Audio books filed in "Unknown" folder

Over the years Black-Rectangle has written the most comprehensive, complete and easy-to-understand tips and instructions for using MP3Tag I’ve seen on the forum (or anywhere, for that matter).

If anyone wants to learn about MP3Tag, use the Search function here and narrow your search to posts by him as the author. You will not be disappointed, and you’ll be editing your tags like a pro within minutes!

He should have a special designation as our resident MP3Tag Guru.

I hope it is OK to continue this forum a year later.  I also am having trouble getting the Sansa Clip+ to display the folder name of an Audiobook in the Audiobooks folder.  It insists on calling it “Unknown”.  I tried to use Mp3tag.  When I try to select that folder, I get a message from MP3tag “Folder name is not valid”.  The folder name is “Rendsburg - Genesis” which is similar to names of Audiobooks the Clip+ recognizes.  Any suggestions on what to do?  Thanks in advance.

Try using Mp3Tag and putting your folder name in the Album field on the left.

Remember, computers and especially players are stupid. All they can do is what people tell them. As I understand it, Audiobooks takes mp3 or wma files and reads their tags. But even though it’s a book, the template is still a music album, so the title of the book is like an album title.

Anyway, try it and let us know if that works.

OK, I put Rendsburg - Genesis in the Album field on the left in MP3tag and then tried to change directory to the subfolder of that name in the Audiosbooks folder on my Clip+.  I get the same message, “The folder name is not valid”.

OK, you’ve got me a little confused. 

Are you looking at the display on the player, or are you looking at the folders in your computer?

If on the player, are you navigating through Folders (way down the scroll in Music past Album, Artist, etc.)? Or through Audiobooks?  Audiobooks is navigating by tags. Folders should work like Windows Explorer, with folders and subfolders. 

The tags wil be (or should be) what the player displays. If Album doesn’t do it, try mp3tag for Artist (and make that the author). Make sure you are changing the tags in the copy on the player. Sometimes I have done a bunch of re-tagging only to find that I was changing the ones on my computer, not the player. D’oh. 

Mp3Tag won’t change the name of the folder in your computer. How about a folder name that’s just alphanumeric, no spaces, punctuation, etc. 

Thank you Black-Rectangle.  When I attach my Sansa to my computer, there is a path Computer\Sansa Clip+ 4GB\Internal Memory\Audiobooks shown in Windows Explorer.  The subfolders I am talking about are the next step down from this path.  When I play the Clip, I go to Music –> Audiobooks and then to the book in question.  The books are there on the Sansa display, usually with a name I can recognize, but sometimes several books are there bunched into a single designation “Unknown”.  I never use Folders under Music.  So my question is, I guess, is: How to I enter a useful name tag for a book using Mp3tag or Windows Explorer or whatever?.  As I mentioned before, when using MP3tag to try to point to the subfolder of Audiobooks, I get an error message.

I also posted on the MP3tag forum and got this reply: “You have to switch the player into a genuine USB mode. The MTP mode (which I think is now active) is not supported”.  So apparently he is saying it is not possible to edit tags on the Sansa Clip+ directly but must copy the file onto the PC and use MP3tag there.  Do you agree?

OK, I made some progress.  I switched my Clip+ to MSC mode and now in Mp3tag I can change the directory to L:\AUDIOBOOKS but can’t go deeper than that.  No information is displayed about the tags of the books in this directory.  So with this setup, how do I know I am only changing the tags for the Unknown book?

Short reply: It’s getting clearer. You need to take the Unknown books off the player, fix the tags on the computer and then send them back over.

Long explanation: 

At the moment, you can’t fix them directly on the player because you are connected to the player in MTP mode, which goes by way of sometimes mysterious processes using software built into Windows Media Player. If you got the audiobooks from your library, you may need to stay in MTP because Overdrive (the main library software) sends hidden codes–unlocking the files till they expire–via that Windows Media Player interface. MP3tag can’t get to those files because the WMP interface is in the way.

If you’re stuck using MTP, you should still be able to fix them on the computer and then send them to the Sansa. You just can’t fix them on the unit itself. 

