Showing old/wrong Album Art, must be cached or downloading it from Internet

[ColinPostsHere 4]

I manually set all my album art via the ID3 tag per track. There is no folder.jpg or cover.jpg file. My file structure is Music\<artist names>\<album name>\<tracks>. The only files are the MP3 files. When I first ripped my CD, the program I used to rip it selected a bad piece of cover art. I manually replaced it with Mp3tag while I added the other information (I do this for ever album). I doubt it matters, but I don't think I have this problem with any other albums (it's possible, but if I do, I haven't noticed it), so maybe it does: the CD is The Firm, from The Firm. 

One other odd feature, the artist and album image is blank. I only see images for the individual tracks. This is not how it works for any other albums. Everyone else gets an Internet picture of the artist, but shows my manually added album art when looking at the individual tracks. Perhaps the database that Emby is using doesn't have The Firm in it? They may not be super well-known, but they're not that obscure (the other Jimmy Page band after Led Zeppelin and the Yardbirds, with Bad Company's singer), so that seems odd. But if the album is not listed, then where is it getting the wrong image? Is that still cached somewhere from the first scan?

I have tried deleting the art from each track in Emby, then Scan Library. The bad art comes back. I have also removed the whole album folder, restarted Emby confirmed the album was gone, restarted the computer running it (a Windows 11 PC), then put the album folder back and again did Scan Library. The album re-appeared, the tracks again all had the old, bad image.

I have also tried clicking the 3 dots next to the album and selecting Refresh Metadata, with and without flipping the switch for "Replace existing images." No effect.

Under Settings -> Library -> Edit, I have the following settings (maybe one of these is the culprit), where any that I don't list are off/not selected:

Import playlist files: On

Enable real time monitoring: On

Metadata Readers, Enable and rank your preferred local metadata sources in order of priority: Nfo On

Album Metadata Downloaders: MusicBrainz On

Artist Metadata Downloaders: MusicBrainz On

After initial import, automatically refresh metadata from the internet: Never

Artist Image Fetchers: FanArt On

Song Image Fetchers: Embedded Images On

as noted above, everything else is off or unchecked.

What could be causing this problem and how would you recommend I fix it? If you need more information, please let me know what else to provide.

Thanks for any help. 

 

[Luke 43246]

Hi, can you please show a specific example? Thanks.

[user24 417]

1 hour ago, ColinPostsHere said:

Perhaps the database that Emby is using doesn't have The Firm in it?

This group is listed in the MusicBrainz database:

https://musicbrainz.org/artist/c08ced1f-d248-4368-90e5-bf579b3bf5de

Also Discogs:

https://www.discogs.com/artist/620368-The-Firm-7

Though, in each case, it looks like there are many other Artists with the exact same name. There are at least 12 on MusicBrainz and at least 20 on Discogs. 

If you are only fetching from MusicBrainz, you could try adding the correct MusicBrainz ID to your embedded metadata (if you don't have it already) and see if that helps with Emby fetching the correct Artist image?

The AudioDB does have an image for The Firm:

https://r2.theaudiodb.com/images/media/artist/thumb/wwz8yk1710398329.jpg

I couldn't find anything on fanart.tv

What do you have here:

What do you have here:

If this is the only problem album/artist you have perhaps try manually updating the info directly in Emby to match your embedded metadata album images and see if it holds with a library/folder rescan???

Quote

Is that still cached somewhere from the first scan?

Perhaps even check the Emby album image folder and delete anything old/incorrect that is there (e.g.):

C:\Users\user\AppData\Roaming\Emby-Server\programdata\metadata\musicalbums

Perhaps that gives some clues/ideas to check out???

Edited September 10 by user24

[ColinPostsHere 4]

1 hour ago, Luke said:

Hi, can you please show a specific example? Thanks.

Do you mean show the two pictures and say which one I prefer? They're not that different, so a little embarrassed that some people will say (fairly): "Why do you care about that!?"

