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[HTPC4ME]

 i am getting and have been getting 243 errors when updating tags(the last few months). and i think it's the thumbnails cause when i play the same songs even after library restore. the second before its ready to play the next file(for those thumbnails of which i have previously fixed) it deletes the thumbnails and turns it white. so i think i found what my 243 errors are its something with my thumbnails? any ideas why thumbnails would keep disappearing right before playing these 243 songs\files?


this is my audio libray all through out it there are thumbnails missing. but all the thumbnails are in the the appopriate artist folders on machine\ E\my music\genre\artist\album. when media center is about to play upcoming song it removes the cover art every time!!! (243 cover arts to be exact) so i cntrl clcik on cover arts goto coverart\add from file\goto appopriate folder where song and folder is for that artist slect it then it shows it again. then once i play media center and its ready to play next song in list this is what happens. once done fixing the 243. then i right click again and have chosen both update library from tags and also update tags from library but neither one fixes it. only way is to goto file backup library and everytime it plays and hits one of those songs i have to hit restore library.



very frustrating!

any ideas?

thank you.

[HTPC4ME]

no thoughts??

[Matt]

I've never seen this before.

Could it be an NTFS (or network share) permissions issue?

[HTPC4ME]

matt i'm not sure but as i've stated in previous posts. only issues i've ever had with j river is thumbnails. and it use to be alot worse. at least it's only 243. but i cant seem to fix them. and funny thing is its always the same files ( IN GENRE\ARTIST ALBUM.. THERE IS THE GROUPS SONGS... 9 OF THE 10 COVER ARTS SHOW UP WITH NO PROBLEM (within media center)AND ONE ALWAYS ONCE ITS BEING READY TO BE PLAYED TURNS WHITE.. so thats why its confussing i can see if a whole folders thumbnails would disappear but one song and the rest never seem to get effected? odd. be nice to get it squared away.

[Matt]

If you haven't, try erasing all thumbnails and starting over. (Options > Tree & View > Thumbnails)

[HTPC4ME]

how do i do that? steps please.

[raym]

how do i do that? steps please.

Tools | Options | Tree & View | Thumbnails | "Erase all thumbnails..."

and then,

Tools | Options | Tree & View | Thumbnails | "Build missing thumbnails..."

[HTPC4ME]

thanks for directions raym and matt. sorry matt i wasnt thinking... heard bad news today bout family member.

ok erased them all and then restarted media center. then rebuilt them all. 23,000 files

no go. still thumbnails missing.

here in this pic you see in media center the lords of acid album lust, all files in same spot. e\music\rock\lords of acid\lust\then the songs for that album.



but in media center its not showing the thumbs for all songs in that folder

when i right click image without thumbnail and choose quick find file in cover art directory. it does nothing. i have to choose add file. then browse to e\ music\rock\lords of acid\the lust album then you see the thumb and preview. I select it. and then it will fill in the thumbnail. but once i choose play in media center it will delete thumbnail again.

also am i maybe posting this in wrong spot?? and describing this wrong? i call the coverart for albums thumbnails. maybe i'm having a cover art issue?  http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=34566.0 

i've read there... but cant seem to get this worked out! in my c drive where media center is installed under docs setting application data\ jriver there is a cover art folder. with only 439 files\thumbnails. do all my cover arts need to be in there instead of in the folders where the music is?? if so is there a quick fix or just start opening folders and copying? maybe for years i have done this wrong\and why i'm having headaches? under file location you guys talk about Location Rule and Path: Select where you want Cover Art stored on your computer.

·      Save the Cover Art in a specific folder (set the path in the next field).

·      Save it next to the file, wherever that file resides, and name it folder.jpg

·      Save it next to the file, wherever that file resides, and name it according to the [Artist] – [Album] rule



by me having the cover art in the music folders with the songs and the thumbnail\coverart named the album title. lords of acid lust.jpeg. isn't enough? pardon my ignorance but what do you mean by name it folder.jpg? all my coverarts should be named folder.jpg?


this next pic is how all my music is... genre then folder in it, then artists, then folders in the artists for there albums, then in there albums are the songs and a jpeg coverart. but they are all named after that artists album name.

