Priority of reading tags format.

[ksz16]

I have a lot of mp3 files with tags in two formats: APEv2 + ID3v1.1. I noticed that MPD reads metadata from them, but prioritizes ID3v1.1. Is it possible to reverse this so that APEv2 tag data is read first? Alternatively: is it possible to completely disable ID3v1.1 tag support?

[naglis]

Alternatively: is it possible to completely disable ID3v1.1 tag support?

IIUC this could be achieved by compiling MPD with id3tag feature disabled.

Edit: this is not 100% correct, see Max's comment below.

[ksz16]

Thanks for your interest in the topic and your response. So recompilation is the only option? Isn't there a possibility to disable this feature via a configuration file?

[naglis]

Isn't there a possibility to disable this feature via a configuration file?

I didn't find a way to disable tag plugins in the documentation.

[MaxKellermann]

This feature flag disables only using libid3tag for reading ID3 tags; if a (third-party) decoder library used by MPD such as FFmpeg also contains an ID3 parser, MPD does not (and cannot) disable that.

[MaxKellermann]

APE and ID3 are only used (in that order) if the decoder plugin delivers no tags at all. As you see, APE is already preferred over ID3.

But maybe the decoder plugin you're using for MP3 provides tags (reads ID3?). Nobody but you knows because only you have information about your MPD setup.

[ksz16]

Thank you very much for your reply, which made me delve more into the documentation. Until now, I didn't know that the decoder metadata took precedence.
I observed this accidentally on files that had the omega symbol (Ω) in the tags. After checking, it turned out that APEv2 tags display this symbol correctly, while ID3v1.1 tags show a question mark (?) instead. I was not surprised by this, because as far as I remember, ID3v1.1 tags don't support Unicode. The question mark (?) appeared in the myMPD GUI instead of the omega symbol (Ω). Hence my guess that the order in which MPD reads the tag data is responsible.
Now I know that the problem is something else. Hence my question: how to configure MPD correctly so that the decoder delivers data with Unicode? Alternatively: how to force the use of tags rather than decoder data?
I apologize for the probably trivial questions, but I've only been using MPD for a few days.

[ksz16]

My setup:

• Raspberry Pi 2 Model B
• DietPi v8.22.3 (Debian 12.2)
• files on NFS (mounted on the filesystem via fstab)
• myMPD 12.0.4

Music Player Daemon 0.23.12 (0.23.12)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           
Copyright 2003-2007 Warren Dukes <warren.dukes@gmail.com>                                                                                                                                                                                                                       
Copyright 2008-2021 Max Kellermann <max.kellermann@gmail.com>                                                                                                                                                                                                                   
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.  There is NO                                                                                                                                                                                                      
warranty; not even MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.                                                                                                                                                                                                         
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                
Database plugins:                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               
 simple proxy upnp                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                
Storage plugins:                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                
 local smbclient udisks nfs curl                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                
Neighbor plugins:                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               
 smbclient upnp udisks                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                
Decoders plugins:                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               
 [mad] mp3 mp2                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  
 [mpg123] mp3                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   
 [vorbis] ogg oga                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               
 [oggflac] ogg oga                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              
 [flac] flac                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    
 [opus] opus ogg oga                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            
 [sndfile] wav aiff aif au snd paf iff svx sf voc w64 pvf xi htk caf sd2                                                                                                                                                                                                        
 [dsdiff] dff                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   
 [dsf] dsf                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
 [hybrid_dsd] m4a                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               
 [faad] aac                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     
 [mpcdec] mpc                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   
 [wavpack] wv                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   
 [openmpt] mptm mod s3m xm it 669 amf ams c67 dbm digi dmf dsm dtm far imf ice j2b m15 mdl med mms mt2 mtm nst okt plm psm pt36 ptm sfx sfx2 st26 stk stm stp ult wow gdm mo3 oxm umx xpk ppm mmcmp                                                                             
 [modplug] 669 amf ams dbm dfm dsm far it med mdl mod mtm mt2 okt s3m stm ult umx xm                                                                                                                                                                                            
 [mikmod] amf dsm far gdm imf it med mod mtm s3m stm stx ult uni xm                                                                                                                                                                                                             
 [sidplay] sid mus str prg P00                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  
 [wildmidi] mid                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 
 [fluidsynth] mid                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               
 [adplug] amd d00 hsc laa rad raw sa2                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           
 [ffmpeg] 16sv 3g2 3gp 4xm 8svx aa3 aac ac3 adx afc aif aifc aiff al alaw amr anim apc ape asf atrac au aud avi avm2 avs bap bfi c93 cak cin cmv cpk daud dct divx dts dv dvd dxa eac3 film flac flc fli fll flx flv g726 gsm gxf iss m1v m2v m2t m2ts m4a m4b m4v mad mj2 mjpeg
 mjpg mka mkv mlp mm mmf mov mp+ mp1 mp2 mp3 mp4 mpc mpeg mpg mpga mpp mpu mve mvi mxf nc nsv nut nuv oga ogm ogv ogx oma ogg omg opus psp pva qcp qt r3d ra ram rl2 rm rmvb roq rpl rvc shn smk snd sol son spx str swf tak tgi tgq tgv thp ts tsp tta xa xvid uv uv2 vb vid vo
b voc vp6 vmd wav webm wma wmv wsaud wsvga wv wve rtp:// rtsp:// rtsps://                                                                                                                                                                                                       
 [gme] ay gbs gym hes kss nsf nsfe rsn sap spc vgm vgz                                                                                                                                                                                                                          
 [pcm]                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

