use single "\" or ";" rather than "\\" to separate artists

[spon]

Hi everyone. I'm new to MusicBee and am wondering if it's possible to have multiple artists tagged using a single \ rather than \\ as it appears to be now. Screenshot is of the tags after using MusicBee to autotag. The media server that I use (Emby) can use either \ or ; but not \\.

Thanks

https://imgur.com/XITdCLF

[phred]

I don't know where those double backslashes are coming from, but MB uses the semi-colon as a separator.

[spon]

Thanks phred. I saw the same when reading the documentation. I can't figure it out. I cleared all tags so I could have a fresh start and then used MusicBee to auto-tag by album (using musicbrainz). This was the result. Same thing across multiple albums.

Is there a mp3 tag reader that you recommend? The screenshot was from mp3tag b/c I happen to already have it installed. But across multiple albums, I've found that MusicBee seems to somehow be using \\ and the only way I can get Emby to read it correctly is to manually replace the \\ with ;

[frankz]

An artist tag with multiple artists is not what you think it is.  It is not one tag with multiple artists in it, it is multiple Artist tags each with one artist in it.

As you have seen, this will show up in various software packages in different ways.  Mp3tag displays the combination of these multiple tags as double backslashes.  But if you were to open the "Extended Tags..." panel for that file in mp3tag, you should see multiple artist tags, each with one artist in it.  If that isn't the case, then you have a tagging problem. If it is the case, then you have an Emby problem.

This is why a screenshot of MusicBee would be helpful.

[The Incredible Boom Boom]

If the artists are showing in MB with double back slashes, they're not actually separated.

Using MP3TAG, use the Replace action to substitute \\ with /. You might have to use \\\\, so try on one file first and see which works.
Then use the "Split field/tag..." action and input /

Your artists will then display as Artist; Artist

[spon]

An artist tag with multiple artists is not what you think it is.  It is not one tag with multiple artists in it, it is multiple Artist tags each with one artist in it.

As you have seen, this will show up in various software packages in different ways.  Mp3tag displays the combination of these multiple tags as double backslashes.  But if you were to open the "Extended Tags..." panel for that file in mp3tag, you should see multiple artist tags, each with one artist in it.  If that isn't the case, then you have a tagging problem. If it is the case, then you have an Emby problem.

This is why a screenshot of MusicBee would be helpful.

Thanks, looks like it's definitely an Emby problem. Everything in MB looks good, so I'm pretty sure the tags are correct. As you mentioned, in Mp3tag they show as \\, which was causing my confusion. Interestingly, if I replace the \\ with ; (in mp3tag) and save, Emby will then show the artists correctly. very strange.

Thanks again for your help.

[phred]

This is why a screenshot of MusicBee would be helpful.

What do the tags look like in MB?

[The Incredible Boom Boom]

An artist tag with multiple artists is not what you think it is.  It is not one tag with multiple artists in it, it is multiple Artist tags each with one artist in it.

As you have seen, this will show up in various software packages in different ways.  Mp3tag displays the combination of these multiple tags as double backslashes.  But if you were to open the "Extended Tags..." panel for that file in mp3tag, you should see multiple artist tags, each with one artist in it.  If that isn't the case, then you have a tagging problem. If it is the case, then you have an Emby problem.

This is why a screenshot of MusicBee would be helpful.

Thanks, looks like it's definitely an Emby problem. Everything in MB looks good, so I'm pretty sure the tags are correct. As you mentioned, in Mp3tag they show as \\, which was causing my confusion. Interestingly, if I replace the \\ with ; (in mp3tag) and save, Emby will then show the artists correctly. very strange.

Thanks again for your help.

It's not a player problem, nor is it strange. Your tags are not split correctly. You can fix this using the instructions I provided in the post above your previous reply.

[spon]

If the artists are showing in MB with double back slashes, they're not actually separated.

Using MP3TAG, use the Replace action to substitute \\ with /. You might have to use \\\\, so try on one file first and see which works.
Then use the "Split field/tag..." action and input /

Your artists will then display as Artist; Artist

Thanks for the reply. In MB, the tags look correct. When I open the same files in MP3Tag, the artists are separated by \\. When I open the files in TagScanner, the artists are separated by ;. It looks like each software just treats multiple artist tags (ie, more than one artist tag) differently. The problem that I'm having is that the media server that I use (Emby) is using FFProbe to parse the tags and it appears that ffprobe cannot handle more than one artist tag. It CAN handle a single artist tag with multiple values separated by a ; but if I make that change, the MusicBee won't display the Artists as separate artists.

I'm stuck between having MusicBee display incorrectly or having Emby display incorrectly. Clearly the issue is with how FFprobe reads the tag(s), but I'm just searching for a work around.

[hiccup]

Clearly the issue is with how FFprobe reads the tag(s),

That's probably a correct statement.

You never said what file format you are using.
If this is about mp3 files, are you using id3v2.3 or 2.4?
If it's 2.3 try switching to 2.4?

[spon]

Clearly the issue is with how FFprobe reads the tag(s),

That's probably a correct statement.

You never said what file format you are using.
If this is about mp3 files, are you using id3v2.3 or 2.4?
If it's 2.3 try switching to 2.4?

I'm using v2.3 so I can try to switch to 2.4, but I'm also having the problem with non-mp3 files (m4a for example).

According to an Emby dev, MusicBee is apparently using a "null separator" when using the split artist function. This null separator is displayed as "\\" in Mp3Tag and as a semi-colon in TagScanner. But that is just how those programs interpret the null separator. FFprobe stops reading the tag when it hits a null separator, which is what's causing the problem.

So the title of the thread is actually wrong. The real question is it possible for MusicBee to use a semicolon or single backslash rather than null as a separator when splitting artists?

[Steven]

If you save tags in MB, it would split the ';' into separate values. However, if you used another tag editor then you could use ';' as the separator in a single field and MB would split it into multiple values. You should double check that saving a rating wouldnt also cause MB to split the ';'. I dont think it would though but not completely sure without reviewing the code

[spon]

If you save tags in MB, it would split the ';' into separate values. However, if you used another tag editor then you could use ';' as the separator in a single field and MB would split it into multiple values. You should double check that saving a rating wouldnt also cause MB to split the ';'. I dont think it would though but not completely sure without reviewing the code

Thanks for your reply! I do have to admit that I'm a little confused though. I have tried to run things through MB, which allows me to use the Advanced Search and Replace feature to copy artists from the Displayed Artist tag into the Artist tag  (Command copies all artists delimetered by text &, vs., feat. from 'Displayed Artist' tag to multi-item 'Artist' tag). This works well in that it visually displays the artists separated by ';' but does split the artists so that the Artist views in MB work correctly. However my understanding is that the ';' is really a null separator, which means the additional artists are not being parsed correctly by ffprobe. As a work around, I tried to load up the files post-MB tagging into Mp3tag and replace the null separator with a ';'. This does work for ffprobe, however if/when I run a rescan in MB, the Artist tags are then showing as "Artist 1; Artist 2; Artist 3" in one Artist tag and are not split correctly. If I never rescan tags in MB it would probably work though.

[hiccup]

Does this mean that if Emby would recognise the null character as separator, the issue would be solved?
Is this something Emby is aware of, and is there a chance they will address this?

[spon]

Does this mean that if Emby would recognise the null character as separator, the issue would be solved?
Is this something Emby is aware of, and is there a chance they will address this?

Emby and at least one other popular media server (sorry the name is escaping me) uses FFProbe to scrape metadata from all files, audio and video, so it's unlikely they can do anything. In my google search there seems to be conflicting information as to if FFProbe considers this to be a bug or not, so it's possible FFProbe could make fix, however the posts I found are rather old so it doesn't seem to be something that they will change. I did read that null separator is "out of spec for all ID3 versions except for 2.4", which would seem to mean that the issue is with MB and it's use of null separator with v2.3. I don't think that FFProbe works well with v2.4, so that really isn't an option for my situation.