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Use only local metadata and artwork


JasonBone

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JasonBone

New to Emby here. My music collection is meticulously curated, with artwork, genre, spelling, etc. all included and perfect. In Emby I uncheck ALL of the fetch services for the Music library, expecting it to pull everything (especially artwork) from the music file itself, but it isn't working! 

If it helps, I am tagging in Yate and my music is on my Synology NAS. I'm using the Emby Server app on the NAS. Folder structure is:
Music>
   A-D>
      Artist - Album Name>
         01-Title.ext
         02-Title.ext
         ...


How can I get it to just pull from my dang embedded metadata - it's right there!

Edited by JasonBone
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JasonBone

So maybe I've fixed it. I turned on the Audio Image Extractor, but it didn't work. So I uninstalled Emby from my NAS, blew away the folders, data, everything, and started completely over. Now it seems to be pulling images and metadata from my files. This could have been WILDLY better explained, and the "Refresh Metadata" should work after making settings changes without needing to uninstall/install. Heck, just changing the Audio Image Extractor language/description to something like "pull artwork from your files" would have saved me a ton of headache.

Now to figure out how to get all my media folders to stop creating its own Primary image with a panel of images from within the folder. No matter how many times I delete it (I prefer the generic logos), it returns whenever I scan the library. Maddening.

I was told Emby was harder to set up than Plex. Boy were they right.

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Quote

I turned on the Audio Image Extractor, but it didn't work

Hi, it did work based on the help text at the top of the dialog:
 

Yes we can improve the name of the option. Thanks for the feedback.

Untitled.png

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JasonBone

Appreciate the response. After rebuilding my library I found that some albums had terrible artwork, so I swapped it out for better jpegs. However, rescanning the metadata does not update the artwork. Nor does moving the files out of my music folder, rescanning the library to remove them from emby, putting the files back, and rescanning in emby to re-add them. I think I read somewhere that deleting the entire library from Emby and rebuilding it from scratch might work, but I believe someone tried it and it didn't work. There must be a cache somewhere that stores the first image it sees and never gets rid of it.

Because of this I'm begrudgingly going back to Plex. I can't believe this flaw hasn't been reported a million times. Please let me know when it has been fixed so I can try Emby again - I was just getting to like it.

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JasonBone

Update - as I suspected, removing the ENTIRE Music library and recreating it from scratch does not work - the old artwork is still there. (Not that this was an acceptable way to update artwork in the first place, but I tried it anyway.)

Therefore, if you find even one album with bad artwork that you have to replace, just follow these eight easy steps!

1. Uninstall Emby from your server (in my case my NAS)
2. Delete the user and shared folder from your server/NAS (seriously, blow it all away. Burn it with fire.)
3. Reinstall Emby
4. Grant access to the media folders on your server/NAS for your Emby user
5. Run Emby and go through the initial login and setup steps again
6. Create all your libraries and folders
7. Wait for sync to finish (could be hours)
8. Your single album now has new artwork!

Oops, you forgot a second album that has bad artwork. Go back to step 1 and repeat.

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Happy2Play

Can you show screenshots but possibly a structure issue.

16 hours ago, JasonBone said:

Music>
   A-D>
      Artist - Album Name>
         01-Title.ext
         02-Title.ext
         ...

I know I have no issue disabling all provider options on Music and adding my Music/Artist/Album library.

 

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JasonBone

Adding the music works just fine with the folder structure I have. It imports artist bios it downloads from the internet, and the artwork for the albums and songs from my embedded metadata. The problem is when I change an album's artwork AFTER importing into my library. NOTHING will get Emby to recognize the new artwork - not even removing and recreating the library and folder. To be clear, I am not leaving the old artwork in the metadata, I am deleting it and adding the new artwork.

Emby caches the old artwork somewhere and is referencing that instead of my new artwork contained in the file. Hence the "Refresh Metadata" button doesn't actually refresh anything.

Edited by JasonBone
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Happy2Play

I am not seeing these result in my testing of adding music, remove music, change images, adding music.  Emby shows what ever image I have changed it to. 

What happens if you delete and add a album image via Emby UI?

 

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Happy2Play

Also what appears in the nfo <art> field as I think I see a issue/quirk with that?

 

@Luke is the <art> field read/reused from album.nfo?

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Just now, Happy2Play said:

Also what appears in the nfo <art> field as I think I see a issue/quirk with that?

 

@Luke is the <art> field read/reused from album.nfo?

We don't read art urls from nfo files, no, but we do support local artwork in the album folder.

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JasonBone

Nothing works, guys. Here's the situation (in exhausting detail - apologies in advance):

After creating a Music library and linking a folder to it, I imported all the music files. I turned off the MusicAlbum Image Fetchers and left the Image Extractor on so it would pull album artwork from my embedded metadata. It worked. (Note: all my artwork is embedded into the mp3/flacs themselves, NOT in a companion jpg file in the Album folder.)

However, some of the artwork I had was poor quality or wrong, so I opened my tagging software (Yate on Mac), deleted the bad artwork and replaced it with good artwork.
Now the trouble begins, because I can't get Emby to find the new artwork.

Here's what I've tried:
1. Hit "Refresh Metadata" for the album, then for the Artist, then for the entire Music library - no change. Old artwork persists.
2. Hit "Scan Library Files" for the Music library - no change.
3. Moved the album into a different folder on my hard drive (so it doesn't get deleted when I delete them from inside Emby). Deleted in Emby. Moved the Album back to my directory, did a "Scan Library Files" and re-added the album - no change. Still the old artwork.
4. Repeated the last step, only this time I made a copy of the album and moved it somewhere else, then let Emby delete the Album off my hard drive. Replaced the copy of the Album in the original location, re-scanned the library files, and nothing - still the old artwork.
5. Logged out and back in - no change.
6. Logged in to Emby from a different browser, in case it's a browser cache issue - no change.
7. Deleted browser cache and logged back in - no change.
8. Opened the Emby app on my phone - still the old artwork.
9. DELETED THE ENTIRE MUSIC LIBRARY and reinstalled it from scratch. STILL the old artwork.
10. Inspected the web page, saw that the image has a data id tied to the Album folder. Is this where it's pulling the artwork - from a cache Emby builds? (Screenshot attached)

I do not want to upload an image directly into Emby, because it would take forever and I don't want mismatched artwork - I want Emby to use the embedded artwork like it should. (And yes, I tried uploading an image directly to Emby and it works, but that doesn't fix the bug. Plus, when I deleted the image I uploaded it went right back to the old artwork that I don't want.)

The ONLY thing that has worked is to completely uninstall Emby from my NAS, remove all traces of Emby (delete folders, user account, etc.), reinstall, reconfigure, and build the entire library again. Obviously this isn't a workable solution for every time I want to replace an album cover.

Guys - why doesn't the "Refresh Metadata" look for new artwork? That's what any sane person would expect it to do!
 

Screen Shot.png

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JasonBone

Thanks anyway, but I'm giving up on Emby. It's hard to use, the interface is poorly designed, the description of buttons and features is confusing, and my artwork still won't update. However, here's the kicker - you can't play music on your phone without paying. WTF??

I'm sure you like to position yourself as a Plex-killer, but you've completely missed the mark by not having this feature. This was a wasted opportunity to steal away folks who are frustrated with Plex, like myself. Crazy decision.

I'm going to put a note in my calendar to check on Emby in two years. There's promise here, but it's not ready for prime time.

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