Help Galaxy S FLAC tags unknown

[ryconn]

Hi all. New here. And my first smartphone, Galaxy S.

I primarily went with this phone because of all the goss and talk about the spec, including FLAC support. All I really wanted was a phone that I could play all my music media (mp3, FLAC, and a few aac), and scrobble to Last.fm.

Now I've discovered that the Galaxy S (and other Android phones) cannot read the tags in the FLAC, which renders my phone useless for the main reason I brought it (Last.fm requires tags!).

Does anyone know what the deal is here? A solution? Is it an Android issue? Any info would be most helpful, as I am on the verge of (attempting) to return the phone. My argument would be that if the spec says that FLAC is supported, this would mean the tags too. It sounds flaky, I think, but does anyone have an opinion on this, FLAC being only partially supported?

Cheerio...
Ryan

 

[SixthStreet]

FLAC support was a huge reason to me at least that the phone was attractive. I too would like to know. I'm surprised none of the reviews out there have made mention of this.

 

[ryconn]

I'm surprised none of the reviews out there have made mention of this.

I totally agree. My Google searches say pretty much next to nothing about this issue, which for me, has potentially left me with a dud phone for the next 24mths while my contract plays out. I feel absolutely burnt!

 

[waspbr]

funny, it was able to read the tags on my flacs... odd

 

[ryconn]

funny, it was able to read the tags on my flacs... odd

That's great. Can you explain your situation a bit more? By process of elimination, it will easier to find out what maybe causing the issue.

Phone/Model?
OS?
App Used to play FLAC?
Type of tags used in your FLAC files?***

***I doubt this should be the issue as FLAC should be using FLAC tags, but I've seen something in a random forum about using OGG tags instead (and that solved that persons problem, which is not all that similar to the issue here).

Furthermore, I just read this off the FLAC Wikipedia page, under support for "other platforms".

Google Android devices running CM 3.9.6 and later or Bugless Beauty 0.8.6 / Bugless Beast 0.7.4 and later ROMs.

Does anyone know what this stuff means?

 

[lanceeee]

Bad flac support? That is a bummer as native flac support is almost a must have requirement for me.

 

[waspbr]

I had created my flac tags a long time ago using this program
EasyTAG - Tag editor for MP3, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, MusePack and Monkey's Audio files, ...

Now I cannot remember what specific settings I used though I reckon it you play around with it you may be able to get things sorted out.


gl

PS: not sure if they have a windows version of this software...

 

[ryconn]

I had created my flac tags a long time ago using this program
EasyTAG - Tag editor for MP3, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, MusePack and Monkey's Audio files, ...

Now I cannot remember what specific settings I used though I reckon it you play around with it you may be able to get things sorted out.


gl

PS: not sure if they have a windows version of this software...

Awesome, thanks again.

How about letting us in on:

Phone/Model?
OS?
App Used to play FLAC?

 

[waspbr]

My phone is the Galaxy S 8GB, standard european release. To play the files I use the standard samsung music player that comes with the phone.

My music collection is in my ubuntu computer, and I have used easytag to edit the tags whenever needed.

 

[ryconn]

My phone is the Galaxy S 8GB, european edition. To play the files I use the standard samsung music player that comes with the phone.

My music collection is in my ubuntu computer, and I have used easytag to edit the tags whenever needed.

Gold, thanks.

I have a dual boot Windoze and Ubuntu, so I should be able to try Easytag, no problem.

PS. It would be nice to see what type of tags your FLACs are. I mean, apparently, FLAC can be tagged with ID3v1/v2, OGG type tags too. Perhaps you could email me a one of your FLACs, and I can check it.

 

[ryconn]

Bump!

 

[ekenig]

So I'm not sure if there's a difference between id3 tags (v1 or v2) and flac tags but if you use media monkey you should be able to auto-tag into id3 tags and if media monkey isn't reading the existing tags forwhatever reason you can auto tag based off of the route of the files which if you're like most people, is C:/My Music/Artist/Album/file.flac or something similar. Personally I lump all my music into one giant folder labeled as C:/My Music/Artist-Album-track#-title.flac but that's just how I like it. If you happen to title your music in that fashion, media monkey can still easily extract the info necessary to create the id3 tags

 

[ryconn]

So I'm not sure if there's a difference between id3 tags (v1 or v2) and flac tags but if you use media monkey you should be able to auto-tag into id3 tags and if media monkey isn't reading the existing tags forwhatever reason you can auto tag based off of the route of the files which if you're like most people, is C:/My Music/Artist/Album/file.flac or something similar. Personally I lump all my music into one giant folder labeled as C:/My Music/Artist-Album-track#-title.flac but that's just how I like it. If you happen to title your music in that fashion, media monkey can still easily extract the info necessary to create the id3 tags

Thanks for your input.

