Emby showing wrong covers

[Nabukodonosor 13]

So, I've tagged all my songs (I have a mixed folder with songs, like a compilation of different artist etc), added covers to them, but Emby is showing some random covers, without any sense. For example, on my 1st screenshot, a random group of songs with wrong covers. As you can see all 5 songs by Elvis have the same cover, and all the first 3 songs by Eminem. In reality they all have different covers, as shown in other screenshots. It took that yellow cover and applied it to every song. That cover is also downloaded and tagged by me.

I tried refreshing the metadata on the main folder, with all my music, also refreshing only that folder. None worked.

I don't know why Emby decided to apply specifically that yellow cover to all of them. Why not some other I downloaded. Weird.

This weird thing applies to all songs where I have multiple songs by the same artist. One cover for all songs.

Edited January 3, 2025 by Nabukodonosor

[Nabukodonosor 13]

OK, some update. I added 2 songs that were never in this compilation, because I had some feeling that some newly added songs will cause no issues. And I was correct. So, maybe some cache issues or something like that. Tried restarting Emby, didn't help.

[Nabukodonosor 13]

Another update. The issue is in the Album artist field. If I have for example 3 songs by the same artist, from 3 different albums, with 3 different covers, if I fill the album artist field with that artist name, Emby will show the same cover for all 3 songs. This is bad, and it should be fixed.

[Luke 42077]

On 1/4/2025 at 8:45 AM, Nabukodonosor said:

Another update. The issue is in the Album artist field. If I have for example 3 songs by the same artist, from 3 different albums, with 3 different covers, if I fill the album artist field with that artist name, Emby will show the same cover for all 3 songs. This is bad, and it should be fixed.

hi there, is the album tag filled in? Can you please provide a specific example? Thanks.

[Nabukodonosor 13]

You can see all my tags in the first post, the screenshots. I followed the instructions from the manual. Same Album and Album artist tag. And if the album artist tag is the same for multiple songs by the same artist, the cover will be same. And I think this is not good. Album tag doesn't affect this.

An example. Let say I have 3 songs by Metallica. One song is from the album Black, 2nd song from Load and 3rd song from ReLoad. If I fill the Album Artist tag with "Metallica" for all 3 songs, Emby will use the same cover for all 3 songs. Even though each song have a separate cover set. I hope I explained well.

[Luke 42077]

On 1/6/2025 at 10:56 AM, Nabukodonosor said:

You can see all my tags in the first post, the screenshots. I followed the instructions from the manual. Same Album and Album artist tag. And if the album artist tag is the same for multiple songs by the same artist, the cover will be same. And I think this is not good. Album tag doesn't affect this.

An example. Let say I have 3 songs by Metallica. One song is from the album Black, 2nd song from Load and 3rd song from ReLoad. If I fill the Album Artist tag with "Metallica" for all 3 songs, Emby will use the same cover for all 3 songs. Even though each song have a separate cover set. I hope I explained well.

OK it sounds like you're trying to use your folder structure to create custom compilations but I'm not sure this is the best tool for the job. You are left in a situation of being stuck halfway in between where you're trying to force things into your compilation but yet you still want some original album data retained and utilized.

Obviously you're going to do what you're going to do and we try to make the software as flexible as we can to accommodate that, but I would think you'd get a better experience by embracing the original albums fully and then creating playlists as your compilations.

[Nabukodonosor 13]

I've tried that. I did that part, and it's relatively OK, but I still get every song showed as a separate album, since I still have my single songs in one folder. I mean, I can place each song in a separate folder but I would still get the same result. I guess there is no solution to this.

[Luke 42077]

6 hours ago, Nabukodonosor said:

I've tried that. I did that part, and it's relatively OK, but I still get every song showed as a separate album, since I still have my single songs in one folder. I mean, I can place each song in a separate folder but I would still get the same result. I guess there is no solution to this.

The albums in Emby will always be based on the embedded information in your audio files. So what I'm saying is make that information correct based on the original albums, then you can use playlists for whatever virtual groupings you desire (e.g. compilations).

[Nabukodonosor 13]

I really don't understand you. All my files are fully tagged with all the necessary info, with original albums, artist names, covers, years and so on. I placed those files in one folder. Made playlists. That works fine. But still, Emby is presenting every single song as a separate album. Even if I only have 1 songs by some artist. It's presented as an album of 1 song. I don't know how to explain more clearly.

That thing with creating compilations by tagging album and album artist with the same name is working great, but in that case I'm loosing the Album info, because in the album and album artist tag I have to put something like "My compilation". The idea is good, but in practice it doesn't look good. Maybe you should have chosen 2 other tags for this, maybe album artist and one more, maybe even a custom tag. Choosing the "album" tag for this is bad design in my opinion.

[Luke 42077]

Quote

But still, Emby is presenting every single song as a separate album.

Hi, we already went over this, right? it is the combination of album name + albumartist that determines album groupings.

You are in complete control of whether you want them as multiple albums or not, all by updating the embedded information within your files accordingly based on what you want to do.

[Luke 42077]

Quote

Maybe you should have chosen 2 other tags for this

We didn't choose this. This is the way most music apps work.