Discussion:
Artist and bit rate info disappeared from all MP3 files, NEED HELP!
(too old to reply)
Indigo
2010-02-01 17:35:05 UTC
Permalink
I've spent hours and hours googling for an answer to this problem with no
joy, so I'm making my first post here hoping to get some straight answers
(if I should be posting this in another NG, please tell me the name of a
more appropriate forum).

I have an Insignia Pilot MP3 player, and for some reason WMP11 (in Vista)
refused to recognize the device, so I had to manually edit playlists using
notepad, then load them onto the player. About a month ago, my machine (HP
TouchSmart I775) totally froze while installing an update, and after days of
trying to recover from the disaster I gave up and had to start from scratch,
reformat C: drive, reinstall Vista, then reinstall the dozens upon dozens of
apps I'd gathered over the last 3+ years.

Two weeks ago, I got around to reinstalling WinAmp, loaded my music
directories into it's library, and then to my utter horror discovered that
all of the MP3 tag info had disappeared from view when using Explorer.exe to
navigate within my MP3 directories! Even worse, no application will let me
write new tag info to the MP3's, or rather after updating the tags no
changes are seen in the explorer window. If I click on a specific file and
look at the "details", everything is blank, and I cannot edit any of the
details like I used to be able to do. I removed WinAmp from my system, but
whatever it did seems to be permanent.

I am running as admin, the files are not write protected, and I am at wit's
end trying to figure out how to get explorer to show the tag info again.
WinAmp and WMP11 could read the tag info, and so can a couple tag editors I
downloaded in attempts to fix the problem, so I know the data is still
there, but I cannot get explorer to display anything but the filename,
filesize, type, and date modified. THIS SUCKS!

Can anyone help me out?
Dave Patrick
2010-02-01 17:45:57 UTC
Permalink
The file system must be NTFS in order to support file streams.
--
Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect
Post by Indigo
I've spent hours and hours googling for an answer to this problem with no
joy, so I'm making my first post here hoping to get some straight answers
(if I should be posting this in another NG, please tell me the name of a
more appropriate forum).
I have an Insignia Pilot MP3 player, and for some reason WMP11 (in Vista)
refused to recognize the device, so I had to manually edit playlists using
notepad, then load them onto the player. About a month ago, my machine (HP
TouchSmart I775) totally froze while installing an update, and after days
of trying to recover from the disaster I gave up and had to start from
scratch, reformat C: drive, reinstall Vista, then reinstall the dozens
upon dozens of apps I'd gathered over the last 3+ years.
Two weeks ago, I got around to reinstalling WinAmp, loaded my music
directories into it's library, and then to my utter horror discovered that
all of the MP3 tag info had disappeared from view when using Explorer.exe
to navigate within my MP3 directories! Even worse, no application will let
me write new tag info to the MP3's, or rather after updating the tags no
changes are seen in the explorer window. If I click on a specific file and
look at the "details", everything is blank, and I cannot edit any of the
details like I used to be able to do. I removed WinAmp from my system, but
whatever it did seems to be permanent.
I am running as admin, the files are not write protected, and I am at
wit's end trying to figure out how to get explorer to show the tag info
again. WinAmp and WMP11 could read the tag info, and so can a couple tag
editors I downloaded in attempts to fix the problem, so I know the data is
still there, but I cannot get explorer to display anything but the
filename, filesize, type, and date modified. THIS SUCKS!
Can anyone help me out?
Indigo
2010-02-01 23:04:11 UTC
Permalink
Post by Dave Patrick
The file system must be NTFS in order to support file streams.
Ummm....can you even run Vista on a FAT32 sector? All of my drives are NTFS,
and came that way from the factory, i.e. I haven't reformatted any drive
from FAT32 to NTFS.

And what does "support file streams" have to do with MP3 tag info? Never
seen those words used in the context of an MP3 file.
Dave Patrick
2010-02-01 23:21:19 UTC
Permalink
Maybe these help. The metadata you speak of is stored in alternate file
streams.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897440.aspx

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/alternate_data_streams.html
--
Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect
Post by Indigo
Ummm....can you even run Vista on a FAT32 sector? All of my drives are
NTFS, and came that way from the factory, i.e. I haven't reformatted any
drive from FAT32 to NTFS.
And what does "support file streams" have to do with MP3 tag info? Never
seen those words used in the context of an MP3 file.
Indigo
2010-02-02 01:59:05 UTC
Permalink
Post by Dave Patrick
Maybe these help. The metadata you speak of is stored in alternate file
streams.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897440.aspx
http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/alternate_data_streams.html
Thanks for the links, I'll read them more thoroughly in the morning, they
look promising. I failed to note in my first post that Rhapsody, for
instance, will not find and load about 1/3 of my MP3 files into it's
library, something I've never understood. Those links may hold the answer.
Dave Patrick
2010-02-02 02:14:00 UTC
Permalink
You're welcome.
--
Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect
Post by Indigo
Thanks for the links, I'll read them more thoroughly in the morning, they
look promising. I failed to note in my first post that Rhapsody, for
instance, will not find and load about 1/3 of my MP3 files into it's
library, something I've never understood. Those links may hold the answer.
Tim Slattery
2010-02-02 14:13:05 UTC
Permalink
Post by Indigo
Post by Dave Patrick
The file system must be NTFS in order to support file streams.
Ummm....can you even run Vista on a FAT32 sector?
Of course! XP, Vista, Win7 all can handle FAT16, FAT32 and NTFS file
systems. You can have any partition on your system use any one of
these systems in any combination, makes no difference to the OS.
Post by Indigo
And what does "support file streams" have to do with MP3 tag info? Never
seen those words used in the context of an MP3 file.
I agree. MP3 tags are stored within the file, not in other named
streams within the cluster ("cluster" for lack of a better term). See
http://members.cox.net/slatteryt/Streams.html for a discussion of
Alternate Data Streams in NTFS.
--
Tim Slattery
***@bls.gov
http://members.cox.net/slatteryt
Dave Patrick
2010-02-03 03:04:04 UTC
Permalink
Good info but seems counter productive to store this MP3 meta data
differently.
--
Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect
Post by Tim Slattery
I agree. MP3 tags are stored within the file, not in other named
streams within the cluster ("cluster" for lack of a better term). See
http://members.cox.net/slatteryt/Streams.html for a discussion of
Alternate Data Streams in NTFS.
--
Tim Slattery
http://members.cox.net/slatteryt
Indigo
2010-02-04 00:01:11 UTC
Permalink
I ran SysInternal's Stream.exe app and there were no "alternate stream" info
for any of my MP3's. I used an app mentioned earlier in the thread to create
a stream called "artists" for one song as a test, and Stream.exe could read
it, but Explorer still won't display the artists.
Post by Dave Patrick
Good info but seems counter productive to store this MP3 meta data
differently.
--
Regards,
Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect
Post by Tim Slattery
I agree. MP3 tags are stored within the file, not in other named
streams within the cluster ("cluster" for lack of a better term). See
http://members.cox.net/slatteryt/Streams.html for a discussion of
Alternate Data Streams in NTFS.
--
Tim Slattery
http://members.cox.net/slatteryt
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