I can't change the track information on some mp3 files in vista

I'm having a heck of a time trying to organize my music ever since I got a
vista computer. I have an external hard drive with a lot of music on it, and
also have been putting new music on it. When I try to change the track
information (whether through explorer, winamp, or itunes) it won't let me do
it on all files.

For example:

I have a folder containing an entire album, which I got from the same
source. I want to make sure all the track info is correct before I put it
into winamp. I open explorer, and see that not all the track numbers are
there. So, I start putting them in. Every once in a while, I'll edit the
track number (or artist, or genre, or anything at all) and vista throws an
error:

"An error occurred when writing the property '#' to the file 'filename'."

(where property is any property and filename is the name of the file)

I've checked into ownership - i changed the ownership of the external drive
to the administrator group. I've looked into read only - i have access to
full permissions on the files and folders. It reads as a winamp media file,
and looks the same as the others that I can edit. When I look at the
security on the folders, sometimes 'read only' is shaded in in blue, so I
have unchecked that and applied it to everything in the folders and
subfolders just to make sure everything is readable. However, when I do
that, it still ends up blue the next time I look at it. Since blue means
absolutely nothing to me, I don't know what this means at all, but...

So, I own everything in the directory, it should be readable and writable,
and I have permissions to everything.

So what on EARTH is going on? It's very very very very annoying.

Can you edit that tag for that file within Windows Media Player?

There's a number of ways in which a file could have bad/uneditable metadata.
Compressed ID3 tags are notably unsupported, for example.

I too am having the same problem. I am using the same portable drive that I
used with my XP laptop but now with a new Vista laptop I cannot edit tags on
some mp3 files. I tried using Media Player to edit them like you said and it
worked for one album but not another. Any thoughts ??? Don

What happens when you try? Is it greyed out, or does it look like you will
be able to, but then it won't let you?

Is there a sample file I could try this with?

It depends on what I use to edit the tag, but the end result is that it
allows me to change the info but when I save it, the changes don't take.
Winamp produces an error an apears to change one tag from an album but when I
refresh the list the info has reverted to its previous state.
Another forum suggested deleting the entire field and adding new info. Thta
did not work. Also if I try ti add info in a previously unused field ( date
for example ) it fails.
What I have to do now is connect my XP laptop to the external drive, edit
the tags then connect the drive to the Vista laptop. Not exactly
user-friendly. Maybe it's time to load XP on the nre laptop !

Wait, so WinAMP is having a problem with this file too? I'm thinking
there's something suspicious about this MP3 file then... ?

No. Let me recap :
With my XP laptop I downloaded lots of mp3s onto an external hard drive. I
had no problem editting the tags of these mp3s then.
I get a new Vista laptop. Some of the existing mp3s and some of the new mp3s
will not allow the tag to be editted when I use the Vista laptop. These same
mp3s will edit just fine using the old XP laptop.
It doesn't matter if I use Winamp, WMP or a stand-alone tag editor, the
results are the same.On Vista, my user has admin rights. I am the owner of the files on the
external drive. I manually changed ownership when I first had the problem.
The files are writeable.In my mind the problem lies within Vista.

What are the properties on this external hard drive? Are the files normally
accessible in Explorer? I was thinking you were intimating some
player-centric issue, but now it seems you are hinting towards some
networking(?) issue.

[effoex]

Turn off User Account Control:

Control Panel >
User Accounts and Family Safety >
User Accounts >
Turn User Account Control on or off

After you restart, you should be able to edit ID3 tags again.

[ceomrman]

Welcome to Windows Vista! This is one of about two dozen insane issues you'll find. Sometimes I can easily change multiple track attributes, other times, Vista won't let me change ID3 tag fields. Other times, it lets me change them but the changes don't. None of the suggestions here make any sense - it has nothing to do with your external hard drive, read only file attributes (which you can change if you insist but they will never, ever stay how you want them), UAC, or anything else. I've had the problem with multiple reformats, 32 bit and 64 bit, with UAC on and off, and on multiple physical computers. It's just a pure crap shoot.

I too have struggled with this problem . . . portable drive that I have over 400 GB of music on . . . can edit all track info in XP properties . . . go to Vista and can edit all track properties on some songs from an album, some properties on other songs, and no properties on other songs. I have had better luck right-clicking and going to advanced properties than using the window under the directory, but there are still some tracks (1 out of every 10 albums or so) that I just cannot access OR cannot get the Save to happen! Why 1 or possibly 2 songs from an entire album . . . ripped in the same session as the ones that work??? And why do some properties not even show up on the window underneath the directory, yet are there when you go into properties through the right-click method???
It is the wonkiest trouble with an O/S' behavior that I have not been able to solve in my 25 years of computing!

[Geoff D]

I had this exact same problem and spent all day yesterday trying to solve it, finding no help on any of the sites I searched. However, today I have SOLVED the problem and so have registered here so I can post the solution:

THIS IS NOTHING TO DO WITH USER ACCOUNT CONTROL!!!!!

The problem seems to be with the ID3 tags in the files. I suspect in my case iTunes has caused some conflict with how the ID3 tags are handled but I'm no expert on all that to be honest. I was however able to use iTunes to easily solve the problem.

All I did was open the problem file in iTunes, right click on it and select 'Convert ID3 Tags' then from the drop-down menu in 'ID3 Tag Version' select 'v2.2' (I didn't try any of the others maybe they also work?)

You can select multiple tracks at once to convert them all.

If you go back to windows explorer you will find that the song information is now back and fully editable.

I'm sure there are other programs you can use to convert the ID3 tags but iTunes worked for me.

This is a bit of a long and laborious process if you have many tracks to do but worth it in the end.

[yesbubs]

doesn't work for me. I have to use winamp, not itunes, due to the heavy number of files and file types I have. Vista is killing me. I can only edit one song file at a time and it takes forever, and gives me an error message. Like the initial poster, when I open the properties box in explorer, it always reads read-only, no matter how many times I change it. My permissions are set to allow everyone to do everything and my user account control is off. My files are stores on a NAS. WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?

[AbortRetryFail]

Hi. I was able to solve this problem by creating a new directory, and copying the offending songs into it. It took hours of putzing around to hit on that solution, so I hope it helps. Just make a brand new directory, copy the files that are giving you trouble into it, and try editing them again. It worked for me using ITunes on a Vista machine.

[fishwhistle]

Copying to a new folder did not work for me.
I used mp3tag and set the offending track numbers to <blank>, saved the track, then added the number and saved again. Works like a charm!

[cdcguard]

Thanks for your post Geoff. It sent me in the right direction. This morning I tried to change some tags in the details pane (or should I say "PAIN?") in Vista as I've done thousands of times. For the first time ever, it wouldn't let me. My initial impulse was that Microsoft ramped up some DRM BS or something. After reading your post, I remembered that I installed VLC media player since the last time I edited tags. I opened one file in VLC, changed the metadata there and all of a sudden I can edit my tags as before. Makes no sense but if I'm lyin' I'm dyin'!

[teoscar]

had the same problem on flac files in Winamp, of 1320 tracks only 2 wouldn't change >o<. so i unchecked the ''Update file tag(s) info if supported'' tag and managed to accomplish the task. might happen that it doesn't work for you because the editing acts really strange, the error popped for more files but when i edited them individually it worked except those 2, so multiple tries will also work :)

[archie]

I don't know if this helps, I used Freerip and changed the information in the tag.

[phoneman5652]

I may be a little late, but, sometimes it has to do with the encoder that was used to convert to mp3. I've had the same problem, but was able to resolve it by re-converting using dBpoweramp Which uses lame to encode. After doing this, I was able to make changes normally.