Tag Inspector messes up non-Latin metadata

[getmusicbee_account1111]

Tag inspector seems to mess up non-Latin character encoding.
I wanted to edit a single genre in multiple tracks, and all the non-Latin fields turned into a bunch of question marks.
I have tried with Cyrillic, Japanese, Arabic, Korean metadata, all had the same behavior.

Demonstration: https://imgur.com/a/8SyxVIN

[hiccup]

To me it seems the file you are using as an example has messed-up metadata to begin with.
I am noticing double entries with more question marks in other fields too.
Perhaps try to fix these issues using a tool such as mp3diags?
Or just delete all metadata from them and then redo them properly?

[getmusicbee_account1111]

As I said, I have tried on multiple files and languages, not just this one, so it's not an issue with the file.

Not sure what you mean with double entries.
If you mean Encoder etc, it's mentioned twice because it's in Tag Inspector.
When you select multiple files in Tag Inspector, it shows the info for both unless the tag value is the same in both (which it isn't for Encoder).

[hiccup]

Not sure what you mean with double entries.

Your example video shows double entries for e.g. 'album' and 'publisher. The duplicates also display lots of question marks.
You are claiming this to be a MusicBee bug, but don't you think something serious like this wouldn't have been reported already in the last ten years or so?
My guess: your files are messed-up to begin with.

[getmusicbee_account1111]

The files were downloaded at different times from entirely different sources using entirely different methods.
Statistically, what are the chances that they are all messed up?
My guess is pretty low.

Your example video shows double entries for e.g. 'album' and 'publisher. The duplicates also display lots of question marks.

Again, in the video, I selected two files.
The album "InLovingMemory" is for Bones, and the album "??" is for Prvrln.
The "double publisher" is two different tags, one for publisher, the other for the label.

[hiccup]

So you are using the Tag Inspector not on a single file, but on several files?
For inspecting tags that will be fine, but I can imagine using it to edit multiple files at once is more complicated.
E.g. how would you know for which track you are editing a specific tag when there are multiple variations displayed as in your example video?
(I'm also not sure about how MB handles this to be honest)

Instead of editing a genre tag (what seems to be what you are doing), perhaps use the '+' button to add a tag to all the files?
Or if you intentionally want all selected files to have the exact same genre, delete all existing genre entries, save, and then add the desired genre and save that for all of them.

edit
I'm also confused that in your video, there are already tags containing lots of question marks.
Do you believe MusicBee did that, or were they there already?
 

[getmusicbee_account1111]

So you are using the Tag Inspector not on a single file, but on several files?

Yes, according to a forum post by one of the mods, it's the only way to bulk add/remove/edit a common genre.

E.g. how would you know for which track you are editing a specific tag when there are multiple variations displayed as in your example video?

That's what the checkmark is for.
Only the checkmarked fields are supposed to be touched in any way.

Instead of editing a genre tag (what seems to be what you are doing), perhaps use the '+' button to add a tag to all the files?

How would I then remove the genre from all selected files (Trap in this example)?
Besides, doing what you suggest results in the same issue of replacing non-Latin with question marks.
Doing anything other than closing the Tag Inspector results in the same issue.

Or if you intentionally want all selected files to have the exact same genre, delete all existing genre entries, save, and then add the desired genre and save that for all of them.

No, I just want to replace Trap with Wave (as an example).
Or at the very least first add Wave to all, then remove Trap from all.
I don't want to lose all the other different genres the tracks have.

I'm also confused that in your video, there are already tags containing lots of question marks.
Do you believe MusicBee did that, or were they there already?

I am also confused by that.
The weird part is they are displayed fine in the Edit menu (and everywhere else really).
Basically Tag inspector shows all non-Latin fields as question marks from the get-go without me even saving anything.
That leads me to believe that nothing was done per se, Tag Inspector just seems to be unable to render non-English and propagates this if the changes are saved (even if the fields were never touched)?

[hiccup]

So you are using the Tag Inspector not on a single file, but on several files?

Yes, according to a forum post by one of the mods, it's the only way to bulk add/remove/edit a common genre.

It's not the only way. Here is another one: https://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=35032.0
I'd better retreat for now, at the moment I'm not in a clear enough state of mind to oversee everything possibly involved here ;-)

[getmusicbee_account1111]

Two issues I can see with that method.
1. I don't really wanna resort to custom plugins.. I might end up having more problems that way.
2. If I'm understanding correctly, that method will replace all Trap with Wave.
I just want the files I selected to have Trap replaced with Wave.

[Steven]

if the tags are not unicode encoded then then MB uses the default windows encoding page and not iso-8859-1 as per the id3 specs. The reason is the official encoding was causing issues for a number of people in the early days of MB and the default windows encoder worked better. However when saving id3v2.3 MB will use unicode when non-ascii characters are present, but if its garbage in then its also garbage out

[hiccup]

If I'm understanding correctly, that method will replace all Trap with Wave.

No, it's a method to add tags, not replacing them.

I just want the files I selected to have Trap replaced with Wave.

Then why not use the 'search and replace' feature?
(tools > tagging tools)

[getmusicbee_account1111]

Steven, but they display fine outside the Tag Inspector.
E.g. the Tag Editor has no problem showing non-Latin chars or editing them.

Also, why is it even changing their encoding if I'm only editing and ticking a single Genre checkmark?

[getmusicbee_account1111]

Then why not use the 'search and replace' feature?
(tools > tagging tools)

Oh thanks that does it 
Still wondering with the Inspector in particular not liking the encoding.

[Steven]

can you send a link to a zip to one of the problem files before saving it with MB

[getmusicbee_account1111]

https://www.mediafire.com/file/axjf5t52txnhjcu/problem-files.zip/file
The zip has files in Ukrainian, Russian, Korean, Arabic and Japanese.

To clarify:

if the tags are not unicode encoded then then MB uses the default windows encoding page and not iso-8859-1 as per the id3 specs.

Do the specs say to use the Windows encoding or iso-8859-1?

I wonder why MB overrides the unchecked fields at all and if there's a way to make it write UTF-8 only.