Meanwhile, if you own these Audiobooks, you can switch the player (Settings/System Settings/USB) to MSC mode. This lets your computer see the Sansa as two regular old disc drives, and lets MP3tag work its magic. But before you switch, take the books off. Your computer can only see one mode at a time, MTP or MSC. The books sent over via MTP will be invisible when you switch to MSC. 

Unknown means the player can’t read the tags or they’re not there. Unfortunately tags are not completely standardized: there are lots of versions of ID3 tags. The Sansa can’t read ID3v1 or ID3v2.4–the oldest and newest tag versions.

So the tags might look fine to your computer, which is much smarter than the Sansa, and still come up Unknown on the unit.  

For some reason Sansa can only handle  ID3v2.2 and its favorite, ID3v2.3 ISO-8859-1  (The ISO is the way Windows, rather than Mac, renders the alphabet.) That’s why you set ID3v2.3 ISO-8859-1 as the default for MP3tag to Write.  

If you can put in ID3v2.3 tags, it’s probably easier to navigate via Audiobooks. 

Thanks.  I’m beginning too see what is going on. :manvery-happy:  When I switch to MSC mode, the reason I don’t see anything under the various columns in mp3tag, like Filename, Path, Tag, etc, is that all my books were loaded into the Sansa using MTP mode.  And, as you say, it is better to stay in that mode for the sake of the books you download using Overdrive.  For the present book, perhaps I shouldn’t take further action because it currently is the only one under the designation Unknown and it does play in order.  However, I would like to have your advice for the times in the future that I rip audiobooks on CDs to my computer and then download them to my clip.  If I use a tool like fre:ac to do the ripping, there is the opportunity to add information about the tracks like title, artist, album, etc.  I did not add anything for the Rendsburg - Genesis book.  I just created the subfolder of Audiobooks by that name, using Windows Explorer, and copied the tracks into it.  However, if I add the information about the tracks before transferring them, should I get proper tags that the Sansa Clip+ can read?

By the way, I have had the experience that sometimes Overdrive books are not properly tagged and end up in the Unknown folder.  Is it best before you do the transfer to check them with mp3tag?

Come to think of it, maybe I should stay in MSC mode for all books.  The books never expire on the Sansa Clip so maybe those codes you mentioned are not sent, even if the transferring is done in MTP mode.  The codes may be only used when Overdrive downloads them to your computer from the library’s website.  That way I could edit the codes on the Clip+ itself using mp3tag.  Or am I still missing something?  Thanks.

I like MSC mode for everything. It’s transparent and logical. The more you can use it the better.

If you take Audiobooks from CDs, rip them with whatever you want and run them through mp3tag with the (Tools/Options/Tags/Mpeg) Write default as ID2.3 ISO-8859-1. You can highlight all the files in the folder and put Artist (author) Album (book) etc. to be whatever you want, all at once. You might check to see if ripping them with iTunes will tag them automatically, which would save you some typing time–but iTunes does ID3v2.2. Sigh.

One thing I do with mp3tag is go to Tools/Auto-Numbering Wizard/ and choose the Leading Zeroes option. This makes the tags 01, 02, etc. The reason to do that is that Sansa is stupid: it will play 1, 11, 12, 13…etc…before 2. Using that option also makes everying ID3v2.3 ISO-9959-1 because I set that as the default.

I don’t use Overdrive, though I’ve looked up a lot of stuff about it.  Call me old-school, I prefer reading (ebooks included).

But if you can get books from Overdrive, put them on your computer, send them to the Sansa via MSC and still have them play without expiring…go for it. The codes I’m talking about are hidden from the user and sent via MTP. You can’t touch them (and neither can MC Hammer.)  But if your books are not expiring on the Sansa, great. If they are, you’ll need to do MTP for those.

I suspect the Unknowns are ID3v2.4, which has been around for some time now despite SanDisk’s indifference. Changing them to ID3v2.3 ISO-8859-1 should make them visible.

OK, I orignated this thread and am back for a second round. I have been using Kid3.app to tag audiobooks downloaded from my library’s Overdrive.(I found this suggestion on blog) I check each book after downloading to my Mac and make sure the tracks are tagged as Audiobook, numbered and titled. It has been working flawlessly for a year but yesterday I downloaded 4 mp3 books. After running them all through Kid3 I copied them to my SansaClip+. Two books show up in Audiobooks under their right name. The other two are in Audiobooks/Unknown and mixed alternating tracks. (by the way, the transfer function for Overdrive isn’t supported for Macs. You have to copy and paste in Finder.)

