Old artwork of previously deleted programs still appears on the media library covers

[phoesky 2]

Problem: After updating Emby to 4.9.5.0, old cover pictures of long-deleted content keep displaying on covers throughout all media libraries. Regular rescanning cannot fix this display issue.

Emby Server: Official Synology Package 4.9.5.0

Device: Synology DS423+

DSM: 7.2.1-69057 Update 11 (No DSM upgrades planned; new DSM versions remove native server-side hardware decoding)

[Luke 42917]

HI there, can you please provide a specific example?

How to Report a Problem

Thanks !

 

[phoesky 2]

I have two screenshots for reference. This library is only provided as an example, and this bug affects all of my media libraries, not just this one.

Screenshot 1 shows the combined 4-in-1 cover thumbnail displayed on this regular library page.

Screenshot 2 shows the actual current content inside this media library.

 

Issue details:

The 2nd and 4th poster thumbnails on this combined cover belong to items that I permanently removed from the library over a year ago, yet they still remain in the composite cover preview.

The 1st and 3rd poster thumbnails are old custom artwork I manually replaced a long time ago. My newly updated custom covers never take effect on this merged four-panel cover preview, while outdated cached thumbnails persist permanently.

This abnormal cache refresh failure for library collage covers started to happen after I upgraded my Emby Server to version 4.9.5.0. Could you help check the global cache mechanism for these combined library artwork previews and provide a solution to fully clear stale cached images? Thanks a lot.

[Luke 42917]

Hi, try using the image editor to delete the existing image. Then run a library scan and that should create a new one.

[phoesky 2]

9 hours ago, Luke said:

Hi, try using the image editor to delete the existing image. Then run a library scan and that should create a new one.

Thanks for your reply. I have deleted the library cover art multiple times already, yet the newly regenerated covers still have the same issues.

I also tried clearing EmbyServer/metadata/imagecache/library* via SSH, but none of these methods fixed the problem.

Since my Emby is installed as a Synology package, I cannot locate where these outdated cover images are stored.

[Luke 42917]

@phoeskyI think what's happening is that it's not an issue of outdated cover images, but rather you have content still in your database that should have been deleted some time ago. Unfortunately this might be caused by defects in older Emby Server versions and would require a fresh database to resolve.

@sa2000can help you confirm that and give you some next steps. Thanks.

[sa2000 819]

On 23/06/2026 at 13:40, phoesky said:

The 1st and 3rd poster thumbnails are old custom artwork I manually replaced a long time ago.

I am aware of an issue where changing the contents of an image/photo file does not get reflected in the collage file for a library - I know this happens for a photos library and it may be the same issue here for media image files - if the image file content was changed.

With regards to the other issue with the 2nd and 4th poster in the collage, I probably need to have a copy of the database and details of the library and media files involved and ones that were removed before and which had custom images

The database copy might not be sufficient for me to investigate. How big are these folders:

cache/images
metadata/library

Does this issue of the collage image not getting updated only happens with libraries with custom media ? Does it happen if a library did not have any custom images and you removed media items that are in the collage and did a refresh?

 

Edited July 23 by sa2000