The only difference is that original one and the one that Emby keeps reverting to is clearly a scan of the CD booklet image and you can see some white around the edge and the staples. I try to ensure perfect album art. The one I added manually is higher resolution (900x900 vs 500x500) and does not have the white at the edges or staples visible. In the scheme of the universe, it's not super important, but when you go through the trouble of finding the optimal cover art and updating the MP3 files, it would be nice if I could get Emby to use that instead of a version with staples and visible scanning edges.

In grabbing the attached screen shots, I noticed that Emby did get the band's logo. I did not provide that, so it downloaded that. Could it be downloading the cover art too, even though I've turned that off in Settings (I think, unless I misunderstood the setting name)?

Here's the one Emby keeps showing, note the white on the top and bottom and the top staple visible on the left:
 

Here's the large image as assigned in Mp3tag. Note there is no white edge around it. Also sharper and colored better:

 

  

[ColinPostsHere 4]

2 hours ago, user24 said:

This group is listed in the MusicBrainz database:

https://musicbrainz.org/artist/c08ced1f-d248-4368-90e5-bf579b3bf5de

Also Discogs:

https://www.discogs.com/artist/620368-The-Firm-7

Though, in each case, it looks like there are many other Artists with the exact same name. There are at least 12 on MusicBrainz and at least 20 on Discogs. 

If you are only fetching from MusicBrainz, you could try adding the correct MusicBrainz ID to your embedded metadata (if you don't have it already) and see if that helps with Emby fetching the correct Artist image?

The AudioDB does have an image for The Firm:

https://r2.theaudiodb.com/images/media/artist/thumb/wwz8yk1710398329.jpg

I couldn't find anything on fanart.tv

What do you have here:

What do you have here:

If this is the only problem album/artist you have perhaps try manually updating the info directly in Emby to match your embedded metadata album images and see if it holds with a library/folder rescan???

Perhaps even check the Emby album image folder and delete anything old/incorrect that is there (e.g.):

C:\Users\user\AppData\Roaming\Emby-Server\programdata\metadata\musicalbums

Perhaps that gives some clues/ideas to check out???

My problem is that, in my case, because I always find the cover art I want, I don't ever want Emby to pull the cover art for any songs. I ALWAYS want it to use the cover art I provide in the MP3 files. I like that Emby gets a picture of the band (but it's missing for The Firm) and their stylized logos. I don't provide those. But the album cover art I always provide, so don't want Emby to get that.

Emby does get the band picture for nearly every other band. The Firm, Charlie Daniels Band, Ram Jam, Robert Plant & The Strange Sensation (the band he formed for "Mighty Rearranger") are some of the only bands with no band image in Emby. I like that Emby finds those on the Internet and downloads them. 

As listed in my original post, shouldn't my settings prevent Emby from downloading album art? Here's a screen shot so you can see exactly how I've set them:

 

 

Edited September 10 by ColinPostsHere

[Luke 43246]

Quote

I don't ever want Emby to pull the cover art for any songs.

HI, there is no such thing for songs anyway, only for albums and artists.

[ColinPostsHere 4]

9 minutes ago, Luke said:

HI, there is no such thing for songs anyway, only for albums and artists.

Thank you for the added information. By that, do you mean that Emby never polls album art images from the Internet for individual tracks? That sounds like good news, but then where is it getting that image? Is it still cached somewhere from when I first ripped the CD and the ripping program embedded that image into the MP3 files, even though I've long since replaced it? If so, how can I get it to use the updated cover art that I've replaced in all the MP3 files for that album? I just want to get Emby to use the art I've embedded in the MP3 files, but can't figure out how to get that to happen for this album (seems to work for all the others by just hitting Scan Library or Refresh Metadata after replacing the ID3 art).

Here's another screen shot of Emby, a little tough to see here because the song images are small, but here it shows every individual track with that same wrong image, which it also shows for the album:

[ColinPostsHere 4]

On 9/10/2026 at 2:47 PM, Luke said:

HI, there is no such thing for songs anyway, only for albums and artists.

Just following up, @Luke, any guidance on what else I can try to get it to use the artwork in the MP3 files?

