Beets not writing metadata to files

Help
1

so I installed beets to update the metadata in my media files (flac/mp3). I installed the oldestdate plugin to update the date on compilation tracks to correspond to their original release (and not the compilation’s date).
I run beet import and go through the prompts, but then nothing happens to the files. Here’s what I’m seeing:

 beet import -s /serverfiles/music/Grandmaster\ Flash\ \&\ The\ Furious\ Five/Message\ From\ Beat\ Street_\ The\ Best\ Of\ Gr/06\ The\ Message.mp3

/serverfiles/music/Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five/Message From Beat Street_ The Best Of Gr/06 The Message.mp3
Tagging track: Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five - The Message
URL:
    https://musicbrainz.org/recording/85c45c77-245e-4a3a-86df-f8e322f11234
(Similarity: 100.0%)
oldestdate: Overwriting year field for: Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five - The Message from 1994 to 1982

but the changes aren’t reflected in the file:

beet info /serverfiles/music/Grandmaster\ Flash\ \&\ The\ Furious\ Five/Message\ From\ Beat\ Street_\ The\ Best\ Of\ Gr/06\ The\ Message.mp3
/serverfiles/music/Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five/Message From Beat Street_ The Best Of Gr/06 The Message.mp3
            album: Message From Beat Street: The Best of Grandmaster Flash, Melle Mel & The Furious Five
      albumartist: Grandmaster Flash
      albumstatus: official
        albumtype: album/compilation
              art: True
           artist: Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five
      artist_sort: Grandmaster Flash & Furious Five, The
             asin: B00000338D
          barcode: 081227160623
         bitdepth: 0
          bitrate: 192000
       catalognum: R2 71606
         channels: 2
          country: US
             date: 1994-04-19
              day: 19
             disc: 1
        disctotal: 1
          encoder: iTunes 10.5.2.11
           format: MP3
            genre: Rap
           genres: Rap
            label: Rhino
           length: 422.90166666666664
 mb_albumartistid: 7db590cd-d7e6-4b36-b4e7-e8209426b02d
       mb_albumid: 873e637e-6744-413b-a4b1-8ac02de3263c
      mb_artistid: 1390d663-2f56-4b41-9f75-f45ba489250b
mb_releasegroupid: fd3df4eb-aba9-3e34-b2c8-bf3113e6d1d9
mb_releasetrackid: 00e1c2ec-fc57-3f14-a130-785d1473c326
       mb_trackid: 840315e1-7c2d-4d2a-866a-b580cfc63b62
            media: CD
            month: 4
    original_date: 1994-01-01
    original_year: 1994
    rg_track_gain: -4.31
    rg_track_peak: 1.004852
       samplerate: 44100
           script: Latn
            title: The Message
            track: 6
       tracktotal: 11
             year: 1994

I’ve tried also using beet write after the import with the same result.

This is my config:

musicbrainz:
  searchlimit: 20

plugins: oldestdate info

importer:
  write: yes

oldestdate:
  auto: yes
  ignore_track_id: yes
  filter_on-import: yes
  prompt_missing_work_id: yes
  force: yes
  overwrite_year: yes
  filter_recordings: yes
  approach: 'releases'

and beet --version:

beets version 1.5.0
Python version 3.9.5
plugins: info, oldestdate
2

Hi! Since beets-oldestdate is a third-party plugin, you might try reporting this as a bug to that repository? There’s no guarantee the author is reading posts on this forum.

3

Hey thanks for reply! My problem isn’t with the plugin though, it’s that beets doesn’t seem to write changes to the files.
I have the line:

oldestdate: Overwriting year field for: Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five - The Message from 1994 to 1982

in console output, but nowhere in the file is the date change to 1982 written.

If you’d like, here is an import without using oldestdate that shows the same behavior:

beet import /serverfiles/music/Emotions/Rejoice/

/serverfiles/music/Emotions/Rejoice (9 items)
Tagging:
    The Emotions - Rejoice
URL:
    https://musicbrainz.org/release/24bab006-417c-4480-b0de-7762918ca853
(Similarity: 98.8%) (tracks) (CD, 1989, US, Columbia, CK 34762)
 * How'd I Know That Love Would Slip Away (4:24) -> How'd I Know That Love Would Slip Away (4:41) (length)
 * Rejoice (5:37)                                -> Rejoice (5:21) (length)

beet info /serverfiles/music/Emotions/Rejoice/01-Best\ of\ My\ Love.flac
/serverfiles/music/Emotions/Rejoice/01-Best of My Love.flac
     album: Rejoice
       art: False
    artist: The Emotions
  bitdepth: 16
   bitrate: 863704
  channels: 2
      date: 1977-01-01
    format: FLAC
    genres:
    length: 220.6713605442177
samplerate: 44100
     title: Best of My Love
     track: 1
      year: 1977

Based on the output, I thought that the matched 1989 CD release would trigger an update of the date field(s) to 1989. But in the file, the original date persists.

Here is an example running in singleton mode:


/serverfiles/music/Emotions/Rejoice/01-Best of My Love.flac
Correcting track tags from:
    The Emotions - Best of My Love
To:
    The Emotions - Best Of My Love
URL:
    https://musicbrainz.org/recording/6aa2b769-7a6d-423d-b26c-62051abdf290
(Similarity: 100.0%)

The changes (capitalizing “of” in the title) aren’t reflected in the file metadata:

beet info /serverfiles/music/Emotions/Rejoice/01-Best\ of\ My\ Love.flac
/serverfiles/music/Emotions/Rejoice/01-Best of My Love.flac
     album: Rejoice
       art: False
    artist: The Emotions
  bitdepth: 16
   bitrate: 863704
  channels: 2
      date: 1977-01-01
    format: FLAC
    genres:
    length: 220.6713605442177
samplerate: 44100
     title: Best of My Love
     track: 1
      year: 1977
4

Huh, that’s pretty odd. Can you please include verbose output? (From either or both of a beet import run or a beet write run would be helpful.)

Also, it looks like you have copying enabled in the importer (the default). So are you sure you’re looking at where the new location, where updated files are being copied to, rather than the old location, where they’re copied from (and left pristine)?

Finally, in your configuration, the importer section is delimited with import:, not importer:.

1 Like
5

Thank you! The files copied to the library location are correctly modified. I didn’t realize it was working on copies. I knew I was missing something obvious. Thanks again!

1 Like