I am DONE with MMW5! [Edit: Frustrations addressed]

by **gordol** » Thu Sep 30, 2021 5:01 pm

I just had a good chat with Peke. Upshot is that some of my settings may have been non-optimal and contradictory and the root cause of the database issue, those settings have been changed in MMW4. And, once I've finished verifying the tagging of my library, I'll reinstall MMW5 and give it another go.

by **gordol** » Thu Sep 30, 2021 1:28 pm

Peke wrote: ↑Thu Sep 30, 2021 6:32 am Dupes would be added into library files when MM scans folders with tracks if Scan folders for Album art is enabled (MM5 Tools -> Options -> Library) as for example Windows media Player (and Windows Library) Create multiple Album art copies as hidden image files in folders that MM pick up on scan.

I do not recall starting up Windows Media Player in a very long time. Certainly not since I had installed MMW5. But since this is Windows, can't discount the possibility that Windows did that on its own.

Also if you have Download folder where you have ton of Images MM will add them to files during scan. It is like that for at least 10 years.

MM is set to only scan the folder trees where the library files are. Downloads are outside of that, and I manually drag new content into MMW's library by dragging them onto the appropriate Node in MMW's Media Tree.

Also Album art from MMA -> MM5 is not yet synced back because it was proven highly false positive even MMA Album art search finds correct artwork most of the time.

This is why I have the album art search in MMA turned off.

The cause of your issue is somewhere else, even it is in MM it needs to be found and resolved once em for all.

I want that to be true. I want to like the new version of MMW.

That said, I would like to get to bottom of it and based on others response we are willing to dedicate time in solving this for you and for any future issues. For now pattern needs to be found and the root cause of the discrepancy as it is not something that influence MM5 even if it surfaced now.

It seems to me that the only way to find a pattern would be to reinstall MMW5 and wait. But I'm only just starting in on the "E"s in fixing the messed up album art, and I have to manually go through all 1679 albums. Oh, and I haven't even looked at the videos yet...

Even if I were to copy the library into a new location to use MMW5 in a non-production environment, I would first need to finish cleaning up the existing library so there's a clean start. I have no ETA on when I'll be done.

So thank you for the patience and willingness to help us resolve in order to make things stable, permanent and once we found the cause a way to easier fix your files (script maybe, or auto tool or ...).

Is there any view in MMW to show all the art on a file in the browsing window without having to go into the item's properties? THAT would help tremendously.

by **Peke** » Thu Sep 30, 2021 6:32 am

gordol wrote: ↑Wed Sep 29, 2021 10:52 pm More info:
I'm now finding albums with multiple copies of and versions of the correct album art, some with and some without the one that was copied into what I now estimate to be 1000+ albums.

When I verify or modify the album art, I keep only one image and clear any others. So I did not add these dupes. Unless MMA is also broken, I know these did not come from the mobile app as that is set to NOT lookup album art.

Dupes would be added into library files when MM scans folders with tracks if Scan folders for Album art is enabled (MM5 Tools -> Options -> Library) as for example Windows media Player (and Windows Library) Create multiple Album art copies as hidden image files in folders that MM pick up on scan. Also if you have Download folder where you have ton of Images MM will add them to files during scan. It is like that for at least 10 years. Same goes for MMA and Google Media Scanner that picks Album art from folders that file resides and only way that you can override that is that you make MMA folders structure contain one track at time (something like "\Music\<Title>\<Title>") in sync profile (Also covered few times over the year) Also Album art from MMA -> MM5 is not yet synced back because it was proven highly false positive even MMA Album art search finds correct artwork most of the time. The cause of your issue is somewhere else, even it is in MM it needs to be found and resolved once em for all. Especially as for MMA 2.0 we plan much better handling of Album art and tagging overall.

That said, I would like to get to bottom of it and based on others response we are willing to dedicate time in solving this for you and for any future issues. For now pattern needs to be found and the root cause of the discrepancy as it is not something that influence MM5 even if it surfaced now.

So thank you for the patience and willingness to help us resolve in order to make things stable, permanent and once we found the cause a way to easier fix your files (script maybe, or auto tool or ...).

by **Lowlander** » Wed Sep 29, 2021 11:14 pm

Are they all embedded Artworks? If not, what are the filenames of the external Artworks associated?

by **gordol** » Wed Sep 29, 2021 10:52 pm

More info:
I'm now finding albums with multiple copies of and versions of the correct album art, some with and some without the one that was copied into what I now estimate to be 1000+ albums.

When I verify or modify the album art, I keep only one image and clear any others. So I did not add these dupes. Unless MMA is also broken, I know these did not come from the mobile app as that is set to NOT lookup album art.

by **gordol** » Wed Sep 29, 2021 10:28 pm

Barry4679 wrote: ↑Wed Sep 29, 2021 10:17 pm He means go to Properties > Artwork, and hover the mouse over the image shown there ... the path is displayed in the tooltip

Ok. "Stored in tag" on the half dozen or so I just checked.

by **Barry4679** » Wed Sep 29, 2021 10:17 pm

gordol wrote: ↑Wed Sep 29, 2021 9:29 pm Tags. MMW4 does not show that info in Properties -> Artwork. The setting in the options shows set to "Save to tags if possible". There are no image files in any of the album folders I checked on the hard drive.

He means go to Properties > Artwork, and hover the mouse over the image shown there ... the path is displayed in the tooltip

by **gordol** » Wed Sep 29, 2021 9:29 pm

Ludek wrote: ↑Wed Sep 29, 2021 1:01 pm Really curious issue with the same artwork assigned to so many various files.

