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[preproman]

This version will allow me to save cover art to newly added tracks.

[preproman]

I'm I the only person having this issue?

If I copy a image to the clipboard from one file.  Then paste that same image to a different file.  It does not take.  The image does not get copied over.

[MrC]

I just ripped a CD, and used Cover Art > Get from Internet and cover art saved (to Folder.jpg).  It worked fine.

Is that sufficient to trigger what you're seeing?

[MrC]

And I just copied from one file, pasted into another, and it worked.

Check your A/V software.  Check that MC can write to the target disk location of where the cover art would be stored (needs to be able to write to the audio file if cover art is In File, or the folder if it is in Folder.jpg).

[Ultraviolet13]

 Version: 18.0.103.0
 Vista Home Premium  SP2
 Intel Quad Core 2.66GHz  4GB Memory

Since upgrading from MC V17 to V18 two days ago I've been experiencing the following issues, which I've not encountered in months of using MC17:

1) Adding Cover Art to the newly ripped CDs & cover art in general seems to have multiple problems:

i) From the Recent Albums view Album Art doesn't show for some CDs I've ripped since the upgrade to V18, even though it has been manually updated but looks OK for others I've updated in the same way. I.E. Select files in list, right click > Cover Art > Add From File...
   
ii) If you double click on an Album to see the track list and then mouse over the individual tracks, the info displayed only has the Album Art mini thumbnail present for some files but not all of them. This can be true whether the main, large artwork thumbnail is there or not

iii) When updating Album Art the 'Saving Tag Changes' process seems slower than ever.

iv) A "Tagging Error" message box keeps popping up when adding Album Art (or making other tag changes to a newly ripped CD or DVD). "Media Center encountered errors while tagging files. Check that files exist, are not read-only, and are not in use by other programs." This happens more often the more tracks there are being updated (and has never appeared under MC17).

v) Also, I've noticed that from the 'Files' view, the Album Art mini thumbnails are missing for some tracks. Some are slowly generated as you scroll down the list but others never appear despite the artwork being visible in the directory when viewed from Windows itself. It's as if MC no longer picks up the cover art associated with the files in Windows. This applies to tracks both old & newly ripped, MP3, FLAC and iTunes files.

vi) Displaying cover art full screen is also sometimes a problem now: Right Click > Cover Art > View (First File)... nothing.
Try it again a minute later and sometimes it'll work.

Also.
2) When ripping CDs to the library the track list area doesn't update if you leave the window and return, I.E. it shows tracks as still pending even after the action pane shows the rip as complete.

3) When the newly ripped CD is removed from the drive the 'Rip Disc' pane doesn't update but continues to list it as though it were still in the drive and available to be ripped.

[JimH]

While some of those are probably MC issues, the errors and the slow tag save may point to another problem.  Is it a local drive?  Do you have a virus checker checking every file every time it's opened?

[Ultraviolet13]

Thanks for the response.

I'm currently running two libraries, one for iPod / iTunes / MP3s on a local partition (68000 files) and another library for Flac and hi definition audio (40000 files ) on NAS storage.

I don't believe the anti virus software is causing an issue in this case.

As a test I've just updated the files from an existing CD in both libraries - the same album (24 tracks) in both Flac & MP3 formats, using an image that I'd previously created and used. I copied the image so it was local to each library. In each case it took under 12 seconds.

I then ripped a new CD to the Flac library and scanned it's cover. To update the 18 newly created tracks in the Flac library (located on the NAS storage) with this new image took 83 seconds.

I then copied the same new image to the local drive and updated the tracks for the previously created MP3 version of the album and it took 6 seconds.

The network connection between the PC and the NAS seems OK, so my only thought is that it's some sort of handshaking issue - could be with Windows or MC - that affects/slows updates to the Flac/NAS library.

Any suggestions / thoughts welcome.

[JimH]

Thanks for the response.

I'm currently running two libraries, one for iPod / iTunes / MP3s on a local partition (68000 files) and another library for Flac and hi definition audio (40000 files ) on NAS storage.

