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I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to realize what was going on inside my computer. For quite some time, I have been annoyed by the tendency for my music’s ID3 tags to get corrupted. For example, I would find long strings of DWORDs in the Comments field, or my ratings would get screwed up. This would wreak havok on my iTunes library because the music files would contain information different from the iTunes library XML file. As I would browse through my library listings, I would find the meta data changing before my eyes! I think I have found a reason for this, and the post’s punny title is a clue.

For the longest time, I was blaming this meta data corruption on iTunes, iPod synchronization and having a large library. I thought that perhaps Apple was releasing unstable versions of iTunes, or that their iPods could not handle libraries as large as the hard drives contained within the iPods themselves. I also wondered if my frequent iPod synchronizations (usually 2-5 times per day) were causing the data corruption. I no longer believe this to be the case.

In rebuilding my iTunes library, I know for sure that the library should be in perfect condition. There is specific meta data I was adding to all songs, and specific meta data I was purposely excluding from all songs. It came as quite a surprise to me today when I noticed that the meta data was changing again. I thought for sure this could not be happening yet; I barely had 5% of my old library added to the new one.

What I have come to find is that Windows Media Player was set to automatically retrieve missing information for songs in its library. My iTunes library was contained within the "My Music" folder, which WMP watches to add files to its library. When I watched videos in WMP, it would add to its library any new music I had added to my iTunes library. Then WMP would screw up the ID3 tags by removing information it did not use and adding information it found missing. When I would change any information in iTunes, WMP would "correct" it. This back and forth fighting has been happening ever since I installed iTunes (since I don’t have the option to not install WMP).

Now all I have to do is wait and see what happens to my iTunes library over the next few days. If there’s no corruption, then I would say WMP was definitely to blame.