Album art not updating

[benmoses 4]

Apologies, the screenshot of the Bob Seger folders on my desktop were just a test to see if I could upload an image.  They mean nothing.

[benmoses 4]

When it comes to FOLDERS the image will be inherited from something within that folder.  Are you saying nothing within that folder contains that image?  Music is odd enough as it is.  But the folder should contain the artwork for the named folder.

 

Well initially the three mp3 files in the Dirt Album contained 63 images each, including the correct one.  This means there were 62 incorrect images within each file.  Emby picked the Def Leppard image out of all 63 images.  I don't fault Emby for this.  I wouldn't expect Emby to have any idea which image I want out of 63! LOL  However, what I'm trying to show here is that when I corrected the problem using Musicbrainz app and saved just the one image that is correct to each file and then performed the library update with the options for replacing data and replacing images, the folder image did not change.  It still shows Def Leppard.

 

So, to answer the question in short, yes, 1 of the 63 images within each file was the correct one.  But this, of course, is a less than ideal situation and one I'm happy to correct the right way by editing the mp3 files directly, saving/overwriting the files with only one image and then figuring out how to force Emby to update the apparently cached image for the folder.

[Happy2Play 8252]

That is the issue though,  You are editing sub-folder items for the parent folder that has already inherited a image.  The folder view is not the library view that you are refreshing/replacing images in.

 

So if you delete the image on the folder what happens on the next library scan?

[benmoses 4]

That is the issue though,  You are editing sub-folder items for the parent folder that has already inherited a image.  The folder view is not the library view that you are refreshing/replacing images in.

 

So if you delete the image on the folder what happens on the next library scan?

 

 

As you can see deleting the image and rescanning the library DID refresh the image!  That's great!

 

 

However, after playing songs from each of the three albums within Alice in Chains and reviewing the Suggestions View.  I see that the Def Leppard art is being shown for the songs from the Dirt album.  This is the same behavior I noticed with my Bob Seger situation from previous posts.  The suggestions page would continue to show James Taylor.  Could this be a bug?

 

EDIT:  Take note that all of these songs were played AFTER I had performed the "Fix" by deleting the folder image above and rescanning.

Edited November 7, 2019 by benmoses

[Happy2Play 8252]

As you can see deleting the image and rescanning the library DID refresh the image!  That's great!

 

 

However, after playing songs from each of the three albums within Alice in Chains and reviewing the Suggestions View.  I see that the Def Leppard art is being shown for the songs from the Dirt album.  This is the same behavior I noticed with my Bob Seger situation from previous posts.  The suggestions page would continue to show James Taylor.  Could this be a bug?

 

EDIT:  Take note that all of these songs were played AFTER I had performed the "Fix" by deleting the folder image above and rescanning.

 

What image appear when you open that album via Albums?

 

If you open the album and play all, then open the Now Playing menu, button in the bottom right, what image is shown for each track?

[benmoses 4]

What image appear when you open that album via Albums?

 

If you open the album and play all, then open the Now Playing menu, button in the bottom right, what image is shown for each track?

 

OK, the proper image shows in Albums.

 

However when I open the Now Playing as you instructed.  It does show Def Leppard for the tracks.

[Happy2Play 8252]

OK, the proper image shows in Albums.

 

However when I open the Now Playing as you instructed.  It does show Def Leppard for the tracks.

 

I know your previous images above show the change to these track images, so I have no idea why the server is not updating them also on a Refresh..  Unless there are errors in the log when you do this.

 

But the image above basically says that is the image assigned to the track.  But I know on my Windows servers I have not had this issue (stable or beta servers)

[Happy2Play 8252]

You shouldn't have to but I guess as a last resort would be clicking edit image on each of those tracks and deleting the image.

[benmoses 4]

I'll give that a try.

Can I provide a log?  Can I post it here? Or is there a central repository for uploading logs?

 

EDIT: I want to be as helpful as I can at the risk of bothering you guys with things that really aren't problems. LOL

Edited November 7, 2019 by benmoses

[benmoses 4]

Update:

 

Ok, it does appear that I can go through the method you describe, going into each album, Playing All, observing the art for each track and deleting the art for each track.  When I do, if there is other "correct" art it will automatically appear, which is nice.

 

However I have come across some weirdness when deleting art at the Folder level (In the Folder View).  Sometimes, Emby simply won't do it.

