If I look at the song order in the folder before I copy it to the Cowon and if I check the Tags via Mp3tag they both look the same.

If I transfer over those songs the order of the songs change once they are copied to my Cowon.

[DSperber]

Originally Posted by Rodster

Thanks for the explanation but most of it went over my head.

You're going to have to try and follow what I said, because you're talking apples and oranges.

If you look at the music folder on your PC you can either be using Windows Explorer ("physical", purely alphabetical) or MP3Tag (you can sort on any column heading to present the list alphabetically by the contents of that tag field column... or, the external file name column, etc.).

This has nothing to do with you how you see things on the J3... which uses the J3's equivalent of Windows Explorer (i.e. just browse "physically", i.e. Library -> [Folders] and then down from there) or logically (i.e. on any of the five tag field values that comprise the "tags database" keys that the J3 can present lists using).

What I was referring to is the songs are playing out of order. If I look at the song order in the folder before I copy it to the Cowon and if I check the Tags via Mp3tag they both look the same.

Play control on the J3 is either (a) "straight" or "(b) random/shuffle"

Whatever the order of the list shown is, that's how they files will play... subject to either "straight" (i.e. exactly the order of the list) or "shuffle" (i.e. random, with the list shuffled by the J3).

If you are in "logical" (tags database) browse mode and you are looking at the contents of single logical album folder (i.e. all music files whose "album" tag field value is the same) then the list is ordered by track number in the tags.

Other logical lists are alphabetical, by tag field value.

Only "physical" [Folders] browse is alphabetical by external folder/file name. Everything else is by internal tag field value.

[DSperber]

Originally Posted by DSperber

Play control on the J3 is either (a) "straight" or "(b) random/shuffle"

[dastX]

Originally Posted by Ranmaru

Yes, the files in question are all MP3.


Do you mean every single MP3 individually? I actually did copy the folders one by one after deleting the problematic files (that is, the artist folders, not every single album). Or do you mean that actually using a GUI file manager over the command line?
Truth be told, I don't see how this would actually make a difference. Except, of course, if the J3 has problems handling copying a large number of files in a single command.

is there a solution of your problem? cause i have the same issue... and its only with the newer firmwares... with 2.22 the album order is ok, when i go forward to 2.29 its mixed up.... so a firmware problem?