Custom tags not showing any text

[ZapRiver]

I added additional tags through an external application. When I look at the songs through Tag Inspector, I see the custom tags, for example Speed as the name and TXXX/Speed as the Tag Code and 'Fast' as the value, but when I add the tag to the displayed fields in the main title list, the column shows blanks instead of the actual text. Is that a bug or am I missing something?

[phred]

Did you rescan the files? MB doesn't know that you changed tags outside of MB.

[ZapRiver]

Yes, scanned and scanned again but the text still doesn't show.

[psychoadept]

I suggest you post a screenshot of both your custom tag setting and the tag configuration in Define new tags

[ZapRiver]

Let's start over. I don't use MusicBee to tag my files. I have a huge collection of audio files that are already tagged. Custom tags are currently in the Comment section and formatted to make them easy to extract programmatically. I have written a small application that reads the Comment tag and separates it into individual custom tags and adds those tags back to the files. The Location tag is a custom tag in my files because the application I have written doesn't have access to the actual Location tag (it's a long story).

The Tag Inspector show me that my Location tag was correctly mapped to the Location tag in MusicBee and that the Speed tag is showing the proper text. But when I look at the list of songs in MusicBee, it doesn't show any text for Speed as you can see on the screenshot.

[hiccup]

...  and that the Speed tag is showing the proper text. But when I look at the list of songs in MusicBee, it doesn't show any text for Speed as you can see on the screenshot.

Just to be sure, under Preferences > Tags (1) > custom tags,
could it be that your 'Speed' tag is not mapped to the tag you have created, but is set to 'save to MusicBee database only'?

[ZapRiver]

You are correct. It indicates 'Save to MusicBee database only' because the list doesn't show the Speed tag.

[psychoadept]

You first need to configure your speed tag using Define New Tags, which is underneath the Custom Tags section. Then you can map it to a custom tag using the drop down menu you have in your screenshot.

https://musicbee.fandom.com/wiki/Custom_Tags

In Define New Tags, you should be able to just add Speed as the identifier and it will automatically configure TXXX/Speed for you

[hiccup]

You are correct. It indicates 'Save to MusicBee database only' because the list doesn't show the Speed tag.

Then probably something is wrong with it's entry in the New Custom Tag Definition panel?

[ZapRiver]

That mapping is the step I was missing. It now works but there's one more issue.

The API I'm using for tagging files doesn't have a Language property so I'm forced to use a custom tag for that. In Preferences, If I try to add a custom tag for Language MusicBee tells me it that it can't be added because a Language tag already exists. When I added the Language field as a displayed field on the song list header, Language was available so I picked it. But in the song list, MusicBee is only showing the text for the Language tag randomly. It's showing for some songs but not for others.

When I select a song and click Edit, I don't see any text under 'language' but the Tag Inspector shows me the proper string and that the field Language is mapped to TXXX/Language.

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[psychoadept]

Language is an official ID3 tag, TLAN. If you don't have a way to write to that tag, you could use the Additional Tagging & Reporting Tools plugin to copy it from the comments string.

[ZapRiver]

I fixed it by renaming the custom tag 'Language' to 'MainLanguage'. Thanks for your help.