cover art displayed

[djeddieo]

I did search before posting this admittedly dumb first post, but didn't find anything. It's such a minor thing but I really like how WinAmp gives me a little "alert" in the corner of whatever window I happen to be working in while listening, every time the song changes. That little image with the track/artist/time info often has the correct cover art but more often does not, and it seems to choose the same wrong cover for every track it doesn't get right. Anyone know why?

[MrSinatra]

winamp only displays the art given to it. so either your files have embedded art in the tags, or the folders have artwork in them, and these files can be hidden so u need to adjust your OS to be able to see them.

[djeddieo]

thanks, but what it's doing is displaying different art than is associated with the file. I had imported my iTunes library and playlists and admittedly not all songs had cover art added, but on some it displays the correct associated artwork, and on others it displays the artwork of a completely different file.

PS. I see you have a link to Penn State Radio in your sig; Can I assume that once I have enough posts to personalize my profile, that I can put a link to my webstream?

Thanks again for your assistance.

[MrSinatra]

Originally Posted by djeddieo

thanks, but what it's doing is displaying different art than is associated with the file. I had imported my iTunes library and playlists and admittedly not all songs had cover art added, but on some it displays the correct associated artwork, and on others it displays the artwork of a completely different file.

how did u import the songs to winamp? a XML import? or a normal HD scan?

regardless, i'd have to know more about a specific case to tell you why its happening. and is your artwork embedded in the tag or no?

Originally Posted by djeddieo

PS. I see you have a link to Penn State Radio in your sig; Can I assume that once I have enough posts to personalize my profile, that I can put a link to my webstream?

i think thats how it works.

[djeddieo]

normal HD scan. when I view file info, many files have this image as "cover":


that same song in iTunes has no cover art associated with it. and I am familiar with that Power Pop cover, which might be associated with one or more of my files, but certainly not many of them. It's as if WinAmp has decided to add that cover art to dozens of files that had none.

[MrSinatra]

Originally Posted by djeddieo

normal HD scan. when I view file info, many files have this image as "cover":


that same song in iTunes has no cover art associated with it. and I am familiar with that Power Pop cover, which might be associated with one or more of my files, but certainly not many of them. It's as if WinAmp has decided to add that cover art to dozens of files that had none.

assuming that that one cover is not embedded in the tags of those files, it probably is in the folder where the files are, as Folder.jpg, Cover.jpg, etc... and possibly set as a "hidden" file so you need to adjust the OS to see it.

its also possible that you have songs that share an album title or no album title at all, and therefore get conflated.

i can GUARANTEE you that winamp is not grabbing this art from the net, and is not just randomly showing the art without some underlying, and explainable mechanical reason.

[djeddieo]

lol, I didn't mean to imply that believe Winamp had gone shopping for cover art; I was just baffled as to why that one cover kept showing up. It's certainly not important enough to worry about, as I'm the only one that sees it. The flash widget that plays my Icecast feed doesn't even display title/artist metadata, nevermind art. Thanks for your help.

[MrSinatra]

well, i would like to get you to the bottom of it. are u giving up?

[djeddieo]

oh no, I'm happy to continue to work on it; I thought maybe I was annoying YOU with the issue, and being new here I thought better of it (plus I got distracted by what seems like Winamp reverting back to old crossfade settings and had to remedy that).

My webstream is at live.djeddieo.com BTW, or you can plug http://wifi.djeddieo.com:8000/live into your iTunes, VLC, MediaMonkey or what have you and get the limited metadata.

Back to the cover art, how would you suggest I start searching for the cause? I confess I'm not the sharpest computer user out there, if that wasn't already evident. iTunes seems to store all the Album Art in My Music as "AlbumArt_{0A8AE2F4-5F15-4213-A873-F1C636554202}_Large" and the like....

[djeddieo]

and BTW, Winamp just displayed that PowerPop cover for a file that has a different image associated with it, so it's not just happening to "blanks."