So I ran those two books through the tag process again. No change. I tried making new folders for the books and moving the tracks to the new folders, no change. One book does show up in Folders. the file extensions are all the same.

So what has changed from one week to the next?

I have 2 clips so I tried copying one of the books to that device. That book is also in Audiobooks/Unknown, and shows up in Folders on this device but not the first one.

And please, if you have a solution phrase it so a kindergarten user can follow. I use this for casusal listening and don’t want to spend hours at this task! The only thing I use the clip for is listening to audiobooks because every few months I have to reformat it to clean it of “stuff” or it gets too full of hidden files.

Update: Just tried moving one book to the Podcast folder and while it still shows up as Unknown at least it isn’t mixed up with the other book.

You need to make sure Genre is Audiobooks–sounds like you are doing that. And make sure they are in the Audiobooks folder. The Podcast folder is treated slightly differently from the Music folder, which keeps it separate, but your problem is still with the tags since you are seeing Unknown. 

Some  tag–title?–must be missing or unreadable on the Unknowns. In Kid3, rewrite the title yourself and save it–don’t just accept what Overdrive provides. 

And this is just a guess but…double-check your Kid3 settings  (or options or whatever it’s called) to make sure the tags you are writing are ID3v2.3 ISO-8859-1  (there are various versions of ID3 tags and that’s the one Sansa likes).  If they are ID3v2.4 the Sansa may not be able to read them.  Newer books may have switched to ID3v2.4 . 

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I think I have finally understood what is going on with tags on books placed in the Audiobook folder on the Clip+.  Please let me know if I say anything wrong.  I am also interested in knowing whether or not what I am saying also holds for other Sansa MP3 models.

When you place an item in the Audiobooks folder (using Overdrive or Windows Explorer) the Genre tag becomes irrelevant.  I have books in there with the Genre tag history, for example.  No matter in what way you have the Audiobooks folder divided into subfolders and files, the Clip+ pays attention only to the various tags associated to the different tracks.

When you go Audiobooks on your Clip+, you first see an alphabetical list of all Album tags for your tracks.  It is important that distinct books that you wisn to play in a particular sequence of tracks have their tracks with the same Album tag.  For example, I once had both 1 Kings and 2 Kings from an audio bible with the same album tag, Word of Promise (Name of the particlar audio bible) and it started to play the first track of 1 Kings followed by the first track of 2 Kings followed by the second track of 1 Kings, etc.  I fixed the problem by changing the Album tags to respectively 1 Kings and 2 Kings.

When you select a particular Album, the Clip+ display shows a list of the different Title tags associated with the selected Album tag.  It has been my experience that the Clip+ doesn’t do anything but display them and the order it plays the tracks is determined by the Track tag.   However, to start at track 1, (or 01 or 001 or 0001) it should be clear what Title tag is associated with track 1.  When you select a particular title tag and start to listen, the display shows from top to bottom: Track tag in the form 02/17 or 76/104 where 17 and 104 are the respective number of tracks in the albums; Artist tag; Title tag (again).   

So my bottom line is: to identify you book on the Clip+ and play it in the correct sequence of tracks, use MP3Tag to give it its own Album tag and make sure the tracks are displayed in order before (if necessary) adding track tags  with the correct number of leading zeroes.

That indeed sounds correct.  It’s just “the basic”:  have your tags with the correct info.

I made a mistake in my message above.  I should have give 076/104 as a proper tag.  If you don’t have the proper number of leading zeros, 10/104 will play right after 1/104. 

Indeed. That’s why mp3tag has Leading Zeros under Tools/Auto-Numbering Wizard.

And as far as I know, all Sansas work pretty much the same with tags.

And this also is how folder view seems to work across players–the need to use leading zeros in filenames.

The fact that it requires leading zeroes tells us that the code does an ASCII sort (where short strings are “less than” longer ones regardless of initial character), instead of a numerical one.

Summary (at least for Clip+).  Set tags thus:

 Genre = “Audiobook”

 Album = book’s title

 Artist = author

 Title = chapter*

 Track is ignored

 Discnumber is ignored

* If the book was a stack of CD’s, I use %discnumber%%track%.