Hi.

* Use mp3tagstudio to tag the file according to my file pattern,.. success reported.

* Play the file again looking for the tag installed by mp3tagstudio, again with mpg123 -v. Tag is printed but all fields are blank.

So to clarify, it does install the tag but it just puts all the fields blank.

Sounds as if the pattern you specified didn't actually match the pathname. At least that is what happened to me when using mp3tagstudio some while ago. I now use mpTagger which stops if a pattern does not match and asks for a new pattern. However mptagger only works for a single directory on each pass, so it is certainly not the tool you look for with you huge collection.

cu,
sven

proud MkII owner (12GB blue/green/smoked, was #080000113 is #090001010)