Filters:                                                            
 libsamplerate soxr                                                 

Tag plugins:                                                        
 id3tag                                                             

Output plugins:                                                     
 shout null fifo sndio pipe alsa ao oss openal pipewire pulse jack httpd snapcast recorder                                              

Encoder plugins:                                                    
 null vorbis opus lame wave flac                                    

Archive plugins:                                                    
 [bz2] bz2                                                          
 [zzip] zip                                                         
 [iso] iso                                                          

Input plugins:                                                      
 file io_uring archive alsa curl ffmpeg smbclient nfs mms cdio_paranoia                                                                 

Playlist plugins:                                                   
 extm3u m3u pls xspf asx rss soundcloud flac cue embcue                                                                                 

Protocols:                                                          
 file:// alsa:// cdda:// ftp:// ftps:// gopher:// hls+http:// hls+https:// http:// https:// mms:// mmsh:// mmst:// mmsu:// nfs:// rtmp:// rtmpe:// rtmps:// rtmpt:// rtmpte:// rtmpts:// rtp:// rtsp:// rtsps:// scp:// sftp:// smb:// srtp://

Other features:                                                     
 avahi dbus udisks epoll icu inotify ipv6 systemd tcp un

[jcorporation]

Why do you not remove the ID3v1.1 tags? Would be the simplest solution.

[ksz16]

Yes, this seems to be the easiest way, and of course I thought about it, but that doesn't solve all the problems. My collection was tagged several years ago with foobar2000, so there are more incompatibilities (e.g. albumartist). Anyway: I will not avoid (at least partial) tag editing. I just want the adopted scheme to be fairly universal, and to be future-proof. That's why I care about a well-thought-out solution that I won't have to change for years, or preferably never again.

At the moment I have made some assumptions:

• MusicBrainz Picard will be my main tool for editing tags (this seems to be a generally acceptable standard at the moment)
• mp3 files will have ID3v1.1 + ID3v2 tags (I will remove APEv2)

I'm still hesitating between ID2v2.3 and ID2v2.4. I know that version 2.3 is more compatible, but the future probably belongs to 2.4 (I noticed that Picard recently changed 2.3 to 2.4 in its default settings).

What do you think about such a solution? Do ID3v1s make any sense in 2023, or is it better to remove them? APEv2 certainly loses out to ID3v2 (at least in mp3 files). But what to choose: ID3v2.3 or ID3v2.4? I would appreciate your opinion.

[jcorporation]

I personally tag my files only with ID3v2.4, because of support for utf8 and tags with multiple values. I tag also with MusicBrain Picard, but beets could be better for large music collections. I remove all other tags.

[ksz16]

That's right - I forgot about beets. I need to test its batch editing capabilities.
Thank you very much for your interest in the topic and helpful advice.

[bonelifer]

An alternative to beets is bliss, just a suggestion. https://www.blisshq.com/