Topic: Album Art Security Is Totally Lacking In MC9? (Read 7896 times)

DocLotus · « **on:** January 09, 2003, 07:02:29 am »

I have many issues with the way MC9 ( & possibly MJ8 ) handles Cover Art so, I will break this thread into several COMMENTS so viewers can respond to an individual comment with less confusion.

The last four releases of MC9 (v89, 90, 91, 92) have all wiped out my cover art in one way or another.

This is not the first time this has happened. I seems that some releases of MC9 are prone to this problem & others are not. Usually I can install the latest release of MC9 without my cover art being affected in any way. But, sometimes (maybe one out of 10 installs) MC9 does nasty things to my cover art.

I have spent countless hours scanning hundreds of covers in hi-res (1000 x 1000) then individually editing each cover.

I have read countless other posts & threads about the problems of MC9 when it comes to cover art. Most users do not do daily back-ups & often end up losing their cover art for good.

I feel a little let down by JRiver especially after I tried to be one of the good guys by registering MC9 & being a BETA tester.

When is JRiver going to add cover art security?

DocLotus · « **Reply #1 on:** January 09, 2003, 07:03:06 am »

COMMENT 1...

Why does MC sometime loose many of the cover art tags on some installs & not on others?

DocLotus · « **Reply #2 on:** January 09, 2003, 07:03:49 am »

COMMENT 2...

Why does MC sometime delete some or all of the cover art JPEG files on the hard drive on some installs & not on others?

DocLotus · « **Reply #3 on:** January 09, 2003, 07:05:16 am »

COMMENT 3...

What is the need for Options, File Naming & Location, Track Image Location? This seems to be telling MC where it can find my cover art JPEG files so it can delete them! Very BAD news indeed!

DocLotus · « **Reply #4 on:** January 09, 2003, 07:07:26 am »

COMMENT 4...

It appears to me that MC & MJ relies to heavily on file tags for cover art association. There have been too many issues with file tag problems for this method to be of any reliability.

JRiver needs to look at a different way to associate cover art to the ripped music files.

Embedding the cover art into the ripped file is one option, but I don't like that method as I often find myself editing & cleaning up imperfections in the cover art jpeg.

Maybe there needs to be a separate, protected Cover Art.ini file that carries all cover art associations.

Or how about having a simpler method? The Properties automatically associate any JPEG file in a selected folder that has the same exact name as the record Artists - Album names? This method would be totally full proof & fully automatic as long as the Artists - Album names & the Cover Art names were the same.

JimH · « **Reply #5 on:** January 09, 2003, 07:18:40 am »

Doc,
Just a quick reply.

Anything can happen at this stage, but I don't think MC is deleting cover art. It may lose the reference to it in a tag.

If you're really concerned, you could make your files or the cover art folder read-only.

If you aren't sure about the stability of a new version, wait a day to install.

This last two weeks has been tough because of the changes for Unicode, but it should get smoother now.

Jim

JimH · « **Reply #6 on:** January 09, 2003, 07:25:11 am »

Quote

COMMENT 2...

Why does MC sometime delete some or all of the cover art JPEG files on the hard drive on some installs & not on others?

Maybe you're deleting the folder MC is installed in? And it contains your cover art?

You could change the location MC looks for cover art and put it in your music folder, for example.

Matt · « **Reply #7 on:** January 09, 2003, 07:26:58 am »

I have lots and lots of external cover art too, and install almost every build. I've never seen these problems, so I'm not sure what's going on. Are you using AlbumView?

Also, any more details you can give to help us pinpoint / recreate the problem would be very helpful.

RhinoBanga · « **Reply #8 on:** January 09, 2003, 07:43:12 am »

Quote

I have lots and lots of external cover art too, and install almost every build. I've never seen these problems, so I'm not sure what's going on. Are you using AlbumView?

What would AV have to do with it?

Nikolay · « **Reply #9 on:** January 09, 2003, 07:45:27 am »

DocLotus,

Unfortunately, we can't reproduce the problem. As Matt mentioned before, we install every build of MC 9 on our computers before we release it on the Interact.

Do you use Update Library tool in Media Center?

If you want more security for your image files, store them in the same folder as music files.

During import, Media Jukebox will find the cover art file and associate it with music file. The other benefit of placing cover art file in the same folder with music is that Media Jukebox stores relative path to the image instead of full path; thus, if you move your music folders, you will not loose image association.

