Replay Gain Album Tag does not show up / is not used

[Major Tom]

Poweramp build number: build-939-bundle-play [939004-333c8a71]
Device: Google Pixel 6 Pro
Android Version: 13 [TP1A.220905.004]
Custom Rom? No

I switched to a new smartphone. With the new one I don't see the replay gain album tag in the track info anymore. I also hear when playing albums the volume changes from track to track.

My music is properly tagged. I checked my tracks with Foobar and Mp3tag. Both show the entries for track and album. But in Poweramp I only see the track entries. The album tags are not read or ignored.
With one exception: Track '04 - Cisne' by EUS does show the replay gain album tag entry. But '02 - Lidea' from the same album on the other hand does not.

This is really strange. Scanning the library again did not help. An overwrite of the MP3 with forced re-generated replay gain tags also did not help.
I did not have this problem on my previous smartphone (Xiaomi Mi A3).

Attached are screenshots from my smartphone. I can send the corresponding mp3 files by mail. Which mail adress should I use?

Edited September 25, 2022 by Major Tom

[andrewilley]

That does seem odd. And re-applying the ReplayGain data via foobar, and then performing a FULL Rescan in Poweramp, does not detect the missing Album RG tags?

Yes, if you could temporarily upload some samples that would help - any file sharing site such as Google Drive or Dropbox should be fine.

Andre

[Fitzian]

In lieu of a full rescan (possibly time consuming), renaming directory (by adding an underscore) will force PA to notice a unique/new folder and read its data fresh.

[Major Tom]

12 hours ago, andrewilley said:

That does seem odd. And re-applying the ReplayGain data via foobar, and then performing a FULL Rescan in Poweramp, does not detect the missing Album RG tags?

I have selectively replaced entire albums, but that didn't help. There is one exception: The file "04 - Cisne.mp3" (EUS) showed only the track tag. I forced Replay Gain again, replaced all files of the album, then this one file also had the Replay Album Tag. But the other files in the album did not.

12 hours ago, andrewilley said:

Yes, if you could temporarily upload some samples that would help - any file sharing site such as Google Drive or Dropbox should be fine.

Here you go:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fx0WASDP6pVrIzIz0MAPi7ndUVBO8zDJ/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jPlSFP4XHRICR54zSPUDvPQ12LFW269Z/view?usp=sharing

Tom

[andrewilley]

59 minutes ago, Major Tom said:

I have selectively replaced entire albums, but that didn't help. There is one exception: The file "04 - Cisne.mp3" (EUS) showed only the track tag. I forced Replay Gain again, replaced all files of the album, then this one file also had the Replay Album Tag. But the other files in the album did not.

I see the same results as you with the files you provided. However I updated the RG tags in foobar2000 and the re-saved versions (saved into a new folder) all work fine - see sample file attached.

The RG contents seem pretty similar, apart from the changed case and the leading byte. The tags are ASCII rather than Unicode, but I can't see that making a difference.

Maybe @maxmp can work out why one set of Album RG tags works, and the other doesn't?

Your original file:

  | UserDefinedText = (REPLAYGAIN_ALBUM_GAIN) -7.75 dB
  | - Tag 'TXXX' (32 bytes):
  |     0205: 03 52 45 50 4c 41 59 47 41 49 4e 5f 41 4c 42 55 [.REPLAYGAIN_ALBU]
  |     0215: 4d 5f 47 41 49 4e 00 2d 37 2e 37 35 20 64 42 00 [M_GAIN.-7.75 dB.]
  | UserDefinedText = (REPLAYGAIN_ALBUM_PEAK) 1.046614
  | - Tag 'TXXX' (32 bytes):
  |     022f: 03 52 45 50 4c 41 59 47 41 49 4e 5f 41 4c 42 55 [.REPLAYGAIN_ALBU]
  |     023f: 4d 5f 50 45 41 4b 00 31 2e 30 34 36 36 31 34 00 [M_PEAK.1.046614.]
  | UserDefinedText = (REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_GAIN) -8.11 dB
  | - Tag 'TXXX' (32 bytes):
  |     0259: 03 52 45 50 4c 41 59 47 41 49 4e 5f 54 52 41 43 [.REPLAYGAIN_TRAC]
  |     0269: 4b 5f 47 41 49 4e 00 2d 38 2e 31 31 20 64 42 00 [K_GAIN.-8.11 dB.]
  | UserDefinedText = (REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_PEAK) 1.046614
  | - Tag 'TXXX' (32 bytes):
  |     0283: 03 52 45 50 4c 41 59 47 41 49 4e 5f 54 52 41 43 [.REPLAYGAIN_TRAC]
  |     0293: 4b 5f 50 45 41 4b 00 31 2e 30 34 36 36 31 34 00 [K_PEAK.1.046614.]

Updated and re-saved in foobar:

  | UserDefinedText = (replaygain_album_gain) -7.62 dB
  | - Tag 'TXXX' (32 bytes):
  |     0033: 00 72 65 70 6c 61 79 67 61 69 6e 5f 61 6c 62 75 [.replaygain_albu]
  |     0043: 6d 5f 67 61 69 6e 00 2d 37 2e 36 32 20 64 42 00 [m_gain.-7.62 dB.]
  | UserDefinedText = (replaygain_album_peak) 1.046614
  | - Tag 'TXXX' (32 bytes):
  |     005d: 00 72 65 70 6c 61 79 67 61 69 6e 5f 61 6c 62 75 [.replaygain_albu]
  |     006d: 6d 5f 70 65 61 6b 00 31 2e 30 34 36 36 31 34 00 [m_peak.1.046614.]
  | UserDefinedText = (replaygain_track_gain) -7.49 dB
  | - Tag 'TXXX' (32 bytes):
  |     0087: 00 72 65 70 6c 61 79 67 61 69 6e 5f 74 72 61 63 [.replaygain_trac]
  |     0097: 6b 5f 67 61 69 6e 00 2d 37 2e 34 39 20 64 42 00 [k_gain.-7.49 dB.]
  | UserDefinedText = (replaygain_track_peak) 1.046614
  | - Tag 'TXXX' (32 bytes):
  |     00b1: 00 72 65 70 6c 61 79 67 61 69 6e 5f 74 72 61 63 [.replaygain_trac]
  |     00c1: 6b 5f 70 65 61 6b 00 31 2e 30 34 36 36 31 34 00 [k_peak.1.046614.]