1. I will right click on the folder in question

2. Edit Image from menu

3. Click on the trash can to delete art

4. Confirm by clicking "Delete" again

5. I expect the Emby UI to return to a blank page where the art used to be, but when it does the art is still present, like it hasn't been deleted.

 

I'm wondering now if this has to do with the fact that, unbeknownst to me, the art was still being used by tracks within the Folder.  Is there a sort of hiearchy going on here where Emby will disallow the deletion of an assigned Folder image if that same image is assigned to tracks in subfolders of that folder?

[Happy2Play 8252]

Update:

 

Ok, it does appear that I can go through the method you describe, going into each album, Playing All, observing the art for each track and deleting the art for each track.  When I do, if there is other "correct" art it will automatically appear, which is nice.

 

However I have come across some weirdness when deleting art at the Folder level (In the Folder View).  Sometimes, Emby simply won't do it.

1. I will right click on the folder in question

2. Edit Image from menu

3. Click on the trash can to delete art

4. Confirm by clicking "Delete" again

5. I expect the Emby UI to return to a blank page where the art used to be, but when it does the art is still present, like it hasn't been deleted.

 

I'm wondering now if this has to do with the fact that, unbeknownst to me, the art was still being used by tracks within the Folder.  Is there a sort of hiearchy going on here where Emby will disallow the deletion of an assigned Folder image if that same image is assigned to tracks in subfolders of that folder?

 

The folder view inherits for within the folder.  Removing a folder image can re-inherit the exact same image.  Only way around this is assigning image to folders.

[benmoses 4]

The folder view inherits for within the folder.  Removing a folder image can re-inherit the exact same image.  Only way around this is assigning image to folders.

Or to remove the offending image from all the tracks within the folder to let Emby's automatic-ness apply the next image in line (if there is one) ???

 

If this is how it's working then I feel like I've finally arrived at a place where I can move forward knowing how to use Emby better.

[JXL2112 7]

1. Download Mp3tag and drag the mp3 files into it. You can then delete any of the 63 images. Emby just grabs the one marked as "front". So set the one you want as "front".

 

2. Rename the music folder, Alice In Chains to Alice In Chains^^^, it will invalidate the path. Emby will re-add it. Sometimes fixes any errors....then rename it back to just Alice In Chains.

 

3. NUKE IT....rename the metadata folder and just start Emby from scratch. (Emby doesn't take that long with small and medium sized libraries).

[benmoses 4]

Awesome, thanks for JXL for the suggestions.  I'll check out Mp3tag.  It'd be nice to be able to see and edit/assign images in their respective slots in a straightforward manner.  (I haven't found that yet.  MusicBrainz shows you but doesn't really give much control over them).  I think I've finally got my head wrapped around how to manage what I'm doing with Emby.  I just needed to understand exactly what Emby is doing first.

 

Again, I just want to say, that I love Emby.  None of this has blown my opinion of Emby.  As a wanna-be software engineer myself I can appreciate the complication that comes along with trying to write software to manage this sort of environment and all the variables that come along with it and I'm sure I'm only scratching the surface here.

[Luke 37022]

Yea I think this whole flow needs review. A quicker workaround you can use in the meantime if you ever change embedded artwork is to temporarily move the music files out of your emby library, run a full scan to flush out the database, then add them back.

[benmoses 4]

Yeah, I'm not too worried about it now as I have a method to my madness with Musicbrainz and Emby.  It's no problem to simply copy my entire music library into a new folder and import it into Emby if/when I have bulk, mass changes to my library.  My whole collection is only 30GB (which used to be a lot 20 years ago!!)   

 

When you say "flush out the database" do you mean use the flag that's in the .xml file "VacuumDatabaseOnStartup" ??

I'd like to know for sure that I'm going about removing the cruft from the database the right when I delete and re-add back a library.

 

Thanks!

[Luke 37022]

No, I just mean removing it from the library, then running a full scan using scan all libraries to clean out the database.

[benmoses 4]

ah OK.

[mortecouille 1]

Did you ever find a workaround for this? I'm running into the same issue, but none of the proposed solutions seem to work for me. 

 

I'm reluctant to wipe the library as it is substantial, so importing takes a long time and I don't want to do this every time there's a mistake. 