[MrSinatra]

Originally Posted by djeddieo

Back to the cover art, how would you suggest I start searching for the cause? I confess I'm not the sharpest computer user out there, if that wasn't already evident. iTunes seems to store all the Album Art in My Music as "AlbumArt_{0A8AE2F4-5F15-4213-A873-F1C636554202}_Large" and the like....

those are files WMP puts in folders, not itunes. itunes uses either embedded art in tags, or art it has put into an itunes art cache folder.

so do you have windows setup to show you hidden files then? they look subdued if so. that file would be hidden.

Originally Posted by djeddieo

and BTW, Winamp just displayed that PowerPop cover for a file that has a different image associated with it, so it's not just happening to "blanks."

a different image associated with it by what? how?

[djeddieo]

Originally Posted by MrSinatra

those are files WMP puts in folders, not itunes. itunes uses either embedded art in tags, or art it has put into an itunes art cache folder.

I never use WMP, so I was unaware of that. I guess I could just delete all those then, right? I typically DL mp3 files and then seek out the artwork to use in iTunes. I always assumed those hundreds of image files were the ones I collected.

Originally Posted by MrSinatra

so do you have windows setup to show you hidden files then? they look subdued if so. that file would be hidden.

I do and they are....hundreds of them.

Originally Posted by MrSinatra

a different image associated with it by what? how?

an image that, in iTunes at least, always shows.

[MrSinatra]

Originally Posted by djeddieo

I never use WMP, so I was unaware of that. I guess I could just delete all those then, right? I typically DL mp3 files and then seek out the artwork to use in iTunes. I always assumed those hundreds of image files were the ones I collected.

ok... first, WMP will do things, sometimes even if you don't run it, and esp if the files are in a windows "my music" type of monitored location.

second, itunes is awful. do you have to use it?

third, move your music to a folder you make, like:

C:\audio\music\

fourth, don't use itunes to get art. don't embed art either. instead, keep art in each album folder.

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=690557

afterwards, u can point itunes to the new location, but tell it NOT to move files or retag and let it find art for its DB.

Originally Posted by djeddieo

I do and they are....hundreds of them.

probably safe to delete.

winamp only sees the one actually named "Folder.jpg" winamp ignore all the rest of them.

Originally Posted by djeddieo

an image that, in iTunes at least, always shows.

don't confuse what itunes does with anything else. itunes has its own rules it plays by that really don't mean anything to any other app.

what you want to do is get winamp working right. thats the goal. do that, and orry about itunes afterwards.

to get art straight in winamp, you want your files in an ..\albumartist\album\songs.mp3 folder structure, and you want to either embed the right artwork in each file, or put one Folder.jpg in each album folder. (i don't like embedding album art)

you can probably safely delete all the hidden files NOT named "Folder.jpg"

sound plausible?

[Aminifu]

Originally Posted by MrSinatra

... winamp only sees the one actually named "Folder.jpg" winamp ignore all the rest of them. ...

Actually, Winamp uses the following rules when selecting artwork to display.

The lookup order criteria/precedence is as follows:

1. Embedded art in the tags of the files

2. %album%.jpg/png/gif/bmp in the containing folder (where %album% is the exact name of the Album)

3. An .nfo file with the exact same filename as an image file in the containing folder

4. cover.jpg/png/gif/bmp

5. folder.jpg/png/gif/bmp

6. front.jpg/png/gif/bmp

7. albumart.jpg/png/gif/bmp

And that is all.

[MrSinatra]

thats true, but i was speaking to HIS case. WMP is whats putting the hidden art files there and the only file it puts there that winamp will see in any given dir is Folder.jpg

[NoPlayBack]

Would like to continue this thread, because i am having the exact same issue.
Have mp3-files imported to winamp, and most show album art, others do show wrong cover.
All files have the correct cover embedded as album art (verified with mp3tag).

Transfer via USB to my android did show same behaviour on winamp for android.

