Author Topic: Artist pictures inconsistency?  (Read 3550 times)

so_la_la

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Hello,
I stopped MB from downloading artist pictures and tried to point it to a specific folder. I have been downloading them but I have manually altered pics and added pics from different sources. Also other programmes use this folder.
Now, I have the options under 'extras', 'cover', 'downloader' unticked but pics that are not in the 'artwork' folder still pop up. I have artist pics under C:\Users\Name\AppData\Roaming\MusicBee\InternalCache\ArtistThumbs. But these aren't the ones appearing. In addition, some pics do not seem to meet MB's demands but I don't know why. I only have .pngs and .jpgs. So some pics from the folder do not appear for reasons unknown.
Some names are a bit messy like X-mal Deutschland vs Xmal Deutschland etc. but I thought I had solved this by simply storing two pics with respective names.
How do I sort this?
Music Bee 3; EAC; MP3Tag; Music on Synology NAS 115; Logitech Media Server on RPI 3; RPI 2 with Hifiberry; Poweramp for Android/Lineage

redwing

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Are you saying you have set up the cache folder as your artist picture folder?

so_la_la

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No, my artist picture folders is on my NAS drive. However, MB seems to add a subfolder called 'thumbs' which however contains (very few) full size pictures.
Music Bee 3; EAC; MP3Tag; Music on Synology NAS 115; Logitech Media Server on RPI 3; RPI 2 with Hifiberry; Poweramp for Android/Lineage

redwing

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Make sure you have "Retrieve Web Pictures" option disabled in Now Playing> Artist Picture view> Customize panel settings.

I have raised this point before but it's not addressed yet since I can still reproduce it:
If you have "Adele_2.jpg", "Adele_3.jpg", etc. but don't have "Adele.jpg", then it downloads a new picture and show it occasionally.
Those pictures are cached to AppData\InternalCache\ArtistBackdrops folder. If you clear the folder it will no longer show up. But next time another new picture will be downloaded when the artist is playing unless you address the naming issue.

As for the pictures not showing up, it's not allowed to put space between artist name and the counter: e.g. "Adele_5.jpg" is fine but "Adele 5.jpg" will never show up unless you have an artist named "Adele 5". So check if your filenaming is correct.
Last Edit: December 31, 2017, 09:50:49 PM by redwing

so_la_la

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Hi redwing,
thanks for getting back!
I am quite unsure of how to deal with the picture issue.
So far I have found two locations where MB stores pics.
It's the location posted in the original post and it's the folder 'thumbs' under 'artist pictures' - I have pointed MB to a folder named 'artist pictures' which is also used by other programmes.
However, I have still pictures from neither location displayed in MB. I wonder where these could be stored?
As you have pointed out I need elaborated naming schemes. Would it be ok for a pic to be named The Beatles.jpg or would it have to be The_Beatles.jpg?
Music Bee 3; EAC; MP3Tag; Music on Synology NAS 115; Logitech Media Server on RPI 3; RPI 2 with Hifiberry; Poweramp for Android/Lineage

redwing

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MB creates a sub-folder "Thumb" (not "Thumbs") under artist picture folder to store thumbs. So the parent folder you have MB pointed to stores artist backdrops while its sub-folder stores artist thumbs for thumbnail browser and artist view.
You don't have to worry about anything happening in internal cache folder. You can safely clear everything in there. MB caches thumbs to ArtistThumbs folder and backdrops to ArtistBackdrops folder. In Backdrops folder they are saved with dat extension, so if you change it to jpg you will be able to see what pictures are stored in there.

Would it be ok for a pic to be named The Beatles.jpg or would it have to be The_Beatles.jpg?

Should be "The Beatles_14.jpg", etc. It's the same with "Amy Winehouse_6.jpg".

so_la_la

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Should be "The Beatles_14.jpg", etc. It's the same with "Amy Winehouse_6.jpg".

Hm, in 'artist pictures' I have no pics that are numbered.

I was just wondering where the files are retrieved from?
C:\Users/Name/AppData\Roaming\MusicBee\InternalCache\ArtistBackdrops contains only one file and I have no artist backdrops (because I don't use cinema view? I don't know too much about it.)
I have deleted all files from C:\Users/Name/AppData\Roaming\MusicBee\InternalCache\ArtistThumbs but all the pics show up as before (or not).
The 'thumb' folder in 'artist pictures' contains only ten files but each in a size of 1000x1000 px and of 300kb.
Music Bee 3; EAC; MP3Tag; Music on Synology NAS 115; Logitech Media Server on RPI 3; RPI 2 with Hifiberry; Poweramp for Android/Lineage

redwing

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The 'thumb' folder in 'artist pictures' contains only ten files but each in a size of 1000x1000 px and of 300kb.

If you don't have a thumb picture for an artist in that folder and you open thumbnail browser with artist picture option, then MB downloads a new picture for the artist. There's no setting that can stop it from doing that. Even if you clear the thumb cache folder, MB will immediately re-download those pictures to show artist thumbs in thumbnail browser.

So if you want to use your own custom thumb image for artists, save it to that folder. An easier way is copy an artist picture somewhere and right click on the artist picture in thumbnail browser> paste, then it will save it to that "Thumb" folder.

so_la_la

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I found
out that in addition to
C:\Users\Name\AppData\Roaming\MusicBee\InternalCache\ArtistThumbs
I have also stored artist pictures under
C:\Users\Name\AppData\Local\MusicBee\InternalCache\ArtistThumbs
These are the thumbnails or are - in fact - empty files.
The real pics seemed to be stored under 'thumb'.
I have just deleted the internal caches and hope they'll rebuild from the pics I want...
Music Bee 3; EAC; MP3Tag; Music on Synology NAS 115; Logitech Media Server on RPI 3; RPI 2 with Hifiberry; Poweramp for Android/Lineage

so_la_la

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I have just deleted the internal caches and hope they'll rebuild from the pics I want...

Well, what is happening is that MB creates a new folder 'thumb' and then proceeds to download 1000x1000 pics into this folder, i.e. under Artist Pictures/Thumb/Thumb. Also it keeps storing the actual thumbs in C:\Users\Name\AppData\Local\MusicBee\InternalCache\ArtistThumbs.
I don't know why the folder for the actual pictures is called 'thumb' and not 'full size pics' or sth...
Music Bee 3; EAC; MP3Tag; Music on Synology NAS 115; Logitech Media Server on RPI 3; RPI 2 with Hifiberry; Poweramp for Android/Lineage

redwing

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I don't understand why you care about cache folder rather than try to save your own pictures to the thumb folder.

so_la_la

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I don't understand why you care about cache folder rather than try to save your own pictures to the thumb folder.

Hi,
my aim is to have a folder of artist pictures to which several programmes have access and consequently display the same pictures. The folder is currently located on my NAS (for LMS). This is why a different set of pictures displayed by MB confuses me. And it is only recently that I discovered these cache folders...
In addition I find it confusing that the folder with the full size pics is called 'thumb' but maybe my language skills aren't good enough.
Music Bee 3; EAC; MP3Tag; Music on Synology NAS 115; Logitech Media Server on RPI 3; RPI 2 with Hifiberry; