Some tags combine current and new data, instead of wiping current data first

MusicBrainz Picard
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I use Picard to tag MP3’s. When tagging some MP3 files, the current data and new data get combined with semi-colons (";") instead of wiping the current data and adding the new data. However, if there is no new data, the current data gets wiped. I have “Clear existing tags” enabled. This also seems to only happen with the following IDV3 MP3 fields: Publisher, Composer, Conductor, Comments.

For example, let’s say I’m tagging an MP3 with an existing publisher tag of “Bananas”. The data that comes from Picard has a publisher tag “Apples”. What I would expect to get in the Publisher tag is just “Apples”. But for some reason I get “Bananas; Apples”.

Is there maybe a plugin or setting I have enabled elsewhere causing this? I do not have any tags set to be preserved.

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Picard is case-sensitive, which can result in what you’re seeing if you neglect to uppercase field names for mp3-only.

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None of the fields you named are written to TXXX tags according to Appendix B: Tag Mapping — MusicBrainz Picard v2.8.2 documentation but the fact that Picard doesn’t write all-caps TXXX tags causes a lot of problems if you use any other software on your files other than Picard (and most people do use a music player that’s not Picard).

e.g., writer is written to TXXX:Writer rather than TXXX:WRITER.

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