LG Cosmos 2 MP3 player describes certain MP3 artists or albums as "NONE"

[cinematic6436]

I just upgraded to an LG Cosmos 2 mostly for its MP3 player capabilities, and now when I load a test directory of MP3s onto my 32gb microSDHC card, the artists or albums of certain mp3s are both displayed through the phone as "NONE."

In Windows 7 64, I selected all of the MP3s, selected properties, and under details, put in the artist's name, and they all appear fine in Windows, but some are still described as "NONE" in the phone. I also group selected them by album, manually entered the name, and some are fine, but some are still described as "NONE" in the phone. I've had to rename the main MP3 directory they're in to get the phone to re-load the files' information (MP3 to MP3x for example), but it's still no use.

Anyone experienced/solved this problem? I have about 5,000 MP3s I was expecting to simply load onto this phone, but if it's this big of a pain, I might as well just send this phone back.

[MojaveMoon_]

It sounds like your mp3 files are situated in subdirectories in the my_music folder ?

e.g. my_music > subfolder > mp3 file

For Verizon non-smartphones, in general the rule of thumb is that none of the music files can be in a subdirectory.

Every now and then there's an exception; e.g. see post #2

http://community.vzw.com/t5/General-Devices-Discussions/Env3-music-genres/m-p/135832

Also, when you make changes to a music file such as tag changes, you have to "reinitialize the library database" for the phone to be aware of the changes

see post # 7 in that thread

[cinematic6436]

I tried putting the MP3s in question in the Music directory, but that didn't change anything. I also tried searching for the "reinitialize music library database" option, but I couldn't find it. It's supposed to be somewhere in the MP3 Player function of the LG Cosmos 2?

I tried removing and then reinserting the microSDHC card, and it reloaded the files, but the problem still exists.

[MojaveMoon_]

Here are examples of various places where I found this option on our phones:

my music > play all > options(right softkey) > reinitialize database

Music Library > 1. Genres > [select a genre] > [select an album] > click 'options'  > 3. Reinitialize library database

Music Library > 2. Artists > [select an artist] > click 'options'  > 3. Reinitialize library database

Music Library > 3. Albums > click 'options'  > 3. Reinitialize library database

Music Library > 4. Songs > click 'options'  > 5. Reinitialize library database

[MojaveMoon_]

(1a) Are there any symbols in your mp3 ID3 tags ? I've read that some people's Verizon phones have difficulty playing songs with symbols in the tags.

(1b) were your mp3 ID3 tags written in ANSI or Unicode ? I had come across a comment on howardforums.com that (some) Verizon phones have difficulty playing mp3 songs with the tags written in Unicode

(1c) what version of ID3 did you use ? Do your mp3 files contain both ID3v1 and ID3v2.x tags ?

(2) Also, I've found that if I didn't remove the "Read-Only" attribute before transfering the music file to the phone that that sometimes caused odd behavior

[cinematic6436]

---

MojaveMoon_ wrote:

(1a) Are there any symbols in your mp3 ID3 tags ? I've read that some people's Verizon phones have difficulty playing songs with symbols in the tags.

(1b) were your mp3 ID3 tags written in ANSI or Unicode ? I had come across a comment on howardforums.com that (some) Verizon phones have difficulty playing mp3 songs with the tags written in Unicode

(1c) what version of ID3 did you use ? Do your mp3 files contain both ID3v1 and ID3v2.x tags ?

(2) Also, I've found that if I didn't remove the "Read-Only" attribute before transfering the music file to the phone that that sometimes caused odd behavior

---

(1a) The following 4 symbols [ ] ( ) are part of the song titles and album, but I've tried removing them, and it doesn't change anything. There are already other files that have been successfully read by the phone that have the ( and ) symbols in their titles anyway, so I didn't think that was causing the problem.

(1b) How can I find out whether the tags were written in ANSI or Unicode? I selected properties/details in Windows explorer, but couldn't find anything.

(1c) I don't know what version of ID3 I used. How can I find out?

(2) None of the files are read-only.

[MojaveMoon_]

There are a bunch of programs that will identify the tag version. But out of the tag programs that I have, I could identify just three that will identify tag version and also the encoding used (ISO-8859 or Unicode -- some tag programs use the terms ANSI or ASCII instead of ISO or ISO-8859).

Using any of these will also give you the opportunity to double-check for the presence of the album and artist info in those particular files giving you a hard time.

- dbpoweramp

http://www.dbpoweramp.com/dmc-power-register.htm

- mp3infp

http://www.free-codecs.com/mp3infp_download.htm

- Tagscanner

http://download.cnet.com/TagScanner/3000-2141_4-10056506.html

The second two are completely free, while dbpoweramp is free for the first thirty days; after the first thirty days, some of dbpoweramp's features are still free while certain features such as mp3 encoding and tag editing require purchasing it.

dbpoweramp -- In Windows when you hover the mouse pointer above a music file name or when you right click a file name to view the properties then dbpoweramp will give you the tag information and type of tag encoding

mp3infp -- In Windows when you right click a music file name to view the properties there will now be several additional tabs for tag information and type of tag encoding

Tagscanner -- While in Tagscanner after you click the name of a music file, move the sliding bar at the bottom of the screen to display a summary of information about that music file. To learn the type of tag encoding, at the top left corner of the screen click "TAG EDITOR" and then look at the information in the lower right corner of the screen in the far right column

[cinematic6436 · Accepted solution]

I think I figured it out.

I went into iTunes, highlighted the MP3s that were showing up on the phone as artist: NONE and/or album: NONE, and right clicked on them. I then selected "convert ID3 tags...", checked the box next to "ID3 tag version," and selected "v2.3." I'm going to try it with all of my MP3s to see if I can just dump them all onto the card like I want.

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction. One more thing -- do you know how to get the phone to display album artwork?

[MojaveMoon_]

After you finish trying that, if you still have the stray problem then I've read that speaking in general a music/media player might have a problem playing a music file if that music file has both both id3v1 and id3v2.3 tags. So if you have to resort to trying it, there are tagging programs that can remove the one kind of tag and leave the other kind behind. I haven't tried testing a music file on a Verizon phone that has both tags. But maybe this was a scenario that affected just early generation portable music/media players.

[noobie2phones]

I'm having the same problems and tried all the suggestions listed above, but  I was wondering if anybody found a solution.