There's a massive difference between ID3v1 and v2, just check the Wiki.

FLAC tags are different again, but are similar to Vorbis tags.

There's nothing wrong with my tags. Thanks, but I know for a fact, that this isn't the issue.

 

[hspder]

Similar problem here; I spent quite some time tinkering with it and here are my findings:

I have a T-Mobile USA Galaxy S, aka Vibrant aka SGH-T959, with Android 2.1u1.

I have used dbPowerAmp, TuneUp, Tag&Rename, Mp3Tag AND EasyTag. All of them have the same results.

Using all the above tools I can properly tag the album (album name). This works both with native FLAC tags ("Vorbis comments") and ID3v2 tags in the FLAC.

IF I use ID3v2 tags, I can also properly display the album art, which does make me very happy.

That's all -- no other tags show up.

Not the artist, not the album artist, not the track number, not even the genre. Album name with FLAC or IDv2 tags, art with IDv2 tags only.

I pretty much tried every single possible combination. Nothing can get it working.

Now, fortunately the Album Name and the art are really the two most important things, because the rest I can put in the filename, which is oddly shown as the title. However, it is still odd and annoying.

Maybe Android 2.2 will fix this. I hope it does. But for now I'm stuck.

 

[waspbr]

yep, that is pretty much it, the tags only partially work with flac files. For instance I can seem to get the album art and album name to work but the artist won't show...

I then decided to convert whatever file to .ogg during the MTP tranfer from my media player (banshee).

 

[ryconn]

Similar problem here; I spent quite some time tinkering with it and here are my findings:

I have a T-Mobile USA Galaxy S, aka Vibrant aka SGH-T959, with Android 2.1u1.

I have used dbPowerAmp, TuneUp, Tag&Rename, Mp3Tag AND EasyTag. All of them have the same results.

Using all the above tools I can properly tag the album (album name). This works both with native FLAC tags ("Vorbis comments") and ID3v2 tags in the FLAC.

IF I use ID3v2 tags, I can also properly display the album art, which does make me very happy.

That's all -- no other tags show up.

Not the artist, not the album artist, not the track number, not even the genre. Album name with FLAC or IDv2 tags, art with IDv2 tags only.

I pretty much tried every single possible combination. Nothing can get it working.

Now, fortunately the Album Name and the art are really the two most important things, because the rest I can put in the filename, which is oddly shown as the title. However, it is still odd and annoying.

Maybe Android 2.2 will fix this. I hope it does. But for now I'm stuck.

Good stuff. Thanks for your input.

This is pretty much where I'm at to. However, I'm working around it by converting my FLAC to mp3. I've also discovered that the (and I've tried at least 4 or 5 different Apps) Galaxy S (or is it Android 2.1?) does not read ID3v2. So, I'm having to convert FLAC to mp3 and change the tag types to ID3v1. All this is rather bothersome, but I can live with it for now.

I've been in touch with Samsung support, and they don't really know anything about it, typically.

I'm not sure whether Android 2.2 would fix the issue as it could be a hand-set issue, or an App issue. As of now, no-one seems to have any answers or identified what is causing the bugs.

And who knows whether Samsung is actually going to release 2.2 for the Galaxy S. Having said that, I'm probably going to upgrade my hand-set manually (ie flash/custom ROM) to 2.2.

 

[hspder]

I'm not sure whether Android 2.2 would fix the issue as it could be a hand-set issue, or an App issue. As of now, no-one seems to have any answers or identified what is causing the bugs.

After talking to Google, Android doesn't support FLAC. Support is provided by Samsung, so it's a Samsung bug. 3rd party apps will rely on the Samsung hardware / model-specific-firmware, they don't do it on their own, so it has to be Samsung fixing it.

Personally, I'm not going to settle by converting to MP3 or OggVorbis... For that I have another Samsung player, the whole point of going Android and having a microSDHC slot that takes 32GB cards is precisely to be able to enjoy lossless quality.

 

[hurrakan]

Hi,

My Galaxy S wont read FLAC tags either - actually it does not read the tags on a few of my MP3s either.

