Unknown Artist/Unknown Album

[joeseph83]

So I don't know if this is an iTunes issue, a Verizon issue, a Droid issue or a non-issue but for some reason some of my songs that I put on my SD card from iTunes show up as "Unknown Album/Unkown Artist" despite having the correct ID tags and album art on my computer. It's always the same songs and I have deleted them, edited the information within iTunes, put them back on the SD card and it changes nothing.

By the way, the songs themselves are not iTunes tracks but songs that I have imported to iTunes from other sources.

Anyone know how to fix this? I'm extremely OCD about my music library and take the time to get the album art and make sure everything is correct so it's a little disappointing that this isn't shown on the phone.

 

[cgh]

So I don't know if this is an iTunes issue, a Verizon issue, a Droid issue or a non-issue but for some reason some of my songs that I put on my SD card from iTunes show up as "Unknown Album/Unkown Artist" despite having the correct ID tags and album art on my computer. It's always the same songs and I have deleted them, edited the information within iTunes, put them back on the SD card and it changes nothing.

By the way, the songs themselves are not iTunes tracks but songs that I have imported to iTunes from other sources.

Anyone know how to fix this? I'm extremely OCD about my music library and take the time to get the album art and make sure everything is correct so it's a little disappointing that this isn't shown on the phone.

That's strange... I could understand if it was happening with purchased music from iTunes... What format are they? I had some trouble with some of my FLAC stuff when I was on 1.5, but 2.1 seems to have fixed that.

 

[jwm2]

Get doubletwist and use that to transfer over songs to your eris. It works just like itunes and should do a good job of making sure things are intact when transferring them over.

 

[OfTheDamned]

I use an app called iTag to edit music files like this. It will allow you to edit all the info right from the phone.

 

[mc48]

I use an app called iTag to edit music files like this. It will allow you to edit all the info right from the phone.

OTD, could this be called something else. I found iTag in the market and it is an app to locate a lost or stolen phone...nothing about tagging music.

edit: or maybe it is for 2.1 only, I am still running 1.5.

 

[jfp2004]

mp3tagger pro worked well enough for me, all things considered, but it does cost money. It wasn't 100% though.

I ended up just transferring the files back to the computer and uses tag editors and album art grabbers to do the job for me, and then transfer them back. Wasn't as convenient, but it was more accurate.

 

[ThorSkaagi]

It's probably because the songs are in AAC format. My Eris had that problem too.

 

[OfTheDamned]

OTD, could this be called something else. I found iTag in the market and it is an app to locate a lost or stolen phone...nothing about tagging music.

edit: or maybe it is for 2.1 only, I am still running 1.5.

It may be a 2.1 only thing. Here it is on Androlib though

iTag v1.0 Application for Android | Multimedia

 

[J.R.]

I've also been using the stock music app and my problem is that some of the music seems to be locked and won't play at all on the Eris. When I look at those songs on the mac, they have a little padlock symbol on the file. Any ideas?

 

[OfTheDamned]

I've also been using the stock music app and my problem is that some of the music seems to be locked and won't play at all on the Eris. When I look at those songs on the mac, they have a little padlock symbol on the file. Any ideas?

They probably have DRM on them and the Eris won't play stuff that is protected.

 

[grvthang]

mp3tagger pro worked well enough for me, all things considered, but it does cost money. It wasn't 100% though.

I ended up just transferring the files back to the computer and uses tag editors and album art grabbers to do the job for me, and then transfer them back. Wasn't as convenient, but it was more accurate.

+1 on the mp3tagger pro. It was only a $1.33 (.99 Euros - man that sucks, I remember when it was an even 1 to 1), and it works well. Very user-friendly and makes it easy to make changes. (I'm running 1.5, btw)

 

[pjwren13]

Had a similar problem except all my music on SD just stopped reading. Phone said unknown and wouldnt play, went into music player and could see artists names but files just wouldn't play. Ended up deleting them and uploading the again no problems now.

 

[J.R.]

