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    What do you get from, ls *oomsday* | od -c for example?
    – Yoric
    Commented Jan 12, 2019 at 16:01
  • 0000000 0 2 357 273 277 D o o m s d a y . m 0000020 p 3 \n 0000023 Interesting, so is this reporting that the '?' character is stored as 357 273 277?
    – Gr3go
    Commented Jan 12, 2019 at 18:40
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    @Gr3go The other way around: that octal 357 273 277 (= hexadecimal ef bb bf) is actually in the filename, but ls is showing it as "?" because it's not a normal character. In fact, it's a UTF-8 byte order mark, which doesn't really have any business appearing in a filename (although it's not strictly illegal). My guess is that it's somehow in the track name in the .mp3, and iTunes just blindly used that in the filename. Deleting and retyping the track name in iTunes' Song Info window might fix it. Commented Jan 12, 2019 at 20:32
  • Unbelievably, while "cleaning up" (I thought) duplicate entries from my merged backups, iTunes blew away almost that entire Nero directory claiming they were duplicates. So I can't yet test your idea, but will be. iTunes is somehow still severely confused. Need to investigate whether there are still symlinks in this mess. Had to step away /annoyed.
    – Gr3go
    Commented Jan 13, 2019 at 1:05
  • FTR, it didn't work for iTunes to rewrite the file... however, rename from @Yoric worked. Just have to resolve folder name clashes now and then get a solid backup. Thanks all!
    – Gr3go
    Commented Jan 13, 2019 at 2:49