[Edit] iI could be the case differences actually, the one file of yours that did work properly - "04 - Cisne.mp3" - had its RG tags declared in lower-case, whereas the ones that are failing are all upper-case. Should be easy enough to fix if that is the problem.

Andre

[Major Tom]

I use 'beets' to keep my tags in order.
In the current changelog I find this entry from 1.3.2 (December 22, 2013):

When writing ID3 tags for ReplayGain normalization, tags are written with both upper-case and lower-case TXXX frame descriptions. Previous versions of beets used only the upper-case style, which seems to be more standard, but some players (namely, Quod Libet and foobar2000) seem to only use lower-case names.

That was a while ago. But maybe I now have tags in upper-case and lower-case, while Poweramp only accepts lower-case.
Any idea what tool I can use to view the tags byte by byte in the original? Hex editor?

Tom

[6b6561]

I found the following https://github.com/Moonbase59/loudgain#uppercase-or-lowercase-replaygain_-tags
 

Quote

 

The ReplayGain 1 and 2.0 specs clearly state that the tags should be UPPERCASE but many taggers still write lowercase tags (foobar2000, metamp3, taggers using pre-1.2.2 Mutagen like older MusicBrainz Picard versions, and others).

Unfortunately, there are lots of audio players out there that only respect one case. For instance, VLC only respects uppercase, IDJC and KODI only respect lowercase. Only a very few go the extra effort to check for both variants of tags.

 

Which lead me to https://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=ReplayGain_2.0_specification
 

Quote

 

A robust player should be prepared to parse the following variations in either replay gain or peak level metadata:

• Positive gains with leading '+'
• More or fewer significant digits than specified in any field
• Leading zeros or spaces in integer fields
• Missing or malformed 'dB' suffix (e.g. no space between numeric digits and suffix, alternate capitalization)
• Alternate capitalization of keys

Other formatting errors indicate more severe problems and should result in player ignoring data as if the frame did not exist.

 

Looks like the standard would be upper case, but the recommendation is that a "robust" player would accept a mix of cases as some other variations found in the "wild".

[andrewilley]

Personally I think this ought to be case-insensitive. Unless something else is causing this, perhaps PA's string comparison for that one field is not set correctly?

Andre

[Major Tom]

After several tests I can confirm:
Poweramp only understands lower-case ReplayGain tags for album ReplayGain.

Apparently beets (the tool I use to organize my music) is supposed to write upper-case and lower-case ReplayGain tags. But it doesn't in my case. For me only upper-case ReplayGain tags were created.

To work around the problem, I made the ReplayGain tags in my library all lower-case (with the help of Mp3tag).

As recommended above, it would be better for Poweramp to understand the ReplayGain tags regardless of upper/lower case. Maybe this can be included in a future release?

Tom

[6b6561]

What version are you running of beets? It looks like the "fix" was added in version 1.3.2 which is already way old.

https://beets.readthedocs.io/en/stable/changelog.html#december-22-2013

[maxmp]

@Major Tom as there are no any "standards" on replay gain info for many file formats/taggging formats, Poweramp implements it the way actual tracks "in the wild" exist. Basically not in my test 100gb collection of music, nor in any previously user sent/reported tracks the issue existed.

Replay gain tags in form of replaygain_album_gain-like tags are case-insensitive for most formats. Still for some formats it may be case sensitive. I'll try to test your tracks (can you please re-share them - thanks!), and fix the issue if possible.

[andrewilley]

@maxmp Track RG information seems to work fine with the TXXX tag defined as replaygain_track_gain or REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_GAIN, it's just the album version (replaygain_album_gain) that PA does not seem to accept when the content is in upper case. I'd suggest accepting the tag as either upper or lower case, as it's clearly intended to be the same content.

Example file with the tag saved in Upper case is attached, as per the original poster's share.

Andre

[maxmp]

@andrewilley thanks! This will be fixed in the next beta builds.

[Major Tom]

16 hours ago, 6b6561 said:

What version are you running of beets? It looks like the "fix" was added in version 1.3.2 which is already way old.

I am running the latest version of beets within a docker container. It's odd why only upper-case ReplayGain tags are written with beets when it should be different. I have made an inquiry about this with the developers of beets.

 

13 hours ago, maxmp said:

Replay gain tags in form of replaygain_album_gain-like tags are case-insensitive for most formats. Still for some formats it may be case sensitive. I'll try to test your tracks (can you please re-share them - thanks!), and fix the issue if possible.

I made those files with upper-case ReplyGain tags available again:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fx0WASDP6pVrIzIz0MAPi7ndUVBO8zDJ/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jPlSFP4XHRICR54zSPUDvPQ12LFW269Z/view?usp=sharing

 

13 hours ago, maxmp said:

thanks! This will be fixed in the next beta builds.

That's great! Thank you very much!

[Major Tom]

I can confirm that with the new build 956, the album version of the replay gain tag in uppercase is now accepted by Poweramp.

Thanks a lot!

[maxmp]

@Major Tom thanks for the testing.