Regards,
Nikolay Sokratov

DocLotus · « **Reply #10 on:** January 09, 2003, 07:46:24 am »

Hi Guys;

Thanks for the very quick replies.

The actual JPEG files are being deleting from my hard drive. Not all, but 50-60 percent or so do the disappearing act.

You're right Jim, Tagging is a real on-going problem & that's why I've proposed alternative solutions to associating Cover Art JPEG files to the music files. I believe that tagging will always be a problem due to it's very nature.

I have all my cover art under ( C:\Music\CD's\Cover Art ) so there is no way they can be accidentally deleted with a re-install or new install of MC.

I have MC9 pointing to the Music folder under Options Track Image Location. I believe this is how MC9 is finding my JPEG files to delete them.

Yes, I do have Album View 2 for MC9 installed but I get an AV error message after doing an MC9 update that AV can't find the covers.

JimH · « **Reply #11 on:** January 09, 2003, 07:54:22 am »

Quote

I have MC9 pointing to the Music folder under Options Track Image Location.

It should be set to C:\Music\CD's\Cover Art in your case.

JimH · « **Reply #12 on:** January 09, 2003, 07:55:50 am »

Quote

What would AV have to do with it?

It _shouldn't_ matter, but it's another piece of information that _might_ be relevant.

We're not pointing fingers. We're just trying to understand what could be happening to Doc.

DocLotus · « **Reply #13 on:** January 09, 2003, 07:58:57 am »

Hi Nikolay & welcome back;

No, I don't use the Update Library tool in Media Center. I simply download the latest update from the Interact site then double click on it to install. This usually works just fine & is a pretty standard way to install programs under Windows.

A long time ago I did store the JPEG files in the same folders as the music but I ran into two problems...

1: I sometimes re-rip an album & would accidentally delete the JEPEG along with the old music causing me to have to re-scan
the cover over again.

2: Classical music is a real pain-in-the-you-know-what as many albums are made up of several compositions & often one album cover will be used on two ( or more ) compositions.

DocLotus · « **Reply #14 on:** January 09, 2003, 08:03:56 am »

Yes Jim;

It is pointing to... C:\Music\CD's\Cover Art. That is why I believe MC knows where to find my cover art so it can do the deleting act.

Question... Why would there be any code in MC that would delete any of my files on my hard drive ( other then in the Media Center folder ) in the first place?

JimH · « **Reply #15 on:** January 09, 2003, 08:14:22 am »

Doc,
I don't think there is. Anything is possible, but that seems very unlikely.

Jim

DocLotus · « **Reply #16 on:** January 09, 2003, 08:21:53 am »

COMMENT 5...

One other thing I may not of made too clear is...

After I restored all deleted Cover Art from the latest backup, very few of the Cover Art showed up in MC. This tells me that MC not only deleted many of the JPEG files but has also lost most of the file tags. This seems logical that if the tags were still there, the cover art would show up in MC9 but they do not.

Any ideas?

DocLotus · « **Reply #17 on:** January 09, 2003, 08:29:06 am »

Jim;

The malicious file deleting code is there, believe me. After the last time this happened ( about a month ago ), I painfully rebuilt all my Cover Art Tags & all was good for several updates. That is, until v 89. After installing 89, over half of the JPEG files were gone ( they were all there just before the 89 update ).

I replaced them all from a current back up. Last night I installed v 92 & the same thing happened all over again!

So yes, MC9 IS deleting Cover Art files from my hard drive.

Jaguu · « **Reply #18 on:** January 09, 2003, 09:13:05 am »

Well, I would like to remind you that I reported the kind of problems DocLotus had already somewhere in December.

To be more specific: I had the same kind of problems, but only with wma format. During Christmas I ripped 75 cd's in ape format and stored the album cover inside the file. Everything worked well, but I also have not upgraded since then (release 89).

I gave up importing cover art in wma format since it did not work, so I cannot say whether the problems still persist, but definitely all the problems DocLotus described I also had last December with wma files.

JimH · « **Reply #19 on:** January 09, 2003, 09:31:18 am »

Jaguu,
Do you have WMP9 installed?

Jaguu · « **Reply #20 on:** January 09, 2003, 10:27:57 am »

JimH,
no WMP9, never did, not even Betas

KingSparta · « **Reply #21 on:** January 09, 2003, 11:27:15 am »

I have had and still have over 14,000 coverart files in my coverart folder.

None were ever deleted when upgrading from one version to the next version.