Yes.

Couldn't it be that you somehow organized the files to the same directory/folder and the arwork was picked from that directory somehow?

No. I did not change the file organization.

Is the artwork stored in file tag or in the folder? You can see this in Properties > Artwork.

Tags. MMW4 does not show that info in Properties -> Artwork. The setting in the options shows set to "Save to tags if possible". There are no image files in any of the album folders I checked on the hard drive.

Does it happened after a sync or which operation caused it?

Cause? No clue. Read the thread above for more info.

As for MMA showing second image, I believe MMA shows the first, but it may depend on your settings in 'MM5 > Devices & Services > YourDevice > Sync Profile > Tagging ' and probably also on the type of artwork specified in Properties > Artwork

And for the umpteenth time, MMW5 has been removed from my computers after this.
The artwork is a mix of "Cover (Front)" and "Not specified" in the art details. There is no correlation between this and the issue at hand. "First" and "Second" is the position they show in, in MMW4.

And here's another curve ball: I just found one track separated from its album because the Album Artist was changed (Allan Sherman is not Cher). I did not do that, not even accidentally because I had not touched the metadata on it prior to this very lengthy process of fixing the data. I generally do not touch anything other than ratings once I've added the music to the collection and ensured the artist/album/track info is correct at that time.

by **Ludek** » Wed Sep 29, 2021 1:01 pm

Really curious issue with the same artwork assigned to so many various files.
Couldn't it be that you somehow organized the files to the same directory/folder and the arwork was picked from that directory somehow? Is the artwork stored in file tag or in the folder? You can see this in Properties > Artwork.
Does it happened after a sync or which operation caused it?

As for MMA showing second image, I believe MMA shows the first, but it may depend on your settings in 'MM5 > Devices & Services > YourDevice > Sync Profile > Tagging ' and probably also on the type of artwork specified in Properties > Artwork

by **gordol** » Mon Sep 27, 2021 10:21 pm

Confirm modifications to more than 50

This was off in MMW4. I did not touch this setting in MMW5, is it possible that the settings imported when I imported the database? It appears that my device sync settings were xferred over.

Re album art and artist images MM5 by default do not save anything into tags

I did not touch those settings in MMW5, I do not see similar, at least not in the same place, in MMW4. In any case, my preferred use is to store all of the info about the track in the media file itself whenever possible. That's what the ID3 tags are for, including the album art. And I consider all of my media to be "portable". Anything that is used generically by other apps belongs in the common location of the media file itself, not in any app's proprietary database. I currently have no immediate plans to switch to something else (I already tried, can't find anything else on Android), including back to an iPhone, but I will always leave that door open.

As for metadata lookup, only for missing art or lyrics. None of the albums have missing artwork, and the art item that is at the center of this would not have been found for any such lookup anyway as "Sheryl Crow, 100 Miles From Memphis" is not "ZZ Top, Tejas" or "The Benedictine Monks, Chant", or any of the other several hundred other albums so affected.

Please explain what you think it happened and how and we will try to help resolve all the issue.

To recap, I had been using MMW5 exclusively on my main desktop, the one I use to manage my media library and sync my music with my phone, for a couple weeks in the free trial period. It was working fine, then this happened.

Due to the video issue with MMW5 on the other computer, that one has been using MMW4 on its own database, using the common media library files which had been moved to my OneDrive prior to the installation of MMW5. Both computers are set to fully mirror my OneDrive, so all the media files in question are in fact on each local computer. That computer, though, almost never plays music as I could never get it to update the metadata of last-played back to the main setup so I use it for videos only.

What would really help right now is if there was some view I can't locate to let me see all the album art in a file without having to go into the Properties. (Art View only shows the first Art, though it appears that MMA shows the SECOND when there is more than one.)

by **Peke** » Mon Sep 27, 2021 3:21 am

Hi,

gordol wrote: ↑Sun Sep 26, 2021 9:44 pm Correction: it's 738 Artist entries, 1,684 albums. I was looking at the wrong column.

I really wonder how it was possible that MM do that on itself if this by default enabled is present (it was same in MM4 too)

You are using MM for quite some time and know how powerful can be and that it do not do a thing on its on, even users aks from us to make that (eg. Auto duplicate tracks removal).
Re album art and artist images MM5 by default do not save anything into tags,

We use publicly available sources not paid services in order to keep users choice and make future enhancements.

Please explain what you think it happened and how and we will try to help resolve all the issue.

by **gordol** » Sun Sep 26, 2021 9:44 pm

gordol wrote: ↑Sat Sep 25, 2021 9:51 pm Now I have to go through all 738 albums in my collection, one by one, to verify and fix.

Correction: it's 738 Artist entries, 1,684 albums. I was looking at the wrong column.

by **gordol** » Sun Sep 26, 2021 3:24 pm

I'm going to be busy spending the next several days fixing the album art on over 700 albums.

by **PetrCBR** » Sun Sep 26, 2021 3:11 pm

No there were new build with additional debug messages i sent at 22/9. I'll be glad if you give it a second to test (and make a debuglog).

gordol wrote: ↑Sun Sep 26, 2021 1:53 pm Didn't I respond to that that it made no difference?

by **gordol** » Sun Sep 26, 2021 1:53 pm

PetrCBR wrote: ↑Sun Sep 26, 2021 1:30 pm Not sure you've saw my last post re video issue.

Didn't I respond to that that it made no difference?

I am DONE with MMW5! [Edit: Frustrations addressed]

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