Bad metadata? Maybe your file is junk

The issue:
Your file plays fine, but Roon groups things in curious ways or swaps out artwork with Bono’s head or whatever. You tried over-riding some metadata but it’s not working, partly because Roon isn’t a proper editor … more of an interpreter. And so the sorting and grouping remains a mess.

How can this be? You imported from something else where everything is grouped OK, such Apple iTunes/Music. This means your other software grouped them as expected because it’s more forgiving than Roon is. For example, Apple iTunes/Music pays attention to (and can organize) file structure. :wink:

The fix:
Make a lossless copy within a player-database manager such as Apple iTunes/Music, delete the originals and then re-import (or rescan, if using a shared library.) What you’ll get is a fresh set of files that can be edited/grouped/sorted as intended.

(Making a straight file copy in macOS’ Finder or Windows’ File Explorer won’t accomplish anything here.)


In my case, Apple iTunes/Apple is my file editor because it has far more robust options than does Roon, but if the file is questionable, the metadata won’t be written to the file. A fresh copy fixes that, and then carries over to Roon.

A dedicated editor such as MP3Tag ( an unfortunate name; it can edit many file types … ) might be able to correct original files but I haven’t tried it yet. Mp3tag - the universal Tag Editor (ID3v2, MP4, OGG, FLAC, ...)

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I would highly recommend Yate over Mp3Tag. The Mac version of Mp3Tag is not the same as the windows version and does do many of the things the windows version does. Yate also has Roon focused features that help with using Roon specific tags and credits. While Mp3Tag is nice and will get the job done for basic tagging, Yate is much more powerful and the developer is always adding new features. They both cost $20 USD

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Metadatics is also highly recommended for Mac, costs 10 bucks.

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The excellent kid3 is open source and free.

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Good suggestions, thanks!