I just looked at the Coverart Folder yesterday using windows explorer after installing 9.0.92

i do know if you ever uninstall MJ, it will take the coverart folder along with it since it deleteds everything to include the "j river" folder

DocLotus · « **Reply #22 on:** January 09, 2003, 11:28:10 am »

I'm using WMA file format & have WMA 9 BETA installed since it first was introduced but have had many sucessuful MC updates without any Cover Art problems until v 89, 90, 91, & 92.

I did however, have this problem about a month ago (don't recall the MC version).

KingSparta · « **Reply #23 on:** January 09, 2003, 11:34:55 am »

i am not sure of this but let me ask a question.

when a user turns on internal coverart, and a update is made of the file. i know MJ then puts the coverart in the file.

(1).
does the coverart then stay in the folder or is it also removed?

(2)
I seem to remember an option cover art cleanup. when a user upgrades and maybe the files need to be reimported, but the coverart is not accociated with the media files. and the use uses the leanup option this would remove the coverart in the coverart folder.

DocLotus · « **Reply #24 on:** January 09, 2003, 11:59:30 am »

Nikolay had made the comment that...

>> I f you want more security for your image files, store them in the same folder as music files. During import, Media Jukebox will find the cover art file and associate it with music file. <<

That sounds great to me, and may be the answer to all my Cover Art problems, if it really works reliably.

I've just got done copying all my Cover Art JPEG files to each album folder on my hard drive.

I deleted all music in MC & did a re-import. Some of the missing Cover Art was picked up, but only some. There was still a lot missing ( about 40 - 50 % ).

JimH · « **Reply #25 on:** January 09, 2003, 12:08:40 pm »

When you say "missing", you must mean missing from MC, not missing from the disk. Right?

JorgeGVB · « **Reply #26 on:** January 09, 2003, 12:50:38 pm »

Like King, I have a lot of cover art too and I am not losing any either with each upgrade. However, I have held off on the recent post-unicode updates to be safe.

My cover art just goes to the default setting in MC. I also use a backup program to protect myself with my mp3s and cover art. I have to much time invested to risk losing anything at this point.

DocLotus · « **Reply #27 on:** January 09, 2003, 12:51:49 pm »

Yes, missing from MC & not from the hard drive.

DocLotus · « **Reply #28 on:** January 09, 2003, 12:58:20 pm »

More on picking up images stored in each album folder on the hard drive as per Nikolays' suggestion.

As this picked up only a few more covers, I'm wondering how the existing file Tags may be effecting the problem.

Is there a way to clear the file tags for ONLY the Covert Art without removing all the Properties information as per KingSpartas' suggestion?

I could then clear all the albums in MC & re-import without the old tags effecting the Cover Art images.

Autoelph · « **Reply #29 on:** January 09, 2003, 01:02:11 pm »

Somewhat related; here is something I've noticed:

When art is in my mp3 file, sometimes (a lot, actually) MC doesn't see it. If I use the "find cover art" function in MC, and the "save image in file (if possible)" is unchecked, the art is downloaded, associated with my files, BUT the original image in the file itself is removed.

Chris Shaw · « **Reply #30 on:** January 09, 2003, 01:22:00 pm »

Quote

COMMENT 3...

What is the need for Options, File Naming & Location, Track Image Location? This seems to be telling MC where it can find my cover art JPEG files so it can delete them! Very BAD news indeed!

This option is so MC knows where to store cover art after a "Get from internet" or a scan.

Quote

Doc: Question... Why would there be any code in MC that would delete any of my files on my hard drive ( other then in the Media Center folder ) in the first place?

JimH: I don't think there is. Anything is possible, but that seems very unlikely.

What about the code in library cleanup? That has an option to delete unused artwork?

DocLotus · « **Reply #31 on:** January 09, 2003, 03:34:00 pm »

I give up, nothing seems to work correctly with Cover Art.

Just tried a few select files that had a Cover Art JPEG file in the same folder as the ripped WMA files.

First I added the Cover Art with the Properties, Tools, Add command. The Cover Art showed up ok.

Then I deleted the albums.

Then I imported the same files... no Cover Art.

It seems that MC is loosing the Tags for where to find Cover Art for some files but is ok for others.

This is driving me nuts.

I don't want to re-rip over 4000 files in another format in the hopes that it will work in the other format. I have already done this too many times.

I really can't believe it is the fault of the WMA files as WMA is widely used & Microsoft would not let a major problem like this get out.