I usually rip from CD to FLAC using Exact Audio Copy but I've also tried with FLACs that I've purchased online. I've also tried tagging with various programs including Songbird, MP3 Tagger, TagAndRename, Foobar2000, etc.

Interestingly all of these other progams can always read the FLAC tags.

Currently the only solution is to organise the FLACs into folders based on album and place the cover image in the folder. That way you can get Album titles but you have to write the artist and track name in the filename. Annoying! We need proper tags so we can create playlists based on Artist, Genre, etc.

I got some quite expensive ear phones and now I can't listen to MP3s because they sound too inadequate compared to FLACs.

I think some non-UK versions of the Galaxy S seem to be able to read FLAC tags more reliably.

 

[ryconn]

actually it does not read the tags on a few of my MP3s either.

That would be because the handset (or Android?) cannot handle certain flavours of ID3. I was fairly certain that the problem was handset not recognizing ID3v2, but I'm still have some issues with a few ID3v1 (I think).

Interestingly all of these other progams can always read the FLAC tags.

Laughs. Very true. I assume it's because all those programs are NOT written by monkey's!

I think some non-UK versions of the Galaxy S seem to be able to read FLAC tags more reliably.

This is interesting. What makes you say this? Any info/links?

 

[Nookz]

Hi,

My Galaxy S wont read FLAC tags either - actually it does not read the tags on a few of my MP3s either.

I usually rip from CD to FLAC using Exact Audio Copy but I've also tried with FLACs that I've purchased online. I've also tried tagging with various programs including Songbird, MP3 Tagger, TagAndRename, Foobar2000, etc.

Interestingly all of these other progams can always read the FLAC tags.

Currently the only solution is to organise the FLACs into folders based on album and place the cover image in the folder. That way you can get Album titles but you have to write the artist and track name in the filename. Annoying! We need proper tags so we can create playlists based on Artist, Genre, etc.

I got some quite expensive ear phones and now I can't listen to MP3s because they sound too inadequate compared to FLACs.

I think some non-UK versions of the Galaxy S seem to be able to read FLAC tags more reliably.

Hi All,

New to this forum and also the Galaxy S. Came up against the same not reading tags in FLAC issue.

Good news - there is a workaround.

Download Extended Media Scanner from Romulus Urakagi Ts'ai. This will scan the FLAC files and import the tags into the standard andriod media database. Then you can use Music Player to listen.

It works, but not completely. On mine it wouldn't read in the genres, but no biggie. Also, last.fm doesn't seem to scrobble tracks imported in this way.

I'll keep digging.

Cheers,

NZ.

 

[Loremonger]

Hi All,
Download Extended Media Scanner from Romulus Urakagi Ts'ai. This will scan the FLAC files and import the tags into the standard andriod media database. Then you can use Music Player to listen.

This did seem to work on some of my music, but most of the artists are still <unknown>. Also, I'm not seeing any album art.

 

[carbonara]

From reading around, and with my own experiences this appears to be an Android issue and not just related to FLAC.

It appears Android itself has a problem reading artist tags. My HTC Desire with 2.2 won't read artist tags for MP3 or WMA, not tried any other format.

Google also don't seem concerned that a basic feature all smartphones should have as standard doesn't work on their platform, and on version 2.2 at that too. They've made no acknowledgment of the issue at all.

So all those people that only want to carry one device around for phone and music it's a big f*ck you from Google. Thanks.

 

[ryconn]

I have finally found a solution!!!!

PowerAMP app plays and reads all the tags of every MP3 and FLAC I've thrown at it to date. Very satisfactory. Note that I'm using Froyo now too.

 

[pietjuhhh1990]

Still powerAMP is missing a lot of tags with me
Galaxy S Europ (16GB)

Extra Media scanner fixes some of the tags but still a lot of tags are without the artist

 

[ryconn]

Still powerAMP is missing a lot of tags with me
Galaxy S Europ (16GB)

Extra Media scanner fixes some of the tags but still a lot of tags are without the artist

Strange that. Are you on Froyo? I noticed PowerAMP has missed the Album name on a single file, and I changed the tag from ID3v2 to ID3v1 and that fixed it. Not an exactly desirable work-around, but may help. I only mean to be helpful here, but have you verified your tags are correct in a program like Foobar2k or mp3tag? Some media players and related software a shit with tags, so there could be an issue there, like you could be using APE tags or something unorthodox that PowerAMP cannot read.