Q: I’m having some trouble with tagging certain songs in my library. For example, when I go to change a song’s genre, the changes only ‘stick’ until I play the song later. At that point, the tags revert to their previous value.
How do I prevent this from happening, and to make sure that the tags I set are permanent?
– Jason
A: We’ve answered a similar question before, and as with that user’s album artwork issue, we suspect that the song files you are attempting to write to are in some way write-protected, allowing iTunes to only update its own tag database, but not the underlying files.
To find out if this is the case, and to fix it, use the “Summary” panel in iTunes’ “Get Info” window for the affected song to locate the path to the file. Then, browse to that location in Windows Explorer or the Mac’s Finder, and do the following:
Windows: Right click on the file, and choose “Properties.” Ensure that the “Read Only” checkbox is unchecked.
If not, try doing the same operation on the folders that contain it.
Mac: Open “Get Info” for the file (CMD-I), and ensure that “Ownership and Permissions” indicates that “You can Read & Write.” If not, change the setting to reflect this (you may need an administrator to enter a password).
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