Created an Auto-Playlist, and don't understand a result

[Phaedrus]

I'm revisiting an issue I had a while back with files brought over from Media Monkey. The problem was fixed, but it seems I'm still dealing with fallout.

I'm trying to fix some artist tags that have semicolons. I created an auto-playlist that I thought would show the artist field when it contains a semicolon. I have several items that show up where I can't find the semicolon. Here are screenshots of an example track.

Playlist;

Result information

Tag Inspector (ID3v1 and APEv2 tags are both empty, none of the tags further down are related to artist.)

I have used the right-click, send to file rescan, but that did not change the result. Information in the signature is updated.

[Phaedrus]

As I posted, it occurred to me that a third party verification would be good as well, so I checked the track in MP3Tag, and get this;

[alec.tron]

Within ID3 syntax/formatting conventions, multi value tags are achieved via a null byte / null character... so there is no 'semicolon' anywhere if done properly... which is what you see in the tag Editors so to speak (which separates Null characters and shows single strings with them as multiple values of the same). So I assume what the auto-playlist finds here is MusicBee's user facing 'representation' of a multi value ID3 tag; which are semicolon separated in MusicBee's display only.

As a way to find them - IF you really were to have artists values that with semicolon in a single string, i.e. looks like:
"Eminem; Obie Trice; etc"
Then these would show up as exactly that in MusicBee's artist lists.
i.e. thumbnail / column browsers for example.

c.

[redwing]

There are two ways to filter to files with a multi-value artist tag using an auto-playlist:
one is using a virtual tag, the other is Bee-liever's reply in the following thread which is much simpler: https://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=23549.0

[Phaedrus]

Thank you both that answers my question perfectly.

I do have tracks with literal semicolons in the artist field, that's what I'm fixing. I was concerned that I was getting spurious results, casting doubt on the auto playlist in general. It seems I wasn't, so it's full steam ahead. At least there aren't that many to fix.

[frankz]

If I search on just "Artist" instead of "Artist: Artists," I just get files that have ";" in the actual individual Artist fields (the listing shown in your third screenshot).

[Phaedrus]

It turns out my problem was not as bad as I thought initially. My problem tags were limited to only a few thousand tracks, and most of those were albums which were supposed to have two artists listed. I created a static playlist named "Known Multiple Artists." I added the albums that are supposed to have multiple artists, and then added "And Not in Playlist" to the Auto Playlist. This narrowed it down, and I was able to use Advanced Search and Replace to fix the Display artist for the remaining files. I added them to the static playlist, and now I have a way to easily check for this in the future.

If I search on just "Artist" instead of "Artist: Artists," I just get files that have ";" in the actual individual Artist fields (the listing shown in your third screenshot).

I recreated the problem to check this, because I swear I tried it, but it didn't work. My problem semicolons were only in the "DISPLAY ARTIST" field, and not in the "Artist" field. Using an Auto Playlist to find "Artist / Contains / ; " finds zero tracks.

I think I treat my Artist tags differently than others. I would rather have multiple tags, than one tag with multiple values. I feel this makes the data easier to search, and it makes my tags more portable. This way, I don't have to be concerned about which separator is used. Maybe I'm wrong, but this fits nicely with my library storage scheme.