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[Sussexjet]

In MC 20 has anyone experienced Cover Art disappearing when an album cover is selected and then right click for playing?
Re-installation is then required by reference to the Cover Art folder, where it may be found, or if not, rescanned from the CD cover or found on the internet.

[JohanJooste]

Morning, yes I have experienced this aswell. Funny thing I saw as well is that the cover art does not show in the library view but when you play a track the art shows up in the small display window bottom left. Even if you hover over the track and the tracksummary window pops up the art is not shown. Pretty confusing.

Hoping someone can pick this up and sort the problem. Side note MC19 works perfectly - ;-)

Regards
Johan Jooste

[JimH]

What type of files are a problem?

Look at the tag in the file to see the cover art location.  Is the art there?

Are you using cue files?

[Sussexjet]

I don't have a deep understanding of the structure of the program so tags etc are an unknown aspect.
All I know is that there is a Cover Art file within the J Rivers MC 16 suite and when I have to find the suddenly disappeared album Cover Art, it is usually there.
If it isn't, I rescan the CD cover or search the internet.

I have previously tried MC 18 and MC 19 and today, MC 20.
In every case the automatic search for my music files (over 13,000 - 566 GB) puts many of them in an Unassigned category and thus renders the program useless.
These later MC versions do not replicate the complete and satisfactory presentation of MC 16, achieved with some patience getting multiple artists to appear under one album cover (and not a separate one for each track!) and where (for example) 5 tracks of Brahms Piano Concerto No 2 are each shown under an individual album cover!
With MC 20, when I tried to reinstate just one Cover Art as a test, even having changed the Tools/Options/Cover Art to point at the MC 16 suite, where they are, MC 20 persists in prompting for the path each time.
I accept now that I can never move away from MC 16 and will live with the sporadic disappearance of Cover Art.

[JimH]

Your file tags may not be correct or consistent.

MC has an option to store tags in the files.  How is it set?

MC20 can restore a library from a previous version.  You can try restoring a backup made in MC16. 

[Sussexjet]

I don't know what "tags" are.
Thus I have not knowingly created any.
If they are automatically created then the system would know where they are.
When I have to look in the Cover Art folder for a disappeared album cover, if it is there I select it and a pop-up asks "Would you like to copy this image to the cover art location you have specified in options".
The location specified in options is indeed the path to the Cover Art folder where I have just found the Cover Art!
When I tried MC20 and changed the options to point to the Cover Art location, it was ignored!
Re Backup: There is no menu choice to backup MC16.
There is no FAQ to assist on this either.

[JimH]

http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Tags

[Sussexjet]

I've now read about tags and feel amazed at the complexity and detail.
I chose MC because Windows Media Player could not handle anything reliably and persisted in scrambling all manner of information.
All I have done and expected to do, was to rip 944 CDs into MC16.,,,
Where Cover Art was not correctly sourced automatically, I sought it from the Internet or more laboriously, scanned it in.
With all Cover Art intact, as I have mentioned, an album selected for playback may cause it to disappear.
Hence the nonsense of having to find it and reinstate.

Re Backup as a suggested means to ensure complete integrity from MC16 to MC20 - not clear how to backup (and backup what anyway?) as there are no menu driven options to do it.

[JimH]

File > Library > Backup.

[Sussexjet]

I did start the post defining the problem and sought the answer: i.e: Select an album cover, right click to play, and the Cover Art (or Album Cover as I call it) sometimes disappears.
It has to be reinstated in the manner I have previously described.
The first reply was to try MC20 and that led to masses of files being dumped into "Unassigned" or just place-holders where the Album Cover would be.
I'll now backup MC16 and restore in MC20 to see if I get a complete and accurate replication of all the Cover Art.
Thanks for your perseverance with me on all this.

[Sussexjet]

I restored the library from MC16 to MC19 and MC20.
In both cases 82 cover art files were missing - nearly 10% of total albums.
Using Options/File/Location and changing Cover Art to point to the folder in MC16 containing the Cover Art, DOES NOT TAKE EFFECT.
Why is there not an identical transfer of all this information from one MC to another?

[Arindelle]

I restored the library from MC16 to MC19 and MC20.
In both cases 82 cover art files were missing - nearly 10% of total albums.
Using Options/File/Location and changing Cover Art to point to the folder in MC16 containing the Cover Art, DOES NOT TAKE EFFECT.
Why is there not an identical transfer of all this information from one MC to another?

I find this happens sometimes if the file is not really embedded (tagged) in the file itself. Could you check to see if you use the audio rule to store cover art in the options. If you are dumping all album art in a roaming folder, in my experience this can cause issues.  Also check to see that all files have the embedded art from the tag window on a couple of the albums.

If only one file doesn't have the cover art embedded but others do this sometimes is a reason for it not showing up, even if it exists.  If one of these is the case: like 1) either some of the files have no artwork in the embedded (the field [Image File] should say "Inside File" so you might have to permit the field to show to see it as it is not visible by default I think); 2 or you are not putting cover art in the album folder. post back and I can post a little trick to fix this all in one go.

Upgrading from 16 to 19 is a big jump. Lots of changes and 3 years of development between them. Version 19 to 20 should be seamless though.

PS - could also be a network issue, especially if external drives are offline when JR gets booted, but I presume your NAS is on all the time.

[JohanJooste]

Thank you Arindelle - please post the trick as suggested - thank you ;-) JJ

[Sussexjet]

If tags mean fields that contain the track titles, album name etc then I don't know where all that is stored anyway.
This all seems very involved.
An idiot's guide to the structure may help!
MC created the folder where the cover art goes.
All I did was to amend the options to point to it. i.e: Tools/File Location/Cover Art. Thus: C:\Users\CB\AppData\Roaming\J River\Media Center 16\Cover Art\
When I rip a CD I assume the cover art is automatically put in that folder. Certainly most of it is there.
The key question is this: When I select an album to play, why does the cover art sometimes disappear?
When I reinstate the cover art for the album by accessing this folder above, it is usually there, so why does it get lost when displayed and selected?
I think it's a software glitch.
Later versions of MC will not recognise the folder with the cover art (when set up per path above) yet much of the cover art does transfer successfully but 82 covers do not and would need to be individually reinstated, so a later MC version is not the answer.
Presumably another software glitch.

[JimH]

All I did was to amend the options to point to it. i.e: Tools/File Location/Cover Art. Thus: C:\Users\CB\AppData\Roaming\J River\Media Center 16\Cover Art\

Are you using MC16?

[Sussexjet]

Yes, using MC16.