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[macdonjh]

I've had a couple of "events" on my network and cover art for Video -> Shows isn't working properly.  Hopefully someone here can help.  What I really need is the proper procedure for restoring a "connection" between MC28 and the Cover Art folder.

I lost contact with my network storage.  I "manually" disconnected from our network, reconnected and remapped network storage.  At sometime during all that, MC28 lost its connection to where I told it my Shows cover art is located.  I looked in Tools -> Options -> File Location -> Cover Art -> Folder and saw the "wrong" folder: C:\users\macdo\AppData\Roaming\JRiver\Media Center 28\ Cover Art.

So I changed the folder to: S:\Multimedia\Cover Art\Series.  When I selected that folder I was asked if I wanted to MOVE all my cover art to that folder.  I didn't think I wanted to, but I selected YES anyway.  I still didn't have proper Cover Art and my folder was now empty.  Ugh.

I went to my back-up drive and copied Cover Art .jpg files into S:\Multimedia\Cover Art\Series.  It doesn't yet display properly. 

Help, please.

[JimH]

I don't know what will happen with video, but if you right click on an audio file, you can choose to do Quick find ...

[macdonjh]

I just tried that.  I viewed Video -> Shows, then I <right click> -> Cover Art -> Quick Find in File.  Unfortunately nothing changed.  The Series I tried that with still show Cover Art from an early frame of the first episode.

I double checked and when I follow Tools -> Options -> File Location -> Cover Art, the correct folder is shown and all my preferred Series Cover Art is in that folder, too.

[macdonjh]

Here are some snips for details.  I am lost, I think I have everything set up correctly, but Series Cover Art will not display.

Here is what my Video -> Shows screen looks like.  You can see MC28 is displaying a video frame from the first Episode, the default when there's not Series Cover Art.

Here is Tools -> Options -> File Locations, you can see I've told MC28 I want it to look in S:\Multimedia\Cover Art\Series for Series Cover Art.

Here is Windows Explorer showing there are .jpg files in S:\Multimedia\Cover Art\Series for Series Cover Art.

And finally, a "sub window" of my Auto Import configuration showing I have S:\Multimedia\Cover Art set up for auto import and the "children" folders box checked. 

[skippysonics]

I've been trying to figure out the cover art/thumbnail/poster situation with video files as I'm trying to figure out a shortcut way to set a custom thumbnail while watching a video, instead of having to get the time location, convert to milliseconds, then enter that into the "thumbnail location" tag. This works great as it stores a custom thumbnail someplace internally and NOT as a sidecar in the video file folder (those extra files drive me crazy). It also doesn't store it where Windows stores it's thumbnail for that file. But while it works great, it's time consuming and I'm trying to figure out how to make a shortcut or macro so I can just hit a button while watching a video.

ANYWAY...

While I was researching all of this I discovered that video file cover art/thumbnails are handled differently depending on what media type they are tagged as in JRiver. For example, a
"video" media type stores it next to the video file and doesn't seem to be able to store them in an external folder, however one tagged as "tv" media type can store them in an external folder. So maybe check the "media type" tag and try "tv" instead of "video". Now I haven't found direct documentation stating this, but I've found hints at it. Like on the JRiver Wiki page for "Cover Art" it states "Cover Art is the term used to describe artwork shown for media. This is often an album cover for music and a thumbnail of a frame for video. Media Center can automatically download your album cover art, series images for television, and more. Notice it doesn't mention movies. I'm imagining it as music and tv use "cover art" and movies use "poster art" or thumbnails. If that makes any sense.

Also, I'm guessing you created the "shows" media type since I haven't seen that before and so it makes sense it wouldn't work since JRiver hasn't "defined" that media type?

[marko]

Some things:

MC will be looking for series art at "S:\Cover Art\Series\Series"

To fix that, in options, set your cover art folder to just "S:\Cover Art"

MC should then take care of the rest for you. In MC, this is driven by the "Media Sub Type" tag (I think this is where skippysonics was trying to steer your attention above). Ensure that your TV Shows are tagged with the Media Sub Type "TV Show"

In your "Series" sub folder of "Cover Art", each image file should be named exactly as the series is tagged in MC.
MC will then scan the folder for matching series art and use any that are found.

There is no need to import the cover art files unless you really, really, want those to be included in your image library. Personally, I would remove that autoimport rule. You don't have to, and nothing will break if you keep on importing them, but for the purposes of MC using the cover art for display, autoimport is not required.