[HTPC4ME]

give up on me?? 

[HTPC4ME]

anyone? please? like to get this squared away. so i can add more media. thank you

[HTPC4ME]

anybody? still stuck here!

[Alex B]

After you have manually linked an external image file it should be permanently associated with the audio file. I am just guessing, but possibly you have the Auto-Importer set to update automatically for external changes and for some reason that does not work correctly.

The thumbnails are cached image files that are stored in a separate place. MC creates thumbnails automatically on the need basis. The created thumbnails are used in all browser views instead of the actual cover art file. The actual cover art file is displayd in the Cover Art display mode in the main Playing Now display. You can also see the actual image file by going to Action Window > Tag and clicking the small image placeholder on the top left corner. That opens a bigger image display in Action Window. Without this thumbnail system browsing would be extremely slow because MC would need to fully read and decompress the actual image files each time the audio files are browsed.

You can check the current cover art link from the Image File library field. Make the field visible in a details view in the main pane or add it to the visible tags in Action Window > Tag. If the field value contains only the filename and not the directory path then the image is linked from the audio file folder (i.e. it is "next to file").

If you have the cover art files in album folders then you cannot use the "In specific folder" option for finding the cover art files automatically. This mode is for storing all cover art files in a single dedicated folder. The automatically used filename rule is [Album Artist (auto)] - [Album].jpg.

The "Next to file" option is the correct mode when the cover art files are stored in the audio file folders. You need to have each album (audio files) in a separate folder and you can use one of the two cover art naming options. The cover art files should be named either literally as folder.jpg or the filename should follow this rule: [Album Artist (auto)] - [Album].jpg. (for example: Lords Of Acid - Lust.jpg -- like in your screenshot). However, if the album folder contains only one image file MC can automatically find it even if it is named differently.

EDIT

The Next to file ([Artist] - [Album].jpg) option uses actually the [Album Artist (auto)] - [Album].jpg rule as I mentioned. Othwerwise the system would not work correctly with multiple artists albums.

[HTPC4ME]

alex thanks for the reply. i'm confused here.

tried your method. and changed the location rule to... next to file. that fixed the right click quickfind in file. NOW it finds it. but when i press play, the cover art disppears? in gforce it does give an error. maybe this makes sense to you? error while processing cover art (error 55013).

in my music folders where the thumbnails keep disappearing i renamed the jpeg file to folder.jpg and it still doesnt fix it? and the these folders are identical to the lords of acid folder that i included a pic with. (see attchment)

at least we got the quick find working! we're on the right path!!!

[HTPC4ME]

Any more suggestions Alex?

Thank you

[Matt]

What if you disable G-Force and any other third-party plugins for now?

Perhaps getting the cover art using the SDK is causing some issue. (or perhaps a file that shouldn't get deleted is getting deleted)

[HTPC4ME]

hi matt thanks for the reply...i tried that as well, but no luck. i've also played with settings so that when you seect playlist\song it it doesnt jump to display. second before playing song thumbnails disappear.

[Alex B]

Any more suggestions Alex

Sorrty, I have not experienced anything like your problem.

Did you try to uninstall G-Force completely?
Did you check the Image File field contents, as I adviced?

You could also expand the Format field in Action Window > Tag  (click the "Format" word to expand) and post the format details of one of your problem audio files. Right-click > copy the text and paste here.

[kevind]

Version: JRiver 12.0.240
Running on: brand new dual Xeon 4gig ECC raid server
Music store on: brand new dual Xeon NAS 2 terabyte 4 gig ECC Raid 5

I'm actually experiencing a similar and very frustrating coverart issue. They too disappear at random. I've been very very careful making sure all cover art is supposed to be there. When I run the smartlist "missing cover art" I get zero result back...so MC thinks all cover art is there. As shown in the attached images you can see SOME of the cover art missing from a sample album. My cover art settings are all "DEFAULT" as came with MC12.  The image below was taken several hours after I had already re-done all the cover art for the files playing. Now some are showing as missing again.