A lot of people knock WMA mainly because it is widely used & because it is from Microsoft but I believe that is just an excuse.

Any other thoughts?

DocLotus · « **Reply #32 on:** January 09, 2003, 04:02:57 pm »

Just noticed something strange about the C:\Music\CD\Cover Art folder.

I had previously blanked out the Options, Track Image Location path hoping that would stop the JPEG files from being deleted in the hopes that MC would no longer know where to find them.

I had also copied each file to each ripped folder on the hard drive in the hopes that MC would use them when a new import files was done.

But, guess what? Files are still being deleted. I had restored all the JPEG files twice today from backups.

It seems that once a Tag is assigned it will still look in the old place even though a Cover Art file is in the same folder as the ripped album. Seems the ripped album file is ignored!

It also looks like about half of the ripped WMA files are looking
in one location & the other half are looking in another.

So... back to the old question... How do I remove the Tags for the Cover Art ONLY without deleting all the Properties tags?

If I could remove only the Cover Art tags I could then re-import all WMA files at which time the Cover Art in each folder should be picked up creating new tags for the Cover Art.

Jaguu · « **Reply #33 on:** January 09, 2003, 10:18:27 pm »

DocLotus,

it was this random behaviour with wma that drove me nuts, which was described in the following post:

http://www.musicex.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=beta;action=display;num=1038410552;start=0

As I already said, I only had this behaviour with wma7/wma8 files, not with ape files. I have now 2 libraries, one with wma with almost no cover-art and one with ape with complete cover-art. I plan to merge the two libraries at some time further on, but was hesitant to do it right now.

DocLotus · « **Reply #34 on:** January 10, 2003, 04:25:37 am »

Thought that I would try another file format to see if I can get Cover Art tags to work.

I tried to convert several WMA files to Ogg Vorbis (MC 9.0.92) but I get a message saying that the conversion failed.

I guess this means that I will have to re-rip all the files that refuse to show Cover Art in WMA format.

I really believe that JRiver needs to address this Cover Art problem with another method that does not use file tags as obviously there are some major issues with WMA Cover Art tagging.

So... what else is new?

DocLotus · « **Reply #35 on:** January 10, 2003, 04:59:16 am »

My final thoughts on WMA Cover Art problems...

This is an issue that I firmly believe that JRiver needs to address. As long as file tags are used for Cover Art, WMA files will endlessly act up similar to the problems that I & many others have experienced.

Is this a Microsoft problem?
Is this a JRiver problem?
Is this some weird combination problem?

Who knows?

But either way JRiver needs to?

* Resolve the problem with a method other then file tagging.
* Or... Remove all support for WMA files.
* Or... Make a blanket statement that Cover Art is not fully supported under WMA format & that JRiver does not support WMA Cover Art.

JimH · « **Reply #36 on:** January 10, 2003, 05:10:38 am »

It's very possible that XP is stepping on our tags.

For example, here's a thread I posted in from early December. Zachd works on WMP at MS.

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&threadm=uSHzAj1mCHA.2344%40TK2MSFTNGP10&rnum=1&prev=/groups%3Fq%3D%2522media%2BJukebox%2522%2B-crack%2Bzachd%2Bid3%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26scoring%3Dd%26selm%3DuSHzAj1mCHA.2344%2540TK2MSFTNGP10%26rnum%3D1

Once we have their new SDK, we may be able to do something about it.

DocLotus · « **Reply #37 on:** January 10, 2003, 05:37:10 am »

I just thought of one other thing that has eluded me before... that is just
when the Cover Art file tags are lost & under what conditions.

As I think back, I now recall that each (& I believe every time) the problem
has come up is when some new MC updates are loaded & then calls for an
Import of all files.

Most MC updates do not remove the database but some do & it was either v
.88, .89, or .90 that did require an import of all files. This is sometimes
associated with a Window restart being required.

To test this I did the following...

* Added Cover Art to several WMA's... Cover Art was ok at this point.
* Deleted the music from MC.
* Re-imported the same WMA files back into MC... the Cover Art was gone.

This tells me that something is funny (or weird) about the way Cover Art
file tags are done in WMA. All Cover Art stays just fine as long as a
database rebuild is not needed. So it may be that the database itself is
keeping track of the WMA file tags & the information is lost when the
database has to be re-built or created from scratch.

Why some WMA files keep the Cover Art association even after a database
re-build may be because some of the older WMA files handled Cover Art better
then the current WMA files?