-marko

[macdonjh]

Thanks guys.

marko, I'll double check, but I'm pretty sure everything you suggested is true for my "set up".  Everything worked just fine until I lost contact with my NAS.  In other words, my Series Cover Art displayed properly until about three weeks ago.  When I reconnected with my NAS, for some reason MC28 was looking for Series Cover Art in the wrong folder and I haven't been able to restore it.

I am pretty sure if I go to Tools -> Options -> File Locations and change the folder MC28 looks in for Series Cover Art I'll be asked if I want to move my Cover Art to the new folder, and if I click <yes> my Cover Art will be deleted.  At least that's what happened three weeks ago when I tried to get this all to work.  Why does MC28 even ask if I want to move my Cover Art?  What should my response be if asked?

[marko]

I am pretty sure if I go to Tools -> Options -> File Locations and change the folder MC28 looks in for Series Cover Art</snip>

We cannot specify "the folder MC28 looks in for Series Art"
We can only specify a folder for cover art. With that folder specified, MC will then look for/create subfolders inside there...

• "Albums" is where your album cover art images will go if you have audio mode set to "In a specified folder".
• "Artists" is where you can save artist image files, and, if the folder exists and contains an image file matching an artist in MC, MC will use that image as a thumbnail in artist views instead of fanned cover art.
• "Series" and "Season" folders which, again, MC will scan and use any matching art found.

There are (or can be) more. I'm almost certain you can create a "Composer" folder in there and save, erm, composer images inside it. If it exists, and MC finds matching composer images, it will use them in "Composer" views.
Back in the day, IIRC, all the movie art was saved in a "Video" sub-folder, but conflicts began to happen, so these were moved to "beside the file". I think this folder is only used now for things like blu-ray discs and such.

The point of all the rambling above is to try and demonstrate how much of the thumbnail display in MC is automated. Specify the root "Cover Art" folder in MC settings, and then as long as these sub folders exist and contain matching artwork, MC will just use them.

marko, I'll double check, but I'm pretty sure everything you suggested is true for my "set up".

I cannot see how your shows are tagged, but trust you implicitly
Your "Cover Art" setting definitely needs to be corrected.

Why does MC28 even ask if I want to move my Cover Art?  What should my response be if asked?

It's good that it asks. It means everything is moved to the new location and all the thumbs still work. Personally, in this scenario, I would first, make a manual backup of the entire current art work folder. When asked by MC, say "No".

Make certain that MC is able to both read and write to the specified cover art directory. You are using a NAS. I do not have any experience with those, but see a pretty steady stream of people posting about odd issues, and it seems, there's always a NAS involved in there somewhere. I don't know why that is. MC not having the correct access permissions is often a thing, along with "mapped paths" vs "UNC paths"

With the art path correctly set in MC, exit the application. Delete the contents of S:\Cover Art\, and then, from your backup made earlier, move your artwork into the correct subfolders of S:\Cover Art\
Now relaunch MC, and, if all is good, it should "just work". (MC may need to go through the thumbnail creation process again, but it will do that on the fly on demand)

If it doesn't work, I'll be all out of ideas. Good luck

[macdonjh]

We cannot specify "the folder MC28 looks in for Series Art"
We can only specify a folder for cover art. With that folder specified, MC will then look for/create subfolders inside there...

I didn't know this bit.  Apparently, this time I tried to do some of MediaCenter's work for it.  I know I shouldn't do that.  :-)

• "Albums" is where your album cover art images will go if you have audio mode set to "In a specified folder".

]color=red]...but if I have my Music Cover Art specified to be stored "with the file", it will be stored the the album folder, right?[/color]

• "Artists" is where you can save artist image files, and, if the folder exists and contains an image file matching an artist in MC, MC will use that image as a thumbnail in artist views instead of fanned cover art.

I didn't know MC would do this.  Does your Artist Art simply have to have a filename matching the tag you used for the Artist?  In my case, Artists are tagged as either the band name, or the artist's name, last name first.  So, if I have an image file called Davis, Miles.jpg, will MC automatically create a \Cover Art\Artist folder and put Davis, Miles.jpg there?

• "Series" and "Season" folders which, again, MC will scan and use any matching art found.

There are (or can be) more. I'm almost certain you can create a "Composer" folder in there and save, erm, composer images inside it. If it exists, and MC finds matching composer images, it will use them in "Composer" views.
Back in the day, IIRC, all the movie art was saved in a "Video" sub-folder, but conflicts began to happen, so these were moved to "beside the file". I think this folder is only used now for things like blu-ray discs and such.

