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Support => Questions => Topic started by: H-Cue on February 25, 2021, 09:40:39 PM

Title: Re-fetch album and artist pictures/covers
Post by: H-Cue on February 25, 2021, 09:40:39 PM
Hey everyone! I love musicbee, but throughout the years I never learned how to organize my settings in a way that wouldn't give me trouble when changing machines. I have a new PC and now my media is all messed up...

I want to start fresh. Delete ALL media I have, both from artists and albums and have MusicBee search the internet and repopulate it all. I want to embed them into the music file itself. What is the easiest way to do this?

I've always had issues because my music was gathered throughout the years and files were/are with the wrong metadata as well... you can see some albums/artists don't have a picture at all, others have the same one, the same wrong one. It's strange and I want to start fresh.

Thank you!
(https://imgur.com/a/O4tv0eR)

Title: Re: Re-fetch album and artist pictures/covers
Post by: phred on February 25, 2021, 10:00:13 PM
Before you continue any further, are you using the Portable version? If not, do so. Then the next time you want to move MB, you just copy the entire MB directory to a flash drive and copy it to the new location.

And before you start adding artwork, you need to make sure your tracks are tagged properly. Incorrect, or no, tagging will get you poor results.
Title: Re: Re-fetch album and artist pictures/covers
Post by: H-Cue on February 26, 2021, 05:15:28 AM
Hey! I'm not using the portable, I think I tried it many years ago and ended up deleting for some reason. I will get it tomorrow and come back.

As for the music files. They're not tagged and most have the wrong details. That being said, MusicBee was doing a great job in my previous computer. I just want it to keep doing what it does. I jist want things to be organized and not have the same cover picture for many artists for example.
Title: Re: Re-fetch album and artist pictures/covers
Post by: frankz on February 26, 2021, 05:53:02 AM
Have you tried doing what you did the last time you asked for help fixing a similar problem?

https://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=26778

It's two and half years since that last post.  I respectfully and in the most friendly way possible suggest that it's time to get your collection in order as far as tagging and file organization if you want to avoid having this problem repeated every time you update systems.  You may rig it up again to get it working to your satisfaction again, but until you fix the myriad problems you seem to have with your files it will never be right and will break whenever you change anything.
 
Hope this helps!
Title: Re: Re-fetch album and artist pictures/covers
Post by: H-Cue on February 26, 2021, 08:37:21 PM
Ok, portable musicbee is in place! And now, after a first scan of my music folder all songs and artists and albums have the same picture! What should I do? I want each song to be embedded with the artist picture or album cover, or both, whichever way MusicBee can make it work. I just don't want separate files for the images.
(https://i.imgur.com/U9wse2E.png)
Title: Re: Re-fetch album and artist pictures/covers
Post by: phred on February 26, 2021, 08:42:56 PM
And before you start adding artwork, you need to make sure your tracks are tagged properly. Incorrect, or no, tagging will get you poor results.
Title: Re: Re-fetch album and artist pictures/covers
Post by: H-Cue on February 26, 2021, 08:46:57 PM
And before you start adding artwork, you need to make sure your tracks are tagged properly. Incorrect, or no, tagging will get you poor results.

Hey phred! thanks for the reply. I unfortunately cannot dedicate the time needed to tag all songs manually. MusicBee was able to get all the pictures of artists and even albums in the past. I would just like to do that again and not have it like it is now.
Title: Re: Re-fetch album and artist pictures/covers
Post by: H-Cue on February 26, 2021, 08:49:55 PM
Have you tried doing what you did the last time you asked for help fixing a similar problem?

https://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=26778

It's two and half years since that last post.  I respectfully and in the most friendly way possible suggest that it's time to get your collection in order as far as tagging and file organization if you want to avoid having this problem repeated every time you update systems.  You may rig it up again to get it working to your satisfaction again, but until you fix the myriad problems you seem to have with your files it will never be right and will break whenever you change anything.
 
Hope this helps!

Hey frankz, thank you for your reply! I have not tried doing that again because I don't know if that's the best way to go about it, so I decided to ask again over here. I'd like to do things  the best way possible this time around
Title: Re: Re-fetch album and artist pictures/covers
Post by: hiccup on February 26, 2021, 08:57:24 PM
Did you take a look at the artwork retrieval options under Preferences > Tags (1), and do you understand what they do?

Are you willing and able to get at least the basic tags such as Album and Album Artist correct for the music in your library?
Title: Re: Re-fetch album and artist pictures/covers
Post by: H-Cue on February 26, 2021, 09:06:25 PM
Hey there! So, I have had a look but tbh I'm a bit confused about the settings in musicbee, which is why I decided to ask here, before I messed the entire library up somehow. I have been making an effort to name all files properly. All files are named: Artist - Song.mp3. Or equivalent format. I think musicbee is able to read that and search.

I just "installed" the portable version as it was suggested and, somehow, the "Artist Pictures" folder is already populated correctly. I played one song now and Musicbee fetched the album cover automatically.

(https://i.imgur.com/qu5kWfr.png)
Title: Re: Re-fetch album and artist pictures/covers
Post by: hiccup on February 26, 2021, 09:12:51 PM
I have been making an effort to name all files properly. All files are named: Artist - Song.mp3. Or equivalent format. I think musicbee is able to read that and search.
Filenames are very 1980's
MusicBee is designed and optimised to work with metadata (tags).
If you have the opportunity to get the metadata of your music files right I would suggest you put your efforts into that first.

