Album Art Changes Are Not Reflected in Either Music Folders or MediaPortal (1 Viewer)

dmumaw

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I am not sure if the problem I am having is because of a bug with MPTagThat, or because I am not editing my tags correctly. I am going to assume it's the second! Here is my workflow:

First I use the the Folder/Database Tree View to navigate to my music library. It is already well organized into Artists>Albums>Tracks and I am more or less using MPTagThat to search for HIGHER resolution album art and lyrics as well as syncing WMP ratings. After isolating an album in the left panel, I move to the Album Art tab in the ribbon over the Tracks Grid. I click on the middle button to remove the current artwork from the selected tracks and then click the button above it to search for a higher resolution image. I select the best image and then click the save icon (which the tooltip says should create a folder.jpg in the folder of the selected file(s)).

I then move to the left along the ribbon and click on Case Conversion and Lyrics buttons as well as the Windows Media Player ratings sync (which I understand makes it possible for MediaPortal to see my Windows Media Player ratings; correct me if I am wrong because this feature is important!). Finally I click on the save icon in the top left corner of the window.

When I close the MPTagThat window and open up the folders containing the files that I believe I have updated, I find that the case conversion is reflected in the files, but the folder does not contain a "folder.jpg" from the save done in MPTagThat. Additionally, when scrolling through the same tracks in MediaPortal, the album art to the left of the file does not display the album art that I selected in MPTagThat. I presume the images to the left of the track name are the "thumbs" that the MediaPortal configuration refers to when it gives the option to use "cover art embeded in ID-3 tags" to "generate thumbs". Is this the case or is it refering to some other thumb?

If I check the use cover art embeded in ID-3 tagsbox as well as click on the Update database from selected shares button in the MediaPortal configuration, then what could be the reason that I am not seeing my newly acquired MPTagThat album art anywhere in MediaPortal?

I understand this is a LOADED question that will probably prompt more questions but any help from any brave soul would be greatly appreciated!
 

hwahrmann

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    Trying to be the brave soul. :)

    Everything you did within MPTagThat is ok.
    You have a folder.jpg in your Album folder. It is just hidden. The reason we do that is, that it doesn't show up in the picture module.
    Yes you are right, by converting the WMP Ratings, you will have access to the ratings from within MP.

    Yes, what you see are the Thumbs, which are loaded either from folder.jpg or from the thumbs folder, where they have been written, when you checked the option and ran the "Update db".

    I would suggest doing following steps:
    1. Make sure that your Album folder doesn't contain any graphical file, besides the, hidden, folder. jpg created by MpTagThat
    2. Remove all files from the Thumbs\Music\Album folder, so that we are sure, you don't pick up anything wrong
    3. Run the Music Update from Comnfig again.
    Make sure, you have the either the use Folder.jpg or "cover art embedded in tags" OR even both of them checked
    Also make sure you have the "Treat tracks in an individual folder as Album"
    4. Switch to your preferred Database View within MP

    Now you should see your covers
     

    dmumaw

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    Well I deleted the coverart I had in the folders and that seemed to do it! Although I do like to have copies of the album art that I can click on, open, copy/paste, etc outside of MediaPortal. Is there any way that I can reveal these .jpg files and then exclude their containing folders from those that make up the music directory in MediaPortal so I can do this?

    -Also-

    Will these hidden .jpg files also be recognized by other programs that use tags (i.e. WMP, Ipod touch)?

    Can you choose the location where the album art is saved (through MPTagThat)? I don't have any album art in the Thumbs\Music\Album folder and if it doesn't save there automatically then I don't know how it gets there or how to tell MediaPortal to identify the image within that folder I want it to use for a specific music title. Is there any benefit of saving art to the thumbs folder rather than the folder containing the music file?

    Thanks!
     

    hwahrmann

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    Tough they are hidden, they get used by MediaPortal itself.
    I don't think WMP and iTunes look for a folder. jpg

    i myself don't use windows explorer to look at my folders, but you can set a flag, that hidden files are being shown within explorer.
    Btw, just thinking of not storing the file as hidden in MPTT, as this caused confusion with other people as well in the past.

    You can choose, where to store the folder.jpg, but it makes no sense to put them into Thumbs\Music\Album.
    this is done, when you scan your Music Shares from within MP Configuration using the "Update Database" function.

    When you have checked the "use folder.jpg" AND/OR "cover art embedded..." then either folder.jpg or the extracted cover art will be copied into Thumbs\music\Album
     

    dmumaw

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    Sure enough, I went into IE and clicked on Tools>Folder Options>View>Show hidden files, folders or drives and then the folder.jpg files were visible! And at first I was not seeing the copies of the album art in the Thumbs\Music\Album folder but I am now. May have been my settings, but at this point it doesn't matter what it was cause my HTPC is looking good! No reason to have such a clean GUI if my album art looks like garbage. THANK YOU for ALL your help!
     

    dmumaw

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    And just when I thought everything was working...

    After tagging the majority of my music I went into to Media Player to see my changes. I right clicked the album art and clicked on Update Album Info. The Case Lock seemed to update the files correctly and so did the album art which was what I was after. However, some information (such as genre in most cases) also "updated".