For example, this afternoon I ripped the cd's in the images file attached, copied and pasted the album art for each album and all showed up initially. I then played the album and some of the art just disappeared. I repasted and then did  "Submit Coverart to Internet" so as to update the online database. Played the album and other coverart disappeared. I ran the "Missing Coverart" smartlist and nothing was returned. I went back to the album and selected "Update from Internet" and MC downloaded the coverart...obviously thinking it was missing. Now I see other songs that used to have the thumbs no longer don't.  Something is definately wrong here.

I've spent days trying to get consitant coverart. I must get this resolved please.


-----

[kevind]

Forgive me for bumping this...as per post above this issue is not resolved. This morning I upgraded to MC 251 but still no change. I've narrowed this down a bit more. 100% positive that when I play a song: current song, previous song and next song in the list lose their thumbs/coverart. As noted above, MC is on one server and the songs (flac) are on a seperate NAS. The album art settings are all default MC.

Anyone?

[Alex B]

When you play a file that has lost the cached thumbnail can you still see the actual cover art in the Playing Now display when the plain "Cover Art" mode is selected? Also the Action Window > Tag > Image window can show the the actual image directly from the source data instead of the thumbnail cache. (click the small picture in the top left corner to expand the image display)

What does the Image File field show for these files? (I explained this field earlier in this thread.)

Is the used audio compression format or the file location related to the problem? Yoy could try a few MP3 files in c:\a short foldername\.

EDIT

I assume you have installed the latest latest In_FLAC plugin. It has some cover art fixes (and one new possibly harmless bug).

[JimH]

Is it similar to this problem:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=40940.0

[kevind]

Is it similar to this problem:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=40940.0

Does not appear to be as I don't use WMP at all.

[JimH]

I'm not sure you can assume it isn't running even if you don't use it.

[kevind]

Jim,

I made the WMP changes on a server where the music files are NOT on a LAN and what do you know....coverart problems gone.

So I applied the same WMP changes to the product server where the music on stored on the NAS LAN and still having problems. On this server, I'm going to try rebuilding all thumbs from scratch by forcing download from Internet and see if that solves the problem. Will post results.

[kevind]

UPDATE: On the server (with MC) and NAS with Music system (files on LAN).

I turned off the WMP options and every automated option it has.
I deleted (6700+) cover arts from library AND hard drive.
I ran "Clean Up" on all the music files 4 times and deleted coverart 4 times (deletion would fail due to tagging errors).

By late afternoon I finally had what I thought was a completely clean DB and deleted almost 1000 possible offending files (songs that either tag errored or would not take cover art no matter what I did) and all coverart gone.

I've removed every duplicate song from the hard drive via MC delete. Next I highlighted all 6700+ songes and selected "Get coverart from Internet".

This eveing (it finally finished), I deleted every single file that did not get coverart

Still missing coverart

When the coverart disapears
it is not available in the left bottom window.
When I click on the larger view I get a typical URL: "M:\\AC-DC\Back in Black\jpg" .
It sometimes is available in "thumbnail view"
Does not matter if it is an: MP3, MM4a, Flac, WMA

(Flac: Tried latest plugin and got nothing but errors when ripping)

Now it seems to be the first song in multiple albums.  The only thing I have not tried is to delete the entire library and import from scratch.

Any other ideas?

[GHammer]

If this is the file path you're getting, that is the answer.

"M:\\AC-DC\Back in Black\jpg"

[kevind]

You mean WMP? As I said I turned all the potentially offending WMP options off but still no luck on consitant thumbs. As posted in my screen shot, the coverart is being stored in a "specified folder" & "also store images in file tag" is checked. I do not have any coverart in the album folders. "Quick Find" coverart works but then it disappears again.

