album art will not save

[rattler]

I am having a problem with one mp3 where MM 2.5.5.998 won't save the album art. I have added art via the Album Art tab, by dragging from the folder, and by Auto-tagging from Amazon. The art shows up but doesn't remain when I click another song then click back. I have even tried saving other art to this mp3 and other art files also refuse to be saved. Other tag information saves fine; just not the artwork.

I seem to have this problem only with this one mp3. It isn't set to read-only or system, which would make sense since I'm able to save other tag information.

Also, all tags are being saved as ID3v1 and v2, if that makes a difference.

Any ideas?


tia,

r.

[rovingcowboy]

do a test to see if the art is in the tag already.

open the mp3 in WMP then use its view album art option

if the art shows up it is in the mp3 files tag already.

which would mean there's a problem with it being showed in monkey.

[nojac]

Is the file playable in MM? Not a dead link?

[Guest]

Thanks for the quick response.

The file is playable in MM with no problems. And the tags are updatable. However, I can see that I didn't give everyone quite enough information. Specifically, I can add album art with no problem. When I click the Album Art tag, I can see the artwork (I have 'Save image to tag if possible' ticked). However, when I close the song's 'Properties' window, click another song, click back on the problem song, reopen the Properties window again, then click the Album Art tab, the art work is no longer there.

What I forgot to mention in my last post is that in place of the artwork, there is a generic icon of a CD jewel case (which is easily deleted by clicking 'Remove').

I hope this extra info helps the experts here help me arrive at a solution.

Thanks again.

r.

[Guest]

do a test to see if the art is in the tag already.

open the mp3 in WMP then use its view album art option

if the art shows up it is in the mp3 files tag already.

which would mean there's a problem with it being showed in monkey.

I performed the test you suggested and was surprised. WMP doesn't seem to be displaying the album art on all my albums (I right-click on a file, click Advanced Tag Editor, click Pictures). This is strange because MM 2.5.5.998 displays the artwork with no problem (except the song in question).

Also, WMP seems to orphan many of my albums. that is, it doesn't know what album a song belongs to and therefore puts the song under the 'Unknown' album category. Again, MM has no problem reading all tags and categorizing accordingly.

Btw, is it WMP that's putting AlbumArtSmall.jpg and Folder.jpg into the directory? They're system files. Now why would MS do something like that?

To get the thread back on track, I'm only mildly curious about WMP's behavior. I have no real interest in using it (especially if it's broken). However, I would like to see what's up with MM not being to display the album art on this one file. (to be honest, maybe there are more but I'm not browsing more than 1000 files just to find out).

Thanks again,

r.

[Guest]

UPDATE:

Sorry to post so many updates at once; I truly hope to resolve this.


I used WMP to add the album art to the problem mp3, which it did with no problem. I can exit WMP the reload and view the album for the mp3. The artwork shows up with no problem. But MM still can't read/display the artwork, even when I rescan the directory.

Also, I used WMP to change the track number tag from 1 to 101. I then closed WMP and opened MM. MM didn't display the updated track information until I rescanned, which I would consider normal behavior.

So, the bottom line seems to be that I can change tag information inside or outside of MM and it will display properly everything except album art.

Is it possible that the file is corrupt (even though the song plays without flaw) and MM isn't able to compensate for the corruption like WMP can? Sounds bizarre but I'm frantically grasping at anything.

Thanks again,

r.

[rovingcowboy]

i think the mp3 file is messed up you might want to do a debug log and send a copy of the messed up mp3 in to the developers to see what the trouble is.

because if neither the players will put the art in to the mp3 file's tag then there is something blocking them from doing so.

i believe that is what happened both players just stored the art on your system in the place they wanted to use it. which is why both can show it. they linked the file to the song.

so the debug log will have to be used to find this answer if it can be found.

[Guest]

Thanks again for the prompt reply.

I should have been a little more clear in the details of my test. The folder that contains the problem file doesn't contain any AlbumArt.jpg or Folder.jpg files. Those files I asked about are in other directories. This particular folder only has the one problem jpg (no other files whatsoever). I have turned on the display of hidden files so I should see any hidden files in that directory.

So, WMP is saving the artwork directly inside this jpg, rather than on the drive. MM is not able to do that nor is it able to display the art that WMP is inserting (and saving).

How do I do this debug thing you're talking about?

Thanks again,

r.

[rovingcowboy]

Thanks again for the prompt reply.

I should have been a little more clear in the details of my test. The folder that contains the problem file doesn't contain any AlbumArt.jpg or Folder.jpg files. Those files I asked about are in other directories. This particular folder only has the one problem jpg (no other files whatsoever). I have turned on the display of hidden files so I should see any hidden files in that directory.

So, WMP is saving the artwork directly inside this jpg, rather than on the drive. MM is not able to do that nor is it able to display the art that WMP is inserting (and saving).

How do I do this debug thing you're talking about?

Thanks again,

r.

the debug message is a sticky thread in the bug report room on this forum. its intensive so is best read in that thread.

[Guest]

Thanks to all for your help. I have resolved the problem.

I used MP3BookHelper from Sourceforge.net to insert the artwork. When I did that, MM happily displayed it.

There must have been something about the file that MM didn't like. Before, I would think it was displaying the artwork because it displayed a jewel case that could be deleted. It just didn't display the album photo.

My solution above doesn't say why MM had the problem, but I'm happy now.

Thanks again,

btw, chimps, baboons, and orangutans are not monkeys. I got confused at first, thinking it was a trick question.

r.

[JJZ]

I have also been wrestling with the problem of album art not saving. It turns out that that is the only MP3 tag that isn't being saved. I got around this problem by going to Tools -> Advanced Tag Management -> Synchronize Tags (or CNTL-S) on the selected song.

I hope this helps.