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Classic MusicBrainz Tagger FAQ

This page answers FrequentlyAskedQuestions about the ClassicTagger.

If your question has not been answered here, please ask your question on the UsersMailingList. If you need to make an update to the content of this page you may do that on the wiki, but please do not add questions without answers.

Classic MusicBrainz Tagger FAQ

Why can't I stay logged in? It looks like I log in okay, then it logs me straight out again!

Go to the "Login" tab of the "Preferences" dialog, and enter your username and password there.

The Tagger renamed and retagged my files with the wrong information! Help!

Oh dear. You should have checked the tagger's findings before you pressed "save". As for undoing the changes, currently the tagger has no "undo" facility, so you're on your own.

You can use another program with tagging functionality like Foobar2000 to remove the tag and then retag the file with correct information in MusicBrainz.

I can't get the Tagger to do x/y/z - is it because I'm a new user?

No. The only distinction in MusicBrainz is between those who are logged in, and those who are not. As long as you have logged in successfully, you have all the access you need. If you still can't get it to do what you want, then at least one of the following must be true:
- you're not logged in
- MusicBrainz just doesn't do that
- it does do that, but you're doing it wrong. E-mail support@musicbrainz.org if you get stuck.

Is the Tagger available for anything other than Windows? Is there any information about getting Tagger to run with Wine?

Well, some people have the tagger working with Wine. Your best bet is using the 'winetools' http://www.von-thadden.de/Joachim/WineTools/ system. It installs a working windows with ie6. You can then install the tagger. Be aware that the tagger is slightly unstable with wine. But it is quite useable.

Other options:
- there are reports that you can run the Windows tagger under vmware.
- There's a ghetto python solution, and
- a very beta linux Qt-based client QMBTagger.
- amaroK is a KDE music player that allows taggings with MusicBrainz data as well.
- However, your best bet for Unix systems is the PicardTagger, which is a Python-based replacement "next-generation" tagger.
- iEatBrainz is a MusicBrainz tagger for Mac OS X

Why is the Tagger replacing characters with underscores in the filenames it writes?

The underscores are used by the tagger (v0.10.2) as an abbreviation when the filename would otherwise be too long on Windows (the only OS supported by the tagger). Rob ranted on the gory details of this issue http://lists.musicbrainz.org/pipermail/musicbrainz-users/2003-December/003930.html.

The tagger's file renaming facility won't rename files using artist or track names that are 2 chars long, replacing them with blanks instead. Is this a known bug?

Yes, this was fixed in tagger v0.10.3. Upgrade to the latest tagger version.

I have a large collection of MP3s and want to clean it up and weed out the bad files; they are too much to do in one session. Every time I start the Tagger, I have to wait for the program to re-scan all of the files. Is there a way to save the state of the tagging so that I can pick it up again later?

You might consider having two directory trees -- the exising 'dirty' tree and the new 'clean' tree. Have the tagger move the finished files to the 'clean' tree. Then throw a hundred or so files at the tagger at a time and slowly work your way through the files.

Another option is if you have files organized into artists and or releases going release by release is easier than adding all the files at once. Smaller chunks of files makes things easier to deal with, though slower. Having a third tree of intermediate files where you can check that MB hasn't made any mistakes is good too, it allows you to check that it's ok before moving them into your 'clean' tree.

How do I get the Tagger to move files between directories as it tags them?

You must enable the option "Move tagged files to this directory", and give tell it to which directory tagged files should be moved. If you want to move files into subdirectories underneath that, make sure that the appropriate format naming specification (in the "Naming" tab of the Options dialog) includes whatever subdirectory names you want.

For example, to move everything into a directory structure like this:

    D:\Music
        \Beck
            \Sea Change
        \Radiohead
            \The Bends 
        \REM
            \Out of Time

You would set the "Move tagged files into this directory" option to D:\Music, and the file format naming specification would start with %artist\%album\ (followed by whatever you want to call the file itself).

Why does the tagger show my CD as having no TRMs but after identifying all the tracks it says 'n unsubmitted', where n < the total number of tracks on the CD?

You'll probably find that there's another release of your CD that does have some TRMs. The tagger is matching against these so it won't re-submit them. You can work around this problem by marking the tracks as 'Misidentified' and then manually tagging them against the your release of the CD.

The real source of this problem is that there are duplicate rows in the database for the same track on different releases. But that's another story.

When I tag this file the track name is set correctly, but the track name is set to zero (0). What's going on?

This is caused by a known bug in the tagger. The bug has been fixed but (as of Tagger 0.10.5) the fix hasn't been released. See the TrackNumber0Glitch page for an explanation of how to work around this bug.

Is MusicBrainz Tagger still being developed?

No. MusicBrainz Tagger is being replaced by PicardTagger.

What formats does MusicBrainz Tagger support?

flac
mp3
ogg/vorbis
wav

Does MusicBrainz Tagger support international characters?

MusicBrainz Tagger doesn't handle international characters well. You may want to use PicardTagger instead.

Why do some of my files not have dates in them?

This is a known issue. You may want to use PicardTagger instead.

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