Hmmm....could this be a QuickTime issue now? I had to install quicktime to play some m4a files. I did open "quicktime" to see if there were settings in there to disable but I don't see any. I've disabled quicktime's association t any audio files.

[Alex B]

If this is the file path you're getting, that is the answer.

"M:\\AC-DC\Back in Black\jpg"

What is the answer?

Perhaps you have a greedy black hole in the "M:\\AC-DC\Back in Black\" folder. It sucks cover art and pretends to be a file named jpg.   


Seriously, that path does not match with your screenshot and surely the filename "jpg" cannot be correct.

Do you actually have cover art files in the C:\Documents and settings\Admin\Appli... path ? (The complete path is not visible in your screenshot.)

Also, that tooltip text in AW > Tag > Image and the Image File library field should show "Inside File" in case MC has been able to embed the image correctly.

Something is definitely not right, but it is difficult to say what is not right without having access to your PC.


Instead of clearing the current database you could create a new MC library for testing and possibly finding out what causes the problem.

Create a new library. Import from a temporary location that contains some albums without any cover art. Make sure that the album folders do not contain unwanted image files. Check also for the hidden and system files.

You can also change the cover art location to something simple like "C:\Cover Art" (in MC's options) and copy some image files that you already have there before proceeding. You could start testing without using the "Also store in file's tag" option.

The "Quick Find In File/Cover Art Directory" tool should be able to automatically find the existing images. When you download new images they should automatically go to the defined location.
When MC downloads a cover art file does it save it there using the naming rule [Artist] - [Album].jpg ?

The thumbnail creation is a separate process and it can work only if the audio files have correct cover art available as separate files or embedded in the file tags.


EDIT: fixed the [Artist] - [Album].jpg rule

[Alex B]

I forgot to mention this:

After we can be sure that the external cover art files are correctly linked and the links do not change or disappear for some reason we can start investigating the thumbnail behavior and also if embedding cover art in the file tags changes anything.

[zendoo]

Hi! I sometimes have troubles with coverart when the filename of the .jpg, of the .mp3 or ESPECIALLY the folder name contains UTF-8, or UNICODE characters, which are things like japanese/chinese signs or french or spanish or any letters with accents like é or â...
try renaming the files without these. it helped for me.
good luck

[Matt]

Hi Kevin,

I think AlexB gave good advice above.

My guess is that whatever display plugin you have loaded is eating the external cover art file on playback.  It could also be an input plugin issue, so I'd test with APE or MP3 if you haven't.

Thumbnails going away is an indication that the underlying cover art link in the database isn't right.  It either points to a missing file or to a file's tag that doesn't have art.

Look at the tooltip in the Action Window > Tag > Click Image to see where MC is looking.

If it's really looking for a file named ".jpg", that's a problem.  Then we would need to figure out why / when it's changing to that.

[kevind]

Hmmmm I may be getting somewhere here.

The Below line appears to be fine and now show cover art

M:\Diana Krall\From This Moment on\Diana Krall - It Could Happen to You.wma


this is how it was done ripped via mc and is causing problems i think

M:\Diana Krall\From This Moment on\02 Isn't This a Lovely Day.wma

the above is contrary to the default filename rule setting of [artist]-[name]

here's another entry
M:\Various\Best of Reggae\Various - Track 5.flac

in the above, this track is actually showing as  "legalize it"  by "peter tosh". in this case i have no idea why the track would be showing "various" instead of "peter tosh" and "Track 5" instead of "legalize it"

here's an entry that appears totally correct but cover art not showing. when i select "quick cover art" the coverart shows up for a couple of seconds and then disappears

M:\Assorted\Best of 90s Dance\Deee-Lite - Groove Is in the Heart.flac

it would seem that the file names are not consistant with my rules [track]-[name] for some reason.
as soon as i changed it manually using the "rename" function the cover art showed correctly
this is not all albums or all tracks within an album...just some...but enough that it will take me hours and hours to manually change. so it would seem i've got big time database corruption

I'm not postive at this point if this is the total problem but definately getting closer. would like to know why/how and how to fix this corruption/ ripping problem

[Matt]

Fill Properties From Filename or Rename Files From Properties can synchronize tags and filenames.