The point of all the rambling above is to try and demonstrate how much of the thumbnail display in MC is automated. Specify the root "Cover Art" folder in MC settings, and then as long as these sub folders exist and contain matching artwork, MC will just use them.
I cannot see how your shows are tagged, but trust you implicitly :)

I've had lots of trouble with ripped TV DVDs showing up in MC as Data files for some reason.  Because of that, I double check all my TV rips to be sure they are tagged as Video -> TV Show.  Then I tag the Season and Episode and use the Get Movie and TV Info function to get the rest.  Finally, I use Move, Rename & Copy to get the files in the correct directories.  I know it works because my Series Cover Art used to be beautiful. :-)

Your "Cover Art" setting definitely needs to be corrected.  Yup
It's good that it asks. It means everything is moved to the new location and all the thumbs still work. Personally, in this scenario, I would first, make a manual backup of the entire current art work folder. When asked by MC, say "No".

Make certain that MC is able to both read and write to the specified cover art directory. You are using a NAS. I do not have any experience with those, but see a pretty steady stream of people posting about odd issues, and it seems, there's always a NAS involved in there somewhere. I don't know why that is. MC not having the correct access permissions is often a thing, along with "mapped paths" vs "UNC paths"

I am one of those who's had troubles with NAS set-up.  Almost makes me wish I worked in IT.  I have my media files "mapped" and it seems to work fine, except for this particular weirdness.  Again, Series Cover Art worked just fine for several months, so I'm confident MC can read and write to the NAS.  I don't want to move my Cover Art folder to my local hard drive because I have three installations of Media Center in the house.  It's very convenient to have Cover Art on my NAS.

With the art path correctly set in MC, exit the application. Delete the contents of S:\Cover Art\, and then, from your backup made earlier, move your artwork into the correct subfolders of S:\Cover Art\
Now relaunch MC, and, if all is good, it should "just work". (MC may need to go through the thumbnail creation process again, but it will do that on the fly on demand)

Wait, I thought I wasn't supposed to make any sub-folders for Cover Art...  Shouldn't I simply move all my [Series].jpg files to \Cover Art, then delete the \Cover Art\Series folder and then give MC28 the "new" path to my Cover Art folder?  It seems like then MC28 would look in \Cover Art, see my [Series].jpg files and create the \Cover Art\Series sub-folder and move my [Series].jpg files to \Cover Art\Series.  At least, that's what I think you described above.

If it doesn't work, I'll be all out of ideas. Good luck :)

Lots of comments in red, above.  Thanks again for your help.  As you said, I didn't realize part of the Cover Art organizing process was automated.  I think I didn't realize that because once I got it working I could add a new [Series].jpg file to \Cover Art\Series and MC would automatically start using it, so I simply put them all there this time.  I think that may have short circuited the internal workings of MC since I was changing the path to the Cover Art rather than just adding a new file to the existing folder structure.

[marko]

"Wait, I thought I wasn't supposed to make any sub-folders for Cover Art...  Shouldn't I simply move all my [Series].jpg files to \Cover Art, then delete the \Cover Art\Series folder and then give MC28 the "new" path to my Cover Art folder?  It seems like then MC28 would look in \Cover Art, see my [Series].jpg files and create the \Cover Art\Series sub-folder and move my [Series].jpg files to \Cover Art\Series.  At least, that's what I think you described above."

MC will look in the "Series" folder for art. So put your existing art in there, and MC will find it and use it. Any that MC sources for you in the future, will be put there automagically.

[macdonjh]

I finally worked on this on my Silver computer.  It's sort of fixed.

I went to Tools -> Option -> Cover Art and changed the path to S:\Cover Art. 

The first time I tried it MC28 asked if I wanted to move my Cover Art to the new directory.  I said "no".  MC28 didn't do anything.

The second time I tried, MC28 asked if I wanted to move my Cover Art to the new directory, I said "yes".  MC28 moved my Cover Art to S:\Cover Art and deleted the files in S:\Cover Art\Series (and the sub-folder).  My Cover Art was not being displayed. 

So I went to Windows Explorer and created S:\Cover Art\Series "manually" and then copied my .jpg files in that sub-folder.  That seems to have worked, mostly.  My Series Cover Art now displays, but only after I sweep my mouse over each Series thumbnail.  For some reason MC28 doesn't yet find those .jpg files "automatically".  Hopefully, after MC28 has run for a while and done whatever it does in the back ground a couple of times it'll work out.

[macdonjh]

I also tried working on my Black computer.  I did the same steps as on my Silver computer, but when I tried to apply the changes I was told "audio file location" can't be read only.

On the one hand I can understand because my Black computer has only read access to my NAS.

On the other hand, my Cover Art for audio files is stored in the file tags.  What's going on with that?

Is the easiest thing to simply create a local Cover Art file on my Black computer and direct MC28 there?