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[wdesbrow]

I recently went through the process of both adding albums to my MC Library and updating my ID software.  Somewhere in the process of  several re-boots of my main MC 26 software (Windows-10) I lost album art for roughly 70 albums in the library.  I.e., When I click on the alphabetical ARTISTS page, if for instance , I click on Billy Joel, I can still see all of his album titles and tracks, but no album covers -- all the tracks seem to play properly.

I found that if I completely delete an album from the MC library (using the first delete option on the delete screen) -- Then IMPORT the album back into the Library from my NAS drive using the IMPORT SINGLE FOLDER option, the album gets completely restored, including the art.

The deletions seem to be random throughout the alphabetical ARTISTS category.

What can I do to restore the art?

THANKS in advance, for your help!

[Scobie]

Check your tags and if the art is in there you can run "update library from tags".

[RoderickGI]

There have been a few reports of MC losing its connection to Cover Art, mostly for video files though.

The solution does depend on where the Cover Art is stored. The "update library from tags" Scobie suggests should work for embedded Cover Art.

But the simpler solution is to run the "{Select files or Album} > Right-click > Cover Art > Quick Find In File / Cover Art Dirctory" function.

Please report if that works. It may help others.

[wdesbrow]

Thank You Scobie and Roderick for your fast response.

I tried both of your suggestions, and unfortunately, neither one had any effect.  If you have any additional thoughts, please send them.

Just to refresh -- Using the left nav in the ARTIST file, if I clicked on either the ARTIST or on a specific file (album) under an ARTIST and did a DELTE using the first DELETE option -- Then double-backed an did a fresh IMPORT of that ARTIST (in its entirety) or any single file from under an ARTIST from the library in my NAS drive, the files seem to completely restore in the MC library.

I appreciate your thoughts on this.

wayne

[RoderickGI]

Where is your Cover Art for Audio normally stored?

Is it set as "In the same folder as the file" or "In the same folder as the file (as Folder.jpg)", or is it "In the specified folder", which is the Cover Art folder defined in "Options > File Location > Cover Art > Folder" in an "Albums"?

Is MC set to "Also store image in the file's tag"?

Wherever the Cover Art is set to be stored, is it actually there, inside a tag or in the correct folder?

If you report the above, then we might be able to help.

PS: Shut down MC and reboot your PC again, just to be sure. Sometimes with a Windows Update things don't quite get completed for two or three reboots. Also run Auto Import across all your monitored folder, as per your Auto Import configurations, and see if that fixes the issue.

[wdesbrow]

Good Morning Roderick,   … Sorry for the delay in answering.

I'm not 100% certain I can answer your questions accurately, but here's what I see:

Audio Mode:  In a specified Folder

CURRENTLY SET TO:  "C/users/ wdesb/Music/app data/ROAMING/ jriver/Media Center 26/Cover Art/"   (On my W-10 I can only follow this path as far as "MUSIC"  Then All I see is all of the music files.)

("Also Store Image in the file's Tag" ... IS CHECKED)

I use dbPoweramp to rip, with a target destination of my default W-10 MUSIC file.  Then, I look over the album files to see if they look "normal," and coy them into my main music library on a NAS Drive.  From that Library I either Import them one by one into the MC Library, OR perform a MC RUN AUTO IMPORT NOW to update the MC Library.

SO -- I have always assumed that the image file for cover art is stored within each album file, along with each track of music -- and I do see them there.  I can also see the album art when I click on the TAG information.

BTW -- I also run a remote NUC ID in another area of my house, but I do not store any music files on, or connected directly to the NUC.

Thanks again for your guidance. 

[RoderickGI]

Okay, a little further investigation.

That path to the Cover Art location you show is a little strange. "C/users/ wdesb/Music/app data/ROAMING/ jriver/Media Center 26/Cover Art/" The red bit isn't normally there. Also, the space before "wdesb" wouldn't be there unless that is included in your Windows User name, it is"J River", and it would use backslashes. But I'm going to assume all but the "Music" component is just typos.

Usually it would be, by default, "C:\Users\wdesb\AppData\Roaming\J River\Media Center 26\Cover Art".