You can use any template you like.

It's still not clear how or when the cover art link gets broken.  Details on this would be helpful. (playback only, etc.)

[kevind]

matt

man what a mess. I've just tried as you suggested and tested on one album: rename files using file properties. the directories rule is default [artist]\[album] and the filename is [artist]-[name].

then all the cover art disapears. so i tried quick art and it does not keep, tried get from internet download always and it does not work. the coverart appears but when i play a song it disapears. then mc locks up

[Matt]

Kevin,

Please take a deep breath and start over.  Uninstall, reboot, reinstall.

Make a new library.  Import one album.

Disable all third party plugins, and disable auto-import.

Then work slowly, adding complexity little by little.

If playing is removing cover art, it means something is eating it.

It's either a display plugin, interface plugin, or input plugin.

You're reporting a lot of (rare) problems.  Please start simple, and deal with one issue at a time.

Thanks.

[kevind]

Matt,

Sorry for the rant...it was a long experience. I have solved the problem.

The problem stemmed from a combination of three things: some cover art was located in the file folders themselves, some cover art was embedded in the files and some cover art was in a central folder. This is a result of a couple of years worth of music backups.

The solution: If you follow these steps in this order the outcome is perfect and clean moving forward. All settings are default.

1. In the folder or drive where the music is physically stored, check "view hidden system files" and do two wild cards seach and deletes: *.ini and *.jpg. Delete them all


2 In MC12 - Cover Art Removal

 2a. Tools -> Options -> File Locations -> Cover Art - uncheck "also store image in file's tag"  AND make sure "in a specified folder" is selected.


 2b. In MC12, Select every song, right click->Remove Cover Art -> No
This removes all the embedded cover art from the files.

2c. Select all the files again -> Right Click -> Cover Art -> Quck Find in File/Cover Art Directory. This will now grab any available graphics from the central thumd directory

3 MC12 - Clean up

After having gone through this much work a clean start was in order

3a. Removed Duplicates
3b. Cleaned up genres, album names
3c. Select all lfiles -> Library Tools -> Clean File Properties
3d. Select all files -> Library Tools -> Rename Files from Properties.  This will rename all the folders and files based on the default settings Folder Name  Artist -> Album and Cover art which is now located in a single directory Artist Album.jpg. What you are left with is nice clean music folder without any garbage in them and a single directory with all the thumbs in it. Any empty directories are deleted. This makes it simple to mass transfer in the future


4 MC12 - Restoring Cover Art

4a. Smart List -> Missing Cover Art
4b. Select all files -> Right Click -> Cover Art -> Get From Internet
4c. When the above is finished, click Audio and then click SmartList missing cover art again. This will generate the remaing songs that still have no cover art.
4d. Search the net for the remaining cover art and -> Right click on the album in question -> Paste from clipboard"


You will more than likely have quite a few as the online lookup system is limited. It's a tedious process to find or scan the remaing coverart but it has to be done. I've made a point to upload to internet all cover  art in hopes of not havingto either search the net or scan the cover art in if I ever have to reuild again.

Thanks for your input everyone. This solution helped me specificly but my setup is not the same as everyone elses obviously. Hope this helps other in the future.



On  a footnote, what is it with the online lookup anyway? I find it hard to believe that with all of us MC users that virtually every album would be in the online database by now. At the end I "submitted" 1500 cover arts alone. If we all did it perhaps it would ALL be there....or am I missing something here.

[JimH]

Thanks for reporting your solution.  Sorry for the frustration, but you can feel some satisfaction that you're a better person now.