# Unexpected semicolons in tags

**URL:** <https://discourse.beets.io/t/unexpected-semicolons-in-tags/2532>\
**Category:** Help\
**Created:** [April 18, 2024, 5:19pm UTC](https://discourse.beets.io/t/unexpected-semicolons-in-tags/2532 "2024-04-18T17:19:24Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![0bfuscated](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/0/dbc845/32.png) [@0bfuscated](https://discourse.beets.io/u/0bfuscated)\
**Post date:** [April 18, 2024, 5:19pm UTC](https://discourse.beets.io/t/unexpected-semicolons-in-tags/2532/1 "2024-04-18T17:19:24Z")

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Hi everyone, I posted this in January and haven’t been able to resolve it myself so re-posting in case any fresh eyes come across the post. Thanks in advance!

Beets is adding semicolons and spaces after each letter of the releasetype / albumtyles tags. I’m not sure if the info is coming straight from Musicbrainz or if it’s something to do with my config, but if I have an album, the RELEASETYPE tag shows:

a; l; b; u; m

the same goes for if it’s an EP or a Single, here’s how a song looks in tagscan:

 ![Screenshot 2024-01-30 093907](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/uploads/beets/original/1X/2e5f31806d770090d078b219d68dc8876fc84e4c.png)

**If this is just how things are tagged on import from Musicbrainz, is there as way to mass edit these tags in beets? For example find all tags that match “a; l; b; u; m” and change to “album”?**

If I run the info command on an album, none of these tags show up:

 ![Screenshot 2024-01-30 094818](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/uploads/beets/original/1X/5c9010ea0391665f3ee1248cbe68fc33ab0fda4d.png)

but if I run the info command on the song I can see the colon separated release type but it’s in the ALBUMTYPES tag and RELEASETYPES and MUSICBRAINZ\_ALBUMTYPE are not shown.

 ![image](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/uploads/beets/original/1X/192a2f0a1cb22be58663d2307c361dcc2f286586.png)

since the ALBUMTYPES tag comes from the albumtypes plugin I’m wondering if that is causing this, but I’d still be confused about how it’s getting into the MUSICBRAINZ\_ALBUMTYPE tag. Here’s my configuration of the albumtypes and inline plugins:

 ![image](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/uploads/beets/original/1X/897c9da2fdf0c49dc2b7137b16c3d4a636835247.png)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![pyyhttu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed8c4c/32.png) [@pyyhttu](https://discourse.beets.io/u/pyyhttu)\
**Post date:** [April 19, 2024, 9:05am UTC](https://discourse.beets.io/t/unexpected-semicolons-in-tags/2532/2 "2024-04-19T09:05:40Z")

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Perhaps this helps: [Questions about the output of beet update · beetbox/beets · Discussion #5183 · GitHub](https://github.com/beetbox/beets/discussions/5183#discussioncomment-9057026)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![0bfuscated](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/0/dbc845/32.png) [@0bfuscated](https://discourse.beets.io/u/0bfuscated)\
**Post date:** [April 22, 2024, 6:23pm UTC](https://discourse.beets.io/t/unexpected-semicolons-in-tags/2532/3 "2024-04-22T18:23:23Z")

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Thank you, this looks like the issue I’m experiencing.