[ColinPostsHere 4]

On 9/10/2026 at 2:47 PM, Luke said:

HI, there is no such thing for songs anyway, only for albums and artists.

@Luke, can you help me with this? How do I fix the graphic, ideally by getting it to use the one embedded in the MP3 files? It's still stuck with the wrong image. 

If this is a cache problem, how do I force it to purge the cache for this album? 

Thanks!

[Luke 43246]

On 9/16/2026 at 4:34 PM, ColinPostsHere said:

@Luke, can you help me with this? How do I fix the graphic, ideally by getting it to use the one embedded in the MP3 files? It's still stuck with the wrong image. 

If this is a cache problem, how do I force it to purge the cache for this album? 

Thanks!

@ColinPostsHeretry refreshing the metadata on the album. if the issue persists after that, then please attach the emby server log. Thanks.

[ColinPostsHere 4]

On 10/3/2026 at 9:34 PM, Luke said:

@ColinPostsHeretry refreshing the metadata on the album. if the issue persists after that, then please attach the emby server log. Thanks.

@Luke, thanks! About to do that now, but want to be sure I'm performing the correct steps or test, is this correct:

1. Open the album in Emby (not the artist and not an individual song, both of which also offer Refresh Metadata)
2. Click the 3 dots to the right of the album image (options are: Play, Shuffle, Heart, and ...)
3. Select "Refresh Metadata"
4. Do NOT select "Replace existing images" because that will download from the Internet, which is what we're trying to avoid (or must I select that to get it to replace the images at all?)
   

Is that all correct, especially #4 (very unsure what to select for #4)? And if that works, do I need to ALSO do each song afterwards or should redoing the album update all the songs on the album too (both album and songs show the same wrong images)?

If it matters, note that the ONLY place I have stored the cover art is embedded in the individual song MP3 files as ID3 cover art. This does seem to have worked for all the other albums (it DEFINITELY worked for some, but it's possible some other are also wrong and I just never noticed). 

Edited 2 hours ago by ColinPostsHere
Adding screen shot

[Neminem 1938]

32 minutes ago, ColinPostsHere said:

it DEFINITELY worked for some, but it's possible some other are also wrong and I just never noticed

Hmm what picture type did you put in there?

Some picture types seems not to work, like *.webp

Those work with mp3tag but not with enby.

But anyways embedded images should have prio.

Edited 2 hours ago by Neminem

[ColinPostsHere 4]

9 minutes ago, Neminem said:

Hmm what picture type did you put in there?

Some picture types seems not to work, like *.webp

Those work with mp3tag but not with enby.

But anyways embedded images should have prio.

They're all JPEGs. Standard album art. Nothing fancy. The only difference between the Album Art ID3 data I can think of is that I use sizes ranging from 300x300 up to about 1200x1200 (maybe 1400x1400), but I don't think image size is the issue. Emby is definitely NOT using the embedded images in my album for The Firm. In most cases (maybe all other cases, not certain) it does. This is what I'm trying to troubleshoot and resolve at least for The Firm, and I'll document the process so if it happens again, I'll know how to fix without bothering you helpful folks. 

Or maybe there's a bug in Emby Server that yields this as an intermittent problem. I do enough computer work with developers to recognize how difficult intermittent problems can be to track down. If the Emby team wants one of my files to investigate, happy to provide it. Maybe there is something strange about the file after all (I don't think so, but maybe I'm wrong on that). 

Lastly, I'm very curious where it's getting the image that it is using. It was the cover image when I first loaded the album, but it's also one of the common online images. So not sure if it cached it from my original MP3 files (which I think I've fully cleared, but maybe not) or if it's pulling it from the Internet (I believe I've fully disabled that capability). Neither of those SHOULD be the case, but seems like it must be one or the other. If I had to guess, I'd guess that it's caching the image and ignoring my efforts to replace/update it.

[Luke 43246]

Quote

•  
• Do NOT select "Replace existing images" because that will download from the Internet, which is what we're trying to avoid (or must I select that to get it to replace the images at all?)

Yes replace existing images. It will follow the library options.