Try this. Open Windows Explorer, enter "%AppData%" (without the quotes) into the address bar at the top and press enter. That should take you to "C:\Users\wdesb\AppData\Roaming". Now drill down through "J River" to "Media Center 26" to "Cover Art" and finally to "Albums". So you will be in the "C:\Users\wdesb\AppData\Roaming\J River\Media Center 26\Cover Art\Albums" directory. Do you see Cover Art in there?

Is that all you Cover Art, or is it missing the recent imports? Or perhaps it is only the recent imports?

I suspect that you may have changed the setting for the Cover Art directory at some stage, and included the \Music\ directory in the path, in error.

But as you have the "Also store image in the file's tag" setting checked, and you see the images in the Tag window, MC should still be finding the Cover Art, and it should still have Thumbnail images available to it, which is what is actually shown in Views when you browse. MC makes a Small, Medium, and Large thumbnails of each Cover Art image it knows about, and stores that in a Thumbnail Database so that images can be shown quickly in Views.

You can easily check if the Cover Art is in the audio file by just selecting the file in Windows Explorer, and then selecting the "View" tab in Explorer, then either the "Preview pane" or the "Details pane" options near the top left. If an image shows to the right, the Cover Art image is inside the file, as it should be.


Anyway, what I think you should do is investigate as above, fix the "Options > File Location > Cover Art > Folder" setting if required (I think it will be required), and then select the problem files and right-click > Cover Art > Rebuild Thumbnail.

See if that fixes the problem. Report back if it doesn't. Note that if you had changed the "Options > File Location > Cover Art > Folder" setting to include the \Music\ folder, you might see other files now lose their Cover art. Just Rebuild the Thumbnails for them as well.

I just remembered.
When you change the "Options > File Location > Cover Art > Folder" setting MC will move the Cover Art files to the new location. If you did change that setting, all your Cover Art has been moved and should be visible in the new location. So you will have to work out what has happened, and reverse the process. If you just change the setting back to the default for your installation, as above, the Cover Art files will be moved back. Personally, as I upgrade MC each year, I changed my Cover Art location to a non-version-specific location years ago, so that I didn't have to deal with moving that directory during an upgrade. MC's upgrade process now handles that situation for users, but I still have a separate Cover Art location.

It may actually make sense for your Cover Art location to be "C:\Users\wdesb\Music\Cover Art" if your music is in the "C:\Users\wdesb\Music" directory. You will need to decide that.

[wdesbrow]

Roderick --

Thanks much for staying with this -- PROBLEM SOLVED!   

Some notes on what happened...

1.  Re your comment on on " ...little strange. "C/users/ wdesb/Music/app data/ROAMING/ jriver/Media Center 26/Cover Art/"    … I went back the the Cover Art location in MC, and it WAS LISTED as the above, WITHOUT the word MUSIC in the path, as you said.  (So Sorry for the extra hassle connected with that!)  I know saw the path (including the word MUSIC) I reported to you, somewhere (?) when I dug through the left nav!
2. The %AppData% command does not work in the address bar at the top of the page, but it does work in the way you said if you enter it in the search field at the bottom left (just so you know).  When I did follow that path, I saw MC files for two of my previous MC versions, as well as my current MC 26.  In Each of them I found Cover Art for Only 15-20 different albums (out of the roughly 1200 I have in the library. No indication of why I only found that few in each file!
3. The cover art was contained in both the TAG files and in the album files stored in my main W-10 library.
4. So given the above and what you said in an earlier, I went back into the views, right-clicked on each missing cover, clicked on Rebuild Cover art, and IT WORKED.  I Think I found that I had to do that in each of the views and that I could not do it by clicking on an album in the left NAV.  (I had roughly 60-70 albums to restore, but that was do-able.)

Of course, I still have zero idea of how that cover art shortage disappearance, or what I MAY have done to cause it … and that bothers me, in that it's something that I want to avoid in the future.  BTW -- the "disappeared" cover art seemed completely random throughout the Artist and Album file lists and alphabet, AND no relation to how urrently those albums were added or manipulated in any way -- No pattern.

So, again, THANK YOU.  Please share any additional thoughts on this that you might have.

[RoderickGI]

Excellent. Thanks for reporting back.