"Release Date" and other metadata tags not reading correctly

[Albert_Maro]

• Device model (e.g. 2020 iPad Air 4th Gen): MacBook Pro M1
• Version of operating system (e.g. macOS 14.4.1): 15.7.1
• Version of djay (e.g. 5.1.2): 5.5
• Hardware/controllers used (e.g. Reloop Mixon 8 Pro): N/A

Hi everyone,

I’ve been testing how DJAY Pro handles metadata fields and I think there might be a bug — or at least inconsistent behavior — with the RELEASEDATE tag.

I organize my FLAC collection with Mp3tag, where I use:

• YEAR → only the year (YYYY)
• RELEASEDATE → full date (DD/MM/YYYY)
• TRACK → month (MM) extracted from the YEAR field

Everything looks correct inside Mp3tag. The tags are saved properly, the file has permissions, and all fields show up in the extended tags view. However, DJAY Pro doesn’t always display or recognize the RELEASEDATE field. Sometimes it reads it, but other times it simply doesn’t — with no clear pattern.

I’ve seen several posts reporting issues with metadata handling in DJAY Pro, especially that it seems to rely partly on Apple Music’s metadata system, even when the user doesn’t use Apple Music for their local library. That might explain the inconsistency, but it’s unclear.

For comparison, Rekordbox reads and displays all metadata fields correctly, including custom ones, which suggests that the tags are properly written to the FLAC files.

Can anyone from Algoriddim confirm which metadata tags DJAY Pro actually reads and under what conditions?
Is RELEASEDATE officially supported, or should we be using RELEASETIME or DATE instead?

Thanks in advance — if I find a workaround or more details, I’ll post them here for others who might be dealing with the same issue.

[Michael_Wisniewski]

I agree there are metadata bugs in djay Pro, but they are random and inconsistent so it’s hard to replicate them.

Example 1: Works and then doesn’t.
When I first load up djay Pro, I can update metadata in MP3Tag or Apple Music - and the metadata changes will show up in My Collection. My trigger to refresh the metadata in djay Pro is to use Search. This works fine and then the Search trigger stops working and I have to restart djay Pro to get the metadata to refresh … and sometimes even restarting the app won’t update the metadata - and it’s not clear why or what is causing the problem, it just stops working.

• Another workaround that sometimes works (and then doesn’t) is to Refresh Local Music. So I do bulk edits in MP3Tag, load up the tracks in Apple Music (so I can see the updates), and then Refresh Local Music in djay Pro - and hopefully the updates show up in My Collection! Once again, it works initially, but eventually it only updates Local Music, but not My Collection. So it requires another restart.

• Going from djay Pro → Apple Music/MP3Tag is consistent and reliable. Updating metadata in djay Pro will immediately show up inside Apple Music and MP3Tag every time. So the problem seems to be how & when djay Pro refreshes the metadata in the My Collection database.

Example 2: Disappearing waveform.
Editing the metatags of a live playing track can cause the waveform to disappear. The deck will still be playing but no sound, since no waveform. It happens randomly - but consistently enough that I’m terrified to edit metatags in djay Pro during a live gig so I use Apple Music or MP3Tag during gigs to edit the live track tags. Once again, no clear indication what triggers the disappearing waveform, it works most of the time in djay Pro, and then it doesn’t.

[Albert_Maro]

I’m out now, but I’ll copy and paste what I put on the mp3tag forum

Okay, I did the test: I downloaded new FLAC tracks, not for any special reason, just to avoid working with copies. I deleted all the tag configurations in Mp3tag.

The new tracks came without RELEASEDATE but with YEAR in DD/MM/YYYY format (see the image). Then I imported these tracks into DJAY PRO, and it read the information without the “Publicado” field — for you, that would be RELEASEDATE.

Next, from DJAY, I added a date in D/M/YY format and reloaded the files in Mp3tag. Now, RELEASEDATE appears in Mp3tag in YYYY-MM-DD format.

Then I edited the RELEASEDATE metadata in Mp3tag to see if DJAY PRO would update it, but it didn’t. From what I’ve been able to find, there are already complaints about this — DJAY PRO doesn’t handle tags properly, or we don’t know which editors/tools to use to edit metadata, since some people say it’s better to use Apple Music (DJAY PRO is largely Apple-based).

With all that, I continued testing: I created the RELEASEDATE tag in Mp3tag so it appears as a column. Whenever I save (Command+S) in Mp3tag the modified data, then close and reopen DJAY PRO, it reads the tag correctly. The same happens with the MONTH field — TRACK for you and Mp3tag.