DocLotus · « **Reply #38 on:** January 10, 2003, 05:43:11 am »

Thanks for all your efforts Jim.

Hopefully, if I wait long enough, I won't have to re-rip all my WMA's to another format if you guys can find the problem.

JimH · « **Reply #39 on:** January 10, 2003, 05:55:34 am »

I haven't used WMA tags at all, but I think XP reads them. I know they read ID3 tags (but may not get it right).

If you use XP to look at a file where the cover art tag wasn't read correctly by MC (art doesn't show), does the art show up?

Keep in mind that Microsoft views MJ/MC as competition and they don't always play nice.

Matt · « **Reply #40 on:** January 10, 2003, 05:56:25 am »

Do you store the actual cover art inside the tags or as external files? (when you go to the "Image" pane in MJ, does it say "inside file" or something like "c:\music\1.jpg")

If we know that, we'll know where to look.

Thanks.

DocLotus · « **Reply #41 on:** January 10, 2003, 06:05:49 am »

Jim;

<<< If you use XP to look at a file where the cover art tag wasn't read correctly by MC (art doesn't show), does the art show up? >>

Not sure how to do this, any ideas where to start?

Matt;

I store all the JPEG's seperatly. Properties, Image shows the path to the file. The only exception are images that are stored inside the same folder as the WMA files, then Properties simply shows the image name.

I did at one time try storing the images inside the file, but each time it would delete the seperate file meaning that I could no longer edit the image if needed (which I do a lot).

DocLotus · « **Reply #42 on:** January 10, 2003, 06:08:14 am »

A GREAT BIG THANK YOU to the JRiver team!!

Sounds like you guys are really on this one (at long last).

HAPPY DAYS ARE HERE AGAIN!!!

DocLotus · « **Reply #43 on:** January 10, 2003, 06:29:56 am »

Had another thought about this problem.

I started using MC9 on its very first early (and buggy) release & recall at the time I made the statement that I was going to use MC9 no matter what & never look back. I have tried every new release to date.

This brings me to the point that I remember some early ripping problems but don't recall any specific to WMA rips.

I made a lot of WMA rips with the earlier releases.

About half of the rips were done on MJ8 (there were some known WMA issues which were supposedly resolved) & about half were done on MC9. It is very curious that I am experiencing the Cover Art tagging problem on only half of my WMA files.

Could this in any way be related to the Cover Art problem?

Jaguu · « **Reply #44 on:** January 10, 2003, 06:57:55 am »

DocLotus,
I did all my wma ripping with MJ7 and MJ8!

JimH · « **Reply #45 on:** January 10, 2003, 07:19:12 am »

Jaguu,
I think you said you don't have WMP9, but do you run on XP?

Jim

Matt · « **Reply #46 on:** January 10, 2003, 07:48:04 am »

The problem is that external image links aren't stored in the file tags with MC 9. ( but they were in MJ 8 )

We decided that it didn't make that much sense in the tag, so removed it. I guess this is open to debate if people feel strongly about it.

The reason why sometimes it finds your images on re-import is because our auto-detection will find jpeg's named [ARTIST] - [ALBUM].jpg in the MC\Data\Cover Art directory.

DocLotus · « **Reply #47 on:** January 10, 2003, 10:05:37 am »

Hi Matt;

I don't have a \Data\Cover Art folder but there is one called \Data\Thumbnails which appears only to be lo-res images & not the actual JPEG's.

I had moved all my Cover Art to the individual WMA folders & it is some of them that are being picked up (but only about half).

DocLotus · « **Reply #48 on:** January 10, 2003, 10:15:33 am »

Thanks for an honest answer, Matt; I knew somebody had to know what was going on with this problem.

>> The problem is that external image links aren't stored in the file tags with MC 9. ( but they were in MJ 8 ) <<

I suspected all along that there was something strange about the way MC9 was handling (or not handling Cover Art tags) as I did not have this many problems with them in MJ8. Also all the other (non Cover Art) tags were rock solid.

So, now that we finally seem to have an answer, what do you suggest we do?

DocLotus · « **Reply #49 on:** January 11, 2003, 07:53:01 am »

If the links are no longer stored in the file tags, does this mean that the problem I have been experiencing is in no way related to WMA? Does this also mean that ANY file format could have this same problem in MC9?

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Author Topic: Album Art Security Is Totally Lacking In MC9? (Read 7896 times)

Autoelph