Music Library's Artist and Album Artists Images Mostly Missing

[them8os235 16]

Hello all.  After days of probably over a dozen passes changing my meta-data settings and rescanning the music libraries and/or refreshing meta-data and images, with probably every combination of meta data source selection and order option and Refresh Metadata selection option, I'm reluctantly coming here for some assistance.

The top of my library showing the Album Artist view looks like the following (the "Artists" view looks almost identical), and goes on similarly from here to the letter Z.  I had the music folder structure hint of "Perfectly organized into artist\album ...etc..." selected.  In this case I have lossy mp3 and m4a under the same artist directory as lossless FLAC & m4a and other formats.  I have tried changing library structure to "Other ..." and both rescanned and refreshed the meta data both trying to update missing, then replacing both metadata and images in a few of my many attempts.  Nothing changes what you see.  Any ideas of what should do the trick?

 

 

 

This Emby Server above is on a new mini PC I was planning to migrate to.  Emby Server version is "Version 4.7.14.0":   The original NUC PC on which I have my original Emby Server setup had no problem downloading the Artist images, when I scanned the same music.  The only difference there was I segregated lossy music from lossless music.  I also had the music folder structure hint of "Other ..." selected.  The version of the server is also "Version 4.7.14.0" presently, but it was a very different version when the music was imported many years ago.

This here is only to show that my music collection is well tagged and Emby Server doesn't have a problem with it.  The two images below show the top of my Album Artist view, with two images for both my lossy and lossless libraries.  You'll see many & most of the names above that have no image does have is below:

 

 

 

Also, and only to validate that the music folders on the harddrive are not at fault, I scanned the same directory as at the top with Jellyfin on the same PC (with altered network ports). scanning the same harddrive  (side note: Please don't degrade this request for help into an Emby vs Jellyfin discussion/debate!  It's perfectly fine and if you prefer that that's fine as well, and no one needs to know that.  That also will not change my happiness with going with Emby and paying for a lifetime subscription.)

This is only to demonstrate that the legacy library import logic that Emby and Jellyfin once shared shouldn't have any problem with getting Artist images of my music library on the PC and harddrive that is in use here and at the very top:

 

 

 

Enhancement Request: (perhaps I should/will start a thread asking for this in the Enhancements forum)  When we configure a music library with the folder structure set to "Perfectly organized into artist\album ...etc...", you can use a Folder.jpg file which you show in the "Folder" view as the Artist image if you don't have/find one for the Artist from Musicbrains of AudioDB.  As my library has one (and variants of it) in almost every album directory, my Folder view looks like this, for thousands of artists\albums. 

So, if Folder.jpg (or variant) were used as a fallback, noone who has made sure every directory has one would see their Artist / Album Artist view look as it does at the top, and the image you see below could be used to populate many of those blank placeholders:

 

 

[Luke 37246]

Hi, are you saying you had images before, and then lost them after tinkering?

[them8os235 16]

2 minutes ago, Luke said:

Hi, are you saying you had images before, and then lost them after tinkering?

No sir.  They were never downloaded/acquired from the music library's creation and first import.

[Luke 37246]

OK i would try refreshing the metadata on Abba and/or using the Identify feature on it.

[beckfield 95]

This is not a solution to your issue, but just to address your enhancement request:  Emby already, in theory, supports folder.jpg files, as well as some others.  Here's the documentation page that lists what's supported: https://emby.media/support/articles/Music-Naming.html?q=artist image filenames

So it's just a matter of figuring out why it isn't working in your case.

[them8os235 16]

@LukeI have tried all permutations of refreshing Metadata (replace all, find missing, replace all images checked and unchecked) on a few folders in the past.  But the "Identify" feature didn't ring a bell. 

I just saw / noticed it.  I clicked thru the search panel, entered the text "ABBA", clicked on the first choice (even through that didn't show an artist image), and YES, that did indeed pull down an image for ABBA.  So now my Album Artist view has an image for ABBA.

That's a positive.  But I have hundreds if not over a thousand instances of Artists missing their image.  Is there any way this function that did work can be used in unattended batch fashion?

Much thanx 

Edited January 25 by them8os235

[Luke 37246]

In 4.7 when you import the library, your media is getting scanned and it queues background operations for the virtual things such as artists and albums. the scan could show finished but with these operations still ongoing. My guess is you shutdown or restarted the server while this was happening and that's why you don't have artist images. Just a guess though. The server log from when the library was first imported might tell us more.

4.8 is a little better about this where the library scan won't indicate finished until all of this is done.

[Luke 37246]

Quote

Enhancement Request: (perhaps I should/will start a thread asking for this in the Enhancements forum)  When we configure a music library with the folder structure set to "Perfectly organized into artist\album ...etc...", you can use a Folder.jpg file which you show in the "Folder" view as the Artist image if you don't have/find one for the Artist from Musicbrains of AudioDB.  As my library has one (and variants of it) in almost every album directory, my Folder view looks like this, for thousands of artists\albums. 

We already do this, but it has to be set when you first import them.

[them8os235 16]

2 minutes ago, Luke said:

In 4.7 when you import the library, your media is getting scanned and it queues background operations for the virtual things such as artists and albums. the scan could show finished but with these operations still ongoing. My guess is you shutdown or restarted the server while this was happening and that's why you don't have artist images. Just a guess though. The server log from when the library was first imported might tell us more.

4.8 is a little better about this where the library scan won't indicate finished until all of this is done.

2 minutes ago, Luke said:

We already do this, but it has to be set when you first import them.

Thanx!  I can't recall if I did reboot when I did the first import months ago, but I can't be sure that I didn't. 

Should I just delete/remove the libraries, compact the DB, reboot, start over importing my music, and leave the computer alone for a day or whatever?  Any other directories you recommend I purge (on Windows)?

If 4.8.x is in public Beta, I'd be willing to use it.  Is that readily available for ordinary folks to install or do I need to be registered for an early release channel to install it?

 

[them8os235 16]

I really got myself into a pickle [see (*)].  So, I started over, with the 4.8 Beta this time.  And made sure neither the Emby Server nor the PC it is on would need to be restarted for a few days before I started creating my Music Libraries. And all is now golden.  Thank you Luke and bekfield for the participation.

But, in reference to what I noted as an enhancement request: It was pointed out Emby already did that.  I'm not finding it be the case.  In the case of the Libraries where they are configured as "Perfectly organized as artist\album ...", the folder.jpg/folder.png/etc. files -- present in the directory an artist without artwork comes from -- is not used in the Album Artist / Artist views when an image for that Artist cannot be pulled down from one of the services.  In every case below where the artist image is missing the album he/she comes from (usually, just one album) has album art, and not art that was downloaded but from my own folder.jpg or folder.png file.

 

(*) Stupidly thought that if I cleared the metadata and cache directory contents, removed the libraries, then recreated them, I'm get the artist images on those scans.  Not only did that not work as I hoped I ended up losing all artist images I had, as well as all album images too.  I.e., I had nothing, only my folder.jpg/.png files displayed in Folder view.  I knew that was a risk. The DB file contents are a black-box and no management of the contents are available to us. But I had hoped the DB would 'self adjust' and purge entries with no live file on the HD.  But lesson learned, it doesn't.  I'll never do that again.  LOL

[Luke 37246]

Thanks for following up.