What I did notice is that YEAR, which in the original track is shown in DD/MM/YYYY format, is used by DJAY PRO only as YYYY in its field.

[Slak_Jaw]

Hi @Albert_Maro and @Michael_Wisniewski, can you please share some example FLAC files that have this issue? If you prefer, you can send them to me via DM. Thanks!

[Albert_Maro]

Yes, I’ll send it to you as soon as I can.

However, I’ve managed to solve it… the fact that djay Pro doesn’t read file tags correctly is real, whether due to the lack of real-time refreshing or because the file is in use. Depending more or less on Apple Music doesn’t help either.

In my case, using an external editor (Mp3tag), I configured the metadata fields that the program is supposed to read and adapted them to the format that djay Pro expects. For example, the Spanish field “comentarios” corresponds internally to COMMENT, the Spanish field “año” corresponds to YEAR (YYYY), and the field “publicado” corresponds to RELEASEDATE (D-M-YY), even though files usually come with the format YYYY/MM/DD.

Because of this, I created actions to convert and adjust the existing information in the file and extract part (or all) of it to place it in another field. That way, if the original file doesn’t include a release date (RELEASEDATE), I can easily create it and then use that value in djay Pro’s smart playlists.

As a note, if I have djay Pro open—since I have it automated so that any track I place in my folder is automatically added to My Collection—I have to re-analyze the track. This works quite well, and djay Pro picks up the metadata added through the external program, although sometimes the refresh is not immediate (I have to eject the track from the deck and/or reload it, or switch to another view so the information refreshes). Another option is to close and reopen djay Pro.

If djay Pro is closed, 99% of the time it reads the metadata generated in Mp3tag correctly.

[Slak_Jaw]

Thanks for the additional info @Albert_Maro. I’ll share this with the team as well.

[Albert_Maro]

I make a copy and paste of the thread in mp3tag (external forum to algorridim)

It’s worth mentioning that I use the TRACK field in djay Pro to set the month, so I have an action that extracts the MM from the Year field and places it in TRACK.

[Albert_Maro]

Sorry for insisting, but I’ve just added a track to my collection and this example makes it much clearer:

This is an image from the program Mp3tag, where you can read the metadata that software like djay Pro, Apple Music, etc. later use.

As you can see, the YEAR field has the format YYYY-MM-DD.
The TRACK field corresponds to the track number of the album “12 favoritas”.
The RELEASEDATE field does not appear, and that’s the field djay Pro actually uses For PUBLISHED

Since that tag doesn’t exist in the original metadata, and djay Pro does not filter by month (MM) —it only uses the year in YYYY format from the YEAR field— here’s what I do

I configure an action in Mp3tag to extract the month value (in this example 07) and place it in the TRACK field, sacrificing the original track number (I don’t care about the original track number).
Then I have another action that copies the YEAR field into a new extended tag called RELEASEDATE, using the format D/M/YY, which is what djay Pro reads in its Spanish edition.

In the green box you can see how djay Pro expects the information, and in the red box:

• Num… is the TRACK field from the original tag
• Year is the YEAR field from the original tag
• Publicado is RELEASEDATE

Those values in red appear like this because djay Pro has not analyzed the track yet.

Once the metadata is written correctly in Mp3tag, this is how they look in a tag editor:

Already in djay Pro, I analyze the track again, which has been automatically added to my collection because I have it configured that way, and this is what it looks like.

Although I still don’t understand why, even though the track number in the song’s info is 7 , in the “My Collection” column it still shows the value 2 .

If I change the view from “Recently Added” to “Music” inside My Collection, then the Track field (track number in djay Pro) updates to the value 7 , which is the correct one for that track.

So, the real issue with djay Pro is that it doesn’t refresh this information in real time. Sometimes analyzing the track once, switching views, and returning to the previous view is enough for the new values to appear. But other times you have to close the app, reopen it, re-analyze the track, and switch views again… even though the metadata is already correct in the original file.

Another topic is how djay Pro expects or interprets metadata fields, because this isn’t documented anywhere. And I get it—each DJ software handles its own tag management. But it would be great not to depend solely on djay or Apple Music and be able to use other software with the same or better tagging capabilities.

But yes, this is definitely a bug.

[Albert_Maro]

I hope I’ve explained the whole process correctly. Using a translator and images isn’t very efficient… I’ve had to edit the post several times to correct the information.
Regards.

[Slak_Jaw]

Hi @Albert_Maro, thanks for the detailed info and screenshots - this is very helpful. I’ve shared this with the engineering team.