[Null character used for multiple artists in ID3 tags (MP3 files) not parsing correctly]

I think it's some sort of bug as you said. I just tested a few different files by editing the artist tags using MusicBee instead of MP3Tag and it also failed to split the artists.

[Null character used for multiple artists in ID3 tags (MP3 files) not parsing correctly]

8 hours ago, andrewilley said:

OK, as long as you are happy that the problem is with splitting the Genre tag as Max mentioned, but I thought your issue was with multiple Artist names?

Andre

Yes, my issue is with multiple artists.

On 5/19/2022 at 9:11 AM, maxmp said:

At this moment, for id3v2 only genre tag separates multiple tags by :

I added NUL separation with ; (as for other tagging schemes) for id3v2 as well - will be in builds 940+.

I interpreted this as "current versions of PA support multiple tags for genre and nothing else, but multiple artists (as well as other tags) would be included in future build 940+." If it is, then I think this solves my issue since multiple artists will be supported in the future builds. Otherwise, we could use some clarification from @maxmp and would still need a fix for multiple artists specifically.

[Null character used for multiple artists in ID3 tags (MP3 files) not parsing correctly]

Since Max has indicated that this will be fixed in build 940+, I will mark his post as the solution. Thank you to everyone who participated in this thread.

[Null character used for multiple artists in ID3 tags (MP3 files) not parsing correctly]

Thanks for your time in helping me with this Andre.

Here is a sample MP3 that does not have the multiple artists split in PA. The artist tag is entered in mp3tag as "Bring Me The Horizon\\BABYMETAL" and shows up in the artist field in PA as "Bring Me The Horizon BABYMETAL".

[Null character used for multiple artists in ID3 tags (MP3 files) not parsing correctly]

I have reinstalled the app so all my settings are freshly default and I have done a full scan. Still have the same issues, but here are my findings and observations:

1. For FLAC, in PA, artists can be stored in multiple, separate ARTIST tags. Artists are shown in PA as separated with "; " (semicolon and space), so they are shown as "artist1; artist2". Although the multiple ARTIST tags are recognized and separated with a "; ", for some reason they are not split by default due to the underline going underneath the entire tag. Therefore, using default settings, multiple artists are not working. However, a workaround exists by adding ";" to the "Symbols to Split Multiple Artists" setting. After adding that, "artist1; artist2" are properly split into 2 separate artists shown by 2 underlines, one beneath each artist name. If this is intentionally done to support multiple artists in such a roundabout way, then ";" should be included in "Symbols to Split Multiple Artists" as the default setting.
2. For MP3, in PA, null characters become replaced with a " " (space), so if an ARTIST tag was artist1<null>artist2 (or artist1\\artist2 in mp3tag for example), PA shows it as "artist1 artist2" and the multiple artists are not split due to the underline going underneath the entire tag. There will be no way to get this to work using the "Symbols to Split Multiple Artists" feature properly if any artist names include a space.
3. It seems using the above findings, we can determine that at least for PA build 933, null characters for multiple artists are not supported for MP3 files only. It seems like the null characters in MP3 files are intended to be replaced by "; " so that the "Symbols to Split Multiple Artists" feature can split the artists with ";", but this is currently not the case.
4. If null characters were supported properly for MP3 files and working in previous builds, then a regression in the source code probably occurred.
5. Semicolon ";" should be included in "Symbols to Split Multiple Artists" as the default setting due to the way current support for multiple artists work.

Attached pics below show how this works for FLAC files with default settings and then with ";" added to "Symbols to Split Multiple Artists".

[Null character used for multiple artists in ID3 tags (MP3 files) not parsing correctly]

Hi Andre. Here's a couple pics of what I'm working with as well as my settings for splitting. I have done full rescans multiple times and still end up with artists unsplit for MP3s like this. At this point I'm thinking I should reset all Poweramp settings or reinstall the app if the feature should be working as you say.

[Null character used for multiple artists in ID3 tags (MP3 files) not parsing correctly]

When using a null character for tagging multiple artists in MP3 files, the artists are not split as they should be. I do this by typing "\\" in the mp3tag program, which according to them inputs a null character as required by the ID3v2.4 specs for multiple artists although this is informally applied to ID3v2.3 as well. Splitting multiple artists works perfectly for FLAC files using this method. For MP3 files, using characters like ";" or "/" and defining them as a symbol to split artists in Poweramp works as well. The only thing that doesn't work is using null characters in MP3 files.

I believe this to be classified as a bug since the null character is what is specified for multiple artists in the ID3 specs and it is not working in Poweramp. I am hoping to see this bug fixed because I believe Poweramp is the best music player on Android, and the dev seems quite active responding to bugs and feature requests.

Poweramp build: 933
Device: Samsung Galaxy S8
Android version: 9
Steps to reproduce: Use null characters as delimiters for multiple artists in tags for MP3 files

[Multiple Artists]

Thank you dev(s) for the new build with multiple artist functionality.

Couple things to address:

1. How do we define a null character as the separator? Mp3tag converts "\\" to null character from my understanding, which is the spec for the delimiter in id3v2.4. I suspect Mp3tag encodes null for id3v2.3 as well even though it would be out of spec (possibly because id3v2.3 doesn't support multiple artists, but encodes it anyway hoping the player supports it). Right now anything I encoded with "\\" in Mp3tag doesn't show up properly in Poweramp.
2. Another issue is if we want to use " / " as the separator (note the spaces before and after the forward-slash as in the foobar2000 standard). Poweramp removes the spaces when I try to add it so " / " becomes "/". Technically "/" does work as the seperator, but we would have to use the whitelist in cases such as AC/DC (which already is entered by default, very nice).

Edit: I forgot to mention that I also tested ";" which works perfectly. The above 2 separators are the ones I have problems with at the moment.