They probably have DRM on them and the Eris won't play stuff that is protected.

I bought the music from iTunes or Amazon, legally. Is it normal for there to be DRM protection on this stuff? Is there any way to get around it so I can play my music? Will that app you mentioned that works well with iTunes help? Thanks for any info!

 

[Demache]

I bought the music from iTunes or Amazon, legally. Is it normal for there to be DRM protection on this stuff? Is there any way to get around it so I can play my music? Will that app you mentioned that works well with iTunes help? Thanks for any info!

iTunes, for quite some time used DRM, so some music that you bought 1+ years ago will most likely have DRM. I can't remember when iTunes went DRM-free on music. But regardless, Apple DRM protected files only play in iTunes and Apple devices. You'll need to convert the locked DRM files to regular MP3 or something similar. Burning a CD of those songs and re-ripping them is a tried and true method that is guaranteed to work. There are many software alternatives that work as well.

As far as I know, Amazon doesn't use any DRM on their music, but I could be wrong, since I'm not familiar with their system.

 

[joeseph83]

That's strange... I could understand if it was happening with purchased music from iTunes... What format are they? I had some trouble with some of my FLAC stuff when I was on 1.5, but 2.1 seems to have fixed that.

Well, they are .aac files and 98% of them work great on the phone, it's just about 3 albums of 100's so far that have been acting all dumb. I have taken them off the sd card, re-tagged them in iTunes, and put them back on and I still have the same problem. It's goofy and I'd say it's random but it's the same albums every time. I guess some things are just meant to remain a mystery.

 

[Hagbard57]

That's strange... I could understand if it was happening with purchased music from iTunes... What format are they? I had some trouble with some of my FLAC stuff when I was on 1.5, but 2.1 seems to have fixed that.

Hey, noob question...does the Eris play FLAC files? If this is true I had no idea and will be pretty awesome.

 

[DrDriller]

i had a problem on my galaxy S2 running ICS 4.03, my mp3 tags were right on the computer, but a few of them showed as unknown artists on the phone, no matter the music players used.

i've tried to delete the database then rebuild, a few mp3 tag

 

[buzzell42]

Running into similar situations (problem w/ AlbumArt showing, too), I did a little experimentation. It appears that when you import a song/album into your iTunes Library, it looks for that location. Your Droid however, wants to look in a file structure (at least to some degree). If you put the albums/songs on your PC in a consistent format/file-structure (btw, I would try to flatten this, but this is what iTunes/Windows Media Player had set up):

User>
Music>
iTunes>
Album Artwork>
iTunes Media>
Automatically Add to iTunes>
Music>
Artist>
Album1>
Song1
Song2
Songx
Albumx>
Songx

On your Droid, you can start at the second "Music" level. If you don't have a bunch of .m4a files, you can use Windows Media Player to keep them in synch. But, since m4a is iTunes, and not supported by WMP, I suspect you'll have to find something else.

Finally, the thing I learned about the Album Art is that the files stored in .m4a format (at least, if not others) don't want to recognize the image files, no matter where you put them. If you Save a Copy of the 200px image file to the about folder (or another) and then use the "Add" button and the file, on the last tab of the iTunes Info widget, it works fine on the Droid. If you just cut & paste, it doesn't. Copying the files to the Droid doesn't work consistently - don't ask me why.

Hope this helps. If not, "Del" key.

 

[rhyno85]

I have tried several different apps to change genre artist and other info for my songs that I get off of tube mate, and anytime I edit the info it says my player cannot recognize the file. Help?

 

[lukabug]

That's strange... I could understand if it was happening with purchased music from iTunes... What format are they? I had some trouble with some of my FLAC stuff when I was on 1.5, but 2.1 seems to have fixed that.

Same thing has happened to me, i use a simple mp3 format sound for my songs, transfer them to my samsung galaxy s2 and most of my songs just say unknown, i do make sure composer is set to the actual composer, title name, album name, artist name, but i am starting to think that maybe it's just where you got the music from.