I did find a hidden jpg on my windows machine... and that cover was assigned from winamp to a lot of titles. Have deleted that hidden one, now the assignment of wrong cover is fixed in windows. The titles showing wrong cover upfront are now empty. (Although they have cover embedded).
After re-synching and exchanging to android, the situation on android stays unchanged, here wrong cover is displayed in the album list. There are no hidden files on the android-file-system. On android, when selecting the album and selecting a title to be played, the play-window then displays the correct, embedded cover !
Using the standard android-musicplayer shows wrong cover in album list and also wrong cover in play-window.

Is there any known reason or limit for winamp not to process the embedded cover in some files ?
Is there any way to "reset" the cover-assignment on android, so that it restarts and hopefully assigns correct covers to titles and albums ?

[Aminifu]

Originally Posted by NoPlayBack

Is there any known reason or limit for winamp not to process the embedded cover in some files ?

If the artwork was not embedded correctly or in a way that Winamp has trouble reading it. Mp3s can have more than 1 embedded image and sometimes 1 or more of the additional images are not embedded correctly. Try running "Mp3 Diags" on the problem files. It is able to 'fix' several structural errors in mp3s. I have never had it damage any of my files, but try it on a copy of a file first.

http://mp3diags.sourceforge.net/

[Aminifu]

There is a recent Windows update to fix issues displaying certain JPEG images that was caused by another update. See support article (link below) for update KB2836502. Check your installed updates.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2836502

[NoPlayBack]

thanks for the message:
mp3diags does not detect any problem, on the problem files only topics like "no normalization found".
the MS-Issue should not influence the cover display on the android, and should only prevent pictures from being displayed... but that is not my issue, the cover is correctly displayed in windows world.

So maybe lets start with one single file for analysis... there is a file with cover art embedded, which shows up in windows winamp with no cover in, and which shows up in android winamp with wrong cover picture. The file in question has only one cover embedded and shows up in perfect shape in mp3tag, no error in mp3diags, and it shows up with correct cover in windows-tile-view or windows media player.

That's where i am stuck, i have no idea how to analyse.

[Aminifu]

Originally Posted by NoPlayBack

That's where i am stuck, i have no idea how to analyse.

Put the problem file (or a few of them) on a file sharing site and post the link to it (them) here.

[Aminifu]

Hi NoPlayBack,

To avoid any misunderstanding, I should have said in post #20 to provide a copy of the problem file(s).

[NoPlayBack]

here we go....

situation has changed a little bit, i have completely cleaned the android, and also the windows machine.
Have used itunes do rearrange all mp3-files, and have checked that no hidden file is somewhere.
Have also checked all mp3 with mp3tag, and the only issue i could find is that some mp3 did have more than one cover... all the same.... so i have cleaned it up and now only one cover is in, never more.

With that, i have re-installed winamp (5.7 Build 3417), and imported itunes mp3 and also in second step playlist.
After that synched with android again (via usb).

Seems as if this has cleaned up the wrong covers on some places, still checking. The situation above seems to have been created with hidden files in windows, and after transfer to android the wrong covers were imported into the mp3-files, which has caused the confusion.

I am still checking... but it looks as if the only issue remaining is, that covers are not displayed in winamp on windows, where there is one. Only on some files, most are ok.

One file uploaded as example.
The same song shows cover on winamp for android. But in Windows it shows no cover.
Here is the link:
https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resi...Kyqh657EADK0IU

I would be very glad if you could check the reason for that.

[Aminifu]

Hi NoPlayBack,

I checked the song you provided with "Mp3 Diags" (link below). It said that no ID3V2.3 tag was found and that the file is using an unsupported ID3V2 version and therefore it is not able to find a tag that is capable of storing song information.

http://mp3diags.sourceforge.net/

There are different implementations of ID3V2. It is possible that Android (and Mp3 Tag) is able to read this version and Winamp can not (at least not the artwork). Check what Mp3 Diags has to say about a song that is working in both.