    I went back into MPTagThat to see if I had been overlooking a panel that had been overwriting my genre information while I was tagging. I selected a folder that I knew contained files that had incorrect genres after updating the album information within Media Player. I then highlighted the files and viewed the rightmost panel containing the track information for the selected files. The panel displayed all of the information correctly (as in what I WANTED it to be not what it was after the WMP Album Info Update).

    I then thought that maybe Media Player was using its own metadata retrieval tool and getting the wrong genre from the internet when I clicked on Update Album Info. However, I updated the album information for a song that I had not yet tagged in MPTagThat and it showed no update which made me think again that the wrong genre information was coming from MPTagThat. I confirmed this (or so I thought) by launching MediaPortal and then sorting my music by Genre view. It showed genres that my music did not previously have nor did I specify in MPTagThat. I was really confused about these changes since I did not prompt MPTagThat to change any genre information.

    Then something really strange happened. Using an album that I personally classified as "New Rock", I went back into MPTagThat and changed the genre of the album to "Acid" to see if it would update in WMP. Pulling up Media Player I saw that the album had changed to "Acid", alright. Then I right clicked to "Update Album Information" and the album changed to "Metal". In MediaPortal though, the album was listed under the "New Rock" genre! What in the...

    Any ideas as to why this is happening? (Yes I am saving after the changes and I clicked Apply in the media information panel). I just wanted some nice artwork but now I have a tag mess!
     

    hwahrmann

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    Sure.
    As long as you don't rescan you music database, the changes want be reflected in the MediaPortal Database Views.

    So while you are still tagging your Music collection, you need to re-scan your Music Shares by either:

    1. From within Configuration, where you did your initial scan
    2. Manually from within the GUI in "Settings Music"
    3, Automatic via the GUI by using the "Music Reorganisation" plugin found in the Process Plugin section. This will wake-up your PC and do the scan
    4. Switching to the Shares View, navigating to the folder with the changed files and select Scanning from the Context Menu (F9 or "i" on a remote")

    For all the options above, there is a flag, "Only Update new/changed files since <last scan date>", which is ticked in the Config -> Music Database section.
    This makes the rescan really fast.
     

    dmumaw

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    I am fairly confident I have a good handle on the update process. This is what I can't quite figure out.

    • I go into MPTagThat and select a music folder.
    • I then highlight all the tracks in that folder.
    • I then select Genre in the panel to the right and enter the genre that I want to written on the tag.
    • I click apply in the right panel and then save by clicking on the disk icon in the top left corner of MPTagThat.
    • Last but not least I go into MediaPortal configuration and in Music>Music Database I click on Update database from selected shares

    (At this point I believe to have changed the tag)

    • In Windows Media Player I see that the genre that is listed is the one that I typed into the right panel in MPTagThat. The genre information is also correct when I navigate to the music folder in the Internet Explorer tree view and select View>Contents.
    • However the album art is old and to fix this I right click the album art and select Update album info so that the new album art acquired from MPTagThat is displayed.

    At this point the correct album art is displayed, however the genre information is changed. The genre information is also changed in the Internet Explorer tree view on my hard drive. Once again I go back into MPTagThat and select the same album only to find that after selecting the tracks within that album, the right panel displays the genre information that displayed after I had clicked on Update album info (the wrong genre). I do not know where this information is coming from.

    For example,
    Change genre to "New Rock" in MPTagThat, save changes and update database.
    In WMP right click album art and select Update album info and genre changes to "Metal"
    Go back into MPTagThat and right panel displays "Metal" as genre

    Also at least three of my albums that had the correct title, album art, artist, genre and year now diplay as tracks without any of these details in an "Unknown" folder in Media Player.

    I only used MPTagThat to acquire larger album art that looked better in MediaPortal as well as lyric information and case conversion. I have no idea why any track information is being changed.

    My once organized library is becoming more of a mess by the second PLEASE HELP!

    Well before anyone answers that last post, I believe I have found my answer. WMP WAS searching the internet for tag data when I clicked on Update album info and I believe it was overwriting the work I had done in MPTagThat (which is why when I went BACK into MPTagThat the genre was different from what I specified). I believe it was a coincidence that WMP also found larger quality album artwork (just like MPTagThat) and I was lead to believe that the artwork that was being replaced was a result of MPTagThat when in fact it was from WMP's online search (so each time I chose Update album info I was replacing MPTagThat tags including artwork with tags found online through WMP). In other words everything updated through WMP's online search I only THOUGHT that it was doing it through MPTagThat because the album art was the same. If I am right then it is WMP that is to blame not MPTagThat!

    I think the real problem here is that I was going into WMP hoping to see my changes right after the tags were altered in MPTagThat, but I do not think the WMP library update is instantaneous (at least for album art). So I right clicked and chose to Update album info hoping the album art would refresh with the new MPTagThat tags.

    This is all only speculation. I am going to go through the tagging process again in MPTagThat and then I am going to give WMP time to update the album artwork and hope everything works out and then report back.

    Thank you for staying with me hwahrmann, not trying to give you a headache just trying to avoid one myself! Plus, this all might be of some help to someone else someday.
     

    hwahrmann

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    Yes, it is definitely WMP doing the changes.
    And i'm sure you find additional 3 hidden files named AlbumArt*.* , which was written by WMP.
     

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