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Truncated Lyrics

Posted: Sun Mar 29, 2009 4:05 pm
by saronian
I'm using MPFreaker 1.8.1 with iTunes 8.1 and continue to have a problem with lyrics being cut off when synced to my iPhone.

The lyrics are complete when acquired by MPFreaker, and they are complete when viewed in iTunes. But on the iPhone several songs (<1%) have the lyrics cut off.

I assumed it was some corruption with the songs tags so I used the suggestion of removing lyrics, setting all the tags to none in iTunes and then back to 2.4, then reacquiring the lyrics and resyncing. But the same lyrics are still truncated.

Any suggestions?

Thanks

Truncated lyrics

Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2009 7:48 am
by beastie
Here's something to try:

Pick a song that exhibits this problem on your iPhone, and go to it in iTunes. Get Info (command I) and note in the Summary tab what the "ID3 Tag" value is.

If it's v2.4, cancel out of Get Info and control-click the song in iTunes, and select "Convert ID3 Tags...". Turn on the ID3 tag version checkbox and change it to v2.3.

Sync your iPod and see if that fixes it.

Leon

Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2009 8:31 am
by saronian
Thanks Leon, I'll try that later today and report what happens.

Scott

Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2009 8:26 pm
by saronian
Well Leon had the correct solution and the problem is fixed.

While I don't need to know what causes a particular file to sync incorrectly when v2.4 vs. v2.3, I'll assume the tags are malformed and leave it at that. What I need to decide is if I should switch all the tags to v2.3?

MP3 ID3 v2.3 vs v2.4 wtf

Posted: Wed Apr 01, 2009 8:39 am
by beastie
The last time I checked, Apple was handling ID3 v2.4 tags incorrectly in iTunes. Apple's devices presumably read v2.4 tags more strictly, which would cause this.

Hence the "Write MP3 ID3 v2.4 tags as:
[ ] Proper specification format
[ ] iTunes-compatible format" in MPFreaker's preferences.

Changing it to "Proper specification format" means that iTunes won't see some art properly embedded in some MP3s, so I don't recommend that. MPFreaker happily reads tags written incorrectly by iTunes in addition to tags written correctly, so really the best solution is to change your MP3's tags to ID3 v2.3 and avoid the problem altogether.

Leon

Posted: Wed Apr 01, 2009 11:27 am
by saronian
Great explanation Leon, thanks for the solution!

Scott