#152 Can't read itunes metadata

[dbeach7]

I have something like 3000 mp3s ripped in itunes. Apps
that use id3lib to read metadata can not read the id3
tags from ANY of these files. After some
investigation, I have figured out the problem. Before
I transferred these files to my linux box, I used
itunes' batch id3 conversion capability to update all
of the id3 tags to v2.4. Apparently this was a very
bad move.

During the course of my investigation, I ripped a new
mp3 in itunes, copied it to the linux machine. Worked
fine. I note that even in itunes 4.6, the id3 tag is
v2.2 by default. Convert to v2.4, using itunes, then
copy into linux. Bye-bye metadata. The offending file
is still read just fine by xmms and rhythmbox which
afaik do not use id3lib.

Looking at the file in a hex editor before and after
the conversion, I see that the header information is
rearranged substantially in the conversion process.
The virgin file lists the track info right at the
beginning of the header, whereas the converted one has
this info at the end. I can post examples if that will
help investigate this issue.