I do like and have some affinity with some of the artists in your screenshot by the way ;-)
Title: Re: Re-fetch album and artist pictures/covers
Post by: H-Cue on February 26, 2021, 09:14:09 PM
Update: I've changed the order in which musicbee tags, placed "embedded" first and re-scanned the library. It immediately picked up the pictures (I guess from the folder). Now it seems the missing part is the album covers. This is how it looks like now. What should I do to "populate" the missing art?

(https://i.imgur.com/w5oACmD.png)
Title: Re: Re-fetch album and artist pictures/covers
Post by: H-Cue on February 26, 2021, 09:15:17 PM
I have been making an effort to name all files properly. All files are named: Artist - Song.mp3. Or equivalent format. I think musicbee is able to read that and search.
Filenames are very 1980's
MusicBee is designed and optimised to work with metadata (tags).
If you have the opportunity to get the metadata of your music files right I would suggest you put your efforts into that first.
;D  ;D  ;D  Yes I know! I'm oldschool when it comes to music. But I defintely plan to tag it properly at some point. Tbh I don't even care so much for the tags themsevles, but I suppose it could come in handy for making playlists and such...
Title: Re: Re-fetch album and artist pictures/covers
Post by: hiccup on February 26, 2021, 09:18:10 PM
Update: I've changed the order in which musicbee tags, placed "embedded" first and re-scanned the library. It immediately picked up the pictures (I guess from the folder). Now it seems the missing part is the album covers. This is how it looks like now. What should I do to "populate" the missing art?
I think you should try to get a full understanding of how these artwork preferences settings work.
There should be plenty information to be found on that on the forum.
Title: Re: Re-fetch album and artist pictures/covers
Post by: hiccup on February 26, 2021, 09:22:36 PM
Tbh I don't even care so much for the tags themsevles, but I suppose it could come in handy for making playlists and such...
No problem. But do understand that it can be problematic to get further help if you are not interested in tags.
Tags are pretty much essential to make MusicBee functioning as good as it can.

tagline:
MusicBee Is Not A Folder Player
Title: Re: Re-fetch album and artist pictures/covers
Post by: H-Cue on February 26, 2021, 09:56:43 PM
Yes, I understand. And I dream of the day when I'll manage to get around to fixing all my files and tags... how does the "Files organiser" work by the way?
Title: Re: Re-fetch album and artist pictures/covers
Post by: hiccup on February 26, 2021, 10:06:39 PM
how does the "Files organiser" work by the way?
Quite well I must say.
Title: Re: Re-fetch album and artist pictures/covers
Post by: psychoadept on February 26, 2021, 11:06:38 PM
Yes, I understand. And I dream of the day when I'll manage to get around to fixing all my files and tags... how does the "Files organiser" work by the way?

hiccup gave me a chuckle, but to reinforce his point, the file organization is all done based on tags. Most of us focus on tagging and let MusicBee handle the naming. See the wiki for lots of info on that.

If your files are well-named then you should be able to use the "infer and update tags from filenames" command to populate basic tags: artist, album, etc. From there you can use the auto-tag by album feature to fine tune them. Beats tagging everything by hand, anyway.
Title: Re: Re-fetch album and artist pictures/covers
Post by: hiccup on February 26, 2021, 11:13:14 PM
hiccup gave me a chuckle,
Good to know that intended humor is sometimes acknowledged and appreciated ;-)
Title: Re: Re-fetch album and artist pictures/covers
Post by: H-Cue on February 27, 2021, 02:08:35 AM
Yes, I understand. And I dream of the day when I'll manage to get around to fixing all my files and tags... how does the "Files organiser" work by the way?

hiccup gave me a chuckle, but to reinforce his point, the file organization is all done based on tags. Most of us focus on tagging and let MusicBee handle the naming. See the wiki for lots of info on that.

If your files are well-named then you should be able to use the "infer and update tags from filenames" command to populate basic tags: artist, album, etc. From there you can use the auto-tag by album feature to fine tune them. Beats tagging everything by hand, anyway.

This sounds like gold right here. I'm going to give this a go soon and will get back to you! Thanks for letting me know about these features! That was basically my follow-up question!

how does the "Files organiser" work by the way?
Quite well I must say.
;D  ;D  ;D  good to know!
Title: Re: Re-fetch album and artist pictures/covers
Post by: H-Cue on February 27, 2021, 09:58:51 PM
So it seems many files have currently 2 "album covers". One correct, one from the "cover.jpg". But I can't seem to find the cover.jpg anywhere to delete it for them all at once. Is it in a different location for portable versions by any chance? What am I missing?
Title: Re: Re-fetch album and artist pictures/covers
Post by: ma_t14 on March 03, 2021, 07:24:29 AM
So it seems many files have currently 2 "album covers". One correct, one from the "cover.jpg". But I can't seem to find the cover.jpg anywhere to delete it for them all at once. Is it in a different location for portable versions by any chance? What am I missing?

The cover.jpg is usually found in the same path alongside the music file. But it will only work well if your albums are in seperate folders. It's controlled by this option:

(https://i.imgur.com/jPfC9Jc.png)

As others have said, better to take some time to get acquainted with the various settings