From 1 Winamp user to another, I suggest you use Mp3 Tag (since it is able to read these ID3V2.2 tags) to remove all the current tags and re-tag a copy of the file with standard (at least more common) ID3V2.3 tags. I see that the file was encoded by iTunes. It would not be the first time that Apple has thrown a curve at various Windows audio/video apps.

Nice tune,

[NoPlayBack]

Thanks for the fast answer, will dig in that direction now...

[DrO]

Aminifu brought the recent posts in this thread to my attention. we don't fully support ID3v2.2 tags but i'll look to get embedded artwork working from them in an upcoming beta build (as under the hood, the way ID3v2.2 does artwork is a bit different from ID3v2.3/2.4 which is why our current implementation in the desktop client doesn't show it).

[DrO]

and that's now working, will be in the next build put out (likely in the next few days).

[Aminifu]

I wonder what happened to NoPlayBack.

Anyway, I can confirm that the changes to enable display of ID3v2.2 embedded artwork works.

[DrO]

it'd be like most cases, an issue is reported, it's fixed, we never hear anything back (had that happen too many time with plug-in updates which helped kill some of the fun of doing them).

[Aminifu]

Yeah, expressing thanks and appreciation is no longer cool. It's now looked upon as being weak and wimpy. The attitude seems to be; 'Why express thanks for what should have been done to begin with?'.

I once had an employer who told me he felt no need to thank employees for doing a good job. He said, "After all, that is what I pay them for". I try to look pass people with that attitude, but it's increasingly becoming harder to do.

[NoPlayBack]

No, wrong impression, i'm still here, and yes, thanks for the fix.
Did not react because

• ID3V2.x version-differences of tags is unknown vocabulary to me, i had the impression that the fix announced by DrO was not a one-to-one match with my problem as it was described from Aminifu
• Was not able to install new version because of missing admin-permissions on my machine
• Did revisit this thread several times and stopped doing that after i have recognized that there are no new answers for several days
• Did not get an email-notification about new entry... which i am used to from another forum, and i did not switch it on in this one
• Did not check all files and covers on my machine until now

And yes, can confirm that the one file is displayed with cover now. Seems as if now all files with cover are displayed with cover now.

So yes, thanks

[Aminifu]

Thanks for replying back.

Good to hear your covers are displaying now.

[MrSinatra]

npb,

http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?t=345521

[NoPlayBack]

Thanks for that link.

mp3tag can scan for and repair "bad" malformed tags in files, as well as mass strip other tag types out of files. it can also, via a cut and paste operation, turn all tags, like id3v1, into proper id3v2.3 tags, (and remove the other tags).

This sounds as if i could a) automatically mass repair, b) easy copy&paste to id3v2.3 , c) easy mass vaporize all other id-versions from all my files.
I can not find this kind of operations to multiple files on one go, i am currently manually working on each single file separately with the same tool. So do i understand wrong, or are you saying this is possible and you could throw some hints where to look at?

[MrSinatra]

sorry for my delay, I've been in Vegas.

yes, you can mass operate. you want to setup the tag options u want in mp3tag first, and then select all the files and do a remove tags or tag cut/paste. EXPERIMENT FIRST on test files. but once it does what you want and you test on a small group, it is safe to do en masse.

(careful when doing embeds, as I think remove is better if u embed art)

[NoPlayBack]

Wow, now i found the trick...

one can select multiple files and use context menu to
- cut tags out of all files with one click
- paste tags back into all files with one click

... and with selection of the desired settings (i did select "read" all types, "write" only ID3v2.3UTF-16) it ends up in having all files in only one tag-type.

I did never expect that i could paste back multiple different tag-values into a selection of multiple files.

Thanks for this information !

[MrSinatra]

mp3tag is pretty powerful. the "remove" options control what happens when you click the red X in the toolbar, (far left) so I click them all except id3v2. its good for when you just want to quickly delete the other tags but already have v2 ones as well.