I don't believe the anti virus software is causing an issue in this case.

As a test I've just updated the files from an existing CD in both libraries - the same album (24 tracks) in both Flac & MP3 formats, using an image that I'd previously created and used. I copied the image so it was local to each library. In each case it took under 12 seconds.

I then ripped a new CD to the Flac library and scanned it's cover. To update the 18 newly created tracks in the Flac library (located on the NAS storage) with this new image took 83 seconds.

I then copied the same new image to the local drive and updated the tracks for the previously created MP3 version of the album and it took 6 seconds.

The network connection between the PC and the NAS seems OK, so my only thought is that it's some sort of handshaking issue - could be with Windows or MC - that affects/slows updates to the Flac/NAS library.

Any suggestions / thoughts welcome.

The NAS may be slowing things down.  FLAC files are also much bigger.

Try tagging some local FLAC files.

Again, the AV program could be a factor.

[Ultraviolet13]

I'll do some tests tomorrow to see if I can pin it down a bit more but I do accept the NAS may slow things down... a bit.

For info, my current anti-virus s/w is Norton 360 Premier V20.2.0.19.

While I'd obviously accept that Flac is larger than MP3 (randomly picked file comparrison 9Mb for MP3 & 26Mb for Flac), I'm not sure tag updates would be so disproportionately affected by the size of the file.

[Ultraviolet13]

Quick update.

Newly ripped CD, 14 tracks to Flac. Artwork scanned and saved as JPEG (664KB) in the same directory as the audio files on the NAS disk.

All anti-virus scanning disabled.

From Artist View > Album
Select files, right click > Cover Art > Add From File...

Saving Tag Changes to the 14 audio files took 215 seconds to complete.

So, I'm now pretty sure the anti-virus is not the problem.

[rayooo]

probably not much help, but I have what appears to be a very similar setup.

Audio only, stored on NAS via Wired Gig-E. (Win 7 64) (not using Mapped network drive, direct UDP address or whatever it's called)
FLAC only, Album Art settings: Stored in same folder as media and in file.
Latest version of JRiver.
 
Saving Album Art Tag Changes all happen within a second of initiating.

[Ultraviolet13]

Thanks for the message rayooo and it was a help - helpful to know that this setup should work (and indeed was working for others).

So... after a bit of head scratching I've now rejigged my network to see if I could improve things that way and it has helped  

Previously the PC had been connected straight into my BT Hub and the NAS connected to a switch which connected to the Hub. I've now moved the PC connection to the switch too and MC seems much happier.
Looks as though the Hub being between the NAS and the PC was slowing things down significantly.

Tag updates when adding newly scanned artwork files for the last couple of CDs ripped have completed in between 16 & 28 seconds. Much better than before.

The Recent Albums view is now fully populated with artwork again.
Full screen viewing of artwork is also working again.

The mini thumbnails are back for most files when mousing over the list of tracks but only after I view the tracks in the Files view first - this seems to generate the mini thumbnails and populate the tag info somehow.

I still have some missing mini thumbnails in the Files view list but suspect that if I re-update the album art for these tracks it'll sort itself out.

The puzzle now is why MC17 would work OK with my old network configuration but MC18 wouldn't. The BT Hub was obviously preventing communication, handshaking or just causing timeouts between the MC18 software on the PC and the files stored on the NAS but for some reason MC17 wasn't affected by this.

Don't you just love computers  

[rayooo]

That sounds much better! (16-28 seconds vs minutes) seems you've hit on the issue.

good question on why it's different in MC18 vs 17, but with what sounds like so many big changes under-the-hood in MC18, I guess anything is possible.

With my NAS I get very good bandwidth on large file I/O, i.e. copying FLAC files to/from the NAS I can get up and over 100MB/Sec.
Small I/O is much slower, and I am assuming tag updates fall into this category, meaning it seems that a particular setup might play big files just fine, but, get bogged down when doing small reads/writes like lots of tag updates... but I'm absolutely just speculating!!!