[benmoses 4]

No not really, but I haven't updated album art that was already existing in a library in a long time.  Once I found out that I had to delete the library and re-create the library, I went ahead and got all the album the way I wanted it and then created the library for the last time.  Anything new should be fine so long as you're not trying to change something that's already been imported/added.

[dansblackcat 37]

I found that musicbrainz Picard is terrible for trying to update metadata.  It caused me so much grief.

 

I've been going through the slow, tedious job of updating all of my music.  I'm making sure it all has the correct, good quality images for both album and artist.

I'm updating items on a daily basis and have had no issues with emby not updating to my new images.

 

What I've been doing and have been having success with is-

I cut any of the problem music folders from my main 'music folder' and paste it to another folder on my computer, I called it 'to be sorted'

Then run a full library scan on emby.

I then use mp3tag to change/update any images and save them to the mp3 tags.  I also use the option to extract that image.  Mp3tag automatically saves the image as folder.jpg to the correct directory.

Then I delete any .nfo files and then just paste the folders back into my main music folder.

Run an emby scan and all should be good.

 

Honestly even the cutting and pasting of folders sometimes is not necessary.  If I just use mp3tag to extract and save the .folder image emby pretty much always picks up the change and applies it after a scan.

Edited May 18, 2020 by dansblackcat

[mortecouille 1]

I found that musicbrainz Picard is terrible for trying to update metadata.  It caused me so much grief.

 

I've been going through the slow, tedious job of updating all of my music.  I'm making sure it all has the correct, good quality images for both album and artist.

I'm updating items on a daily basis and have had no issues with emby not updating to my new images.

 

What I've been doing and have been having success with is-

I cut any of the problem music folders from my main 'music folder' and paste it to another folder on my computer, I called it 'to be sorted'

Then run a full library scan on emby.

I then use mp3tag to change/update any images and save them to the mp3 tags.  I also use the option to extract that image.  Mp3tag automatically saves the image as folder.jpg to the correct directory.

Then I delete any .nfo files and then just paste the folders back into my main music folder.

Run an emby scan and all should be good.

 

Honestly even the cutting and pasting of folders sometimes is not necessary.  If I just use mp3tag to extract and save the .folder image emby pretty much always picks up the change and applies it after a scan.

 

My workflow is actually somewhat similar. It's not really a musicbrainz problem at all. The problem is that if you have a cover inside a track's tags, it's impossible to update it. Emby will update the cover for the Album itself, but the individual tracks will never use the update cover file, or the update tag within the music files themselves.

 

Yesterday I removed my metadata directory, deleted and recreated the library overnight. That seems to have fixed it. But a full library scan is way too long (several hours) for this to be a solution. 

 

 

Is there even a use case for per-track primary art? Music items should just always use the album art IMO.  

[dansblackcat 37]

Yeah I think there's a case for per-track album art, Well not really album.  I have a ton of music that are just singles and not the whole album.

So each of those songs I've got the 'single' artwork, not the album.

[mortecouille 1]

But if there is an album, I don't really see any good reason for the track art to take precedence over the album art. 

 

Anyway, I guess I would be ok with that behaviour, if there was a reliable way to change a track's art. You can always go to 'Edit images' for each, but that will only last until the next metadata refresh, so it's not a solution, not to mention it's a pain to do on each single track.

 

I'm pretty sure this is a bug in emby. If I change a file's metadata tags, I expect emby to pick that up. Which it does: if I modify an artist name, or a track title, or anything else, it happily updates the metadata. But for some reason, the primary art always stays to whatever was in the tags when the track was first imported. 

[dansblackcat 37]

Only time I like an image per track is for compilation albums.  I have an album called 100 one hit wonders from the 80s and 90s.  I gave each song the artwork from the single, it's much better than the generic compilation artwork.  But that's pretty much a one off and I doubt most people would even care.

 

I don't use emby to change track art. I prefer mp3tag.

 

If you cut and paste an album folder somewhere else, run a scan, and then paste it back, does it pick up the changes?

How about if you add the album artwork as folder.jpg into the albums folder?

 

On the emby main screen you can try and click on music and select "refresh metadata".  There's a few things to try in there?

Sometimes I don't see changes right away, need to go back to the main menu and then jump back into Music.  On my android apps I close the app and then re-open it to see some changes.

Edited May 18, 2020 by dansblackcat