Inferring track properties from filename

[Humpty]

I have some songs that have multiple dashes in the filename and that don't have any info in the Album mp3 field. When I look at these tracks in MM they suddenly have info in the Album field! If I take out the multiple dashes from the filename and refresh the folder the songs are in they no longer have info in the Album field. It's almost like MM is trying to infer the missing information from the filename even though the songs really don't, and shouldn't, have any info in the Album field. I already disabled the option in the Options menu that I thought would cause this "Library > Infer Track Properties". BTW, MM doesn't stop with the Album field though, it tries to infer the missing track number for the file as well.

The songs in question are DJ sets that have a filename like so "Steve Gerrard - San Francisco Sessions (5-19-2003).mp3". For this particular file there is no Album or Track number info present in the file yet MM says the album is "San Francisco Sessions (5" and that the track number is 19.

I'm on Windows XP SP1 using MM 2.2.2.780.

[Lowlander]

Well I guess that MM infers tags when adding them to the DB. So as you already have them in the DB they will keep showing info despite the fact that you changed this setting in the options. I don't know why MM is changing the value though???


You might want to do an auto-tag from filename. You will need to carefully set up the mask and make sure the filenames have the same formating (if you select multiples). I'm not sure if you can get it to empty fields this way (you might be able if you select the album field as a empty value in the trackname).

[Humpty]

Well I guess that MM infers tags when adding them to the DB. So as you already have them in the DB they will keep showing info despite the fact that you changed this setting in the options. I don't know why MM is changing the value though???

It's not changing the preference value, it's just this value doesn't seem to have any effect.

You might want to do an auto-tag from filename.

The songs in question are already tagged correctly it's just MediaMonkey doesn't display them right. If I look at the track tags in Winamp there is no info in the Album and Track Number fields, but MM does show info for these fields. I can even rename the files in Windows Explorer to remove the dashes, and then MM will show the tags correctly: with no info in the Artist and Track Number fields.

As a test remove any info in the Artist and / or Track Number fields for an mp3 and in Windows Explorer rename the file to have some dashes. Once you rename the file MM will then show info in those two fields again. Rename the files to remove the dashes and suddenly MM doesn't show any info in these fields. Note, when renaming files behind MM's back like this you'll have to refresh the view in MM to see what I'm talking about.

[ClassicalGuy]

I experienced the same problem with multiple dashes in file names (of WAV-files) [perhaps only with spaces around the dash].

So it seems that MM doesn’t support file names with more than one dash in it, like: “<artist> - <first part of track title> - <second part of track title>”.

Also, MM doesn’t support track titles with a dash in it, like: “<first part of track title> - <second part of track title>”. See http://www.songs-db.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2134.

I experienced problems with dashes when ripping a music CD (when there was a dash in the track title), when using freedb (when the track title of freedb contains a dash), when editing track titles (when adding a dash to a track title). In these situations, even when the tracks are saved to the library, the information of the tracks in the library is being changed automatically by MM (when removing the track information from the screen, and after that looking at it again; or after closing and reopening MM). This all is very annoying, because I have many track titles with dashes in them. (Earlier I thought this was a minor problem, but now I think MediaMonkey is rather useless for people who have dashes in their track names.)

It would be nice, if the way in which MM interprets dashes in file names and track names, could be changed in the Options of MM. Then, the current way in which MM interprets dashes could be turned off to solve the problems which are discussed here.

[Ceraus]

12 years later, how I wish those options existed. I keep having to cut-paste from Album to Title.

[NewtonBoy]

I hate that kind of repetitive software work. This won't solve your actual problem, but look into "RegExp Find and Replace" plugin.

http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewto ... lit=regexp

I would have dumped MMW long ago if I hadn't found this. Fair warning, this is not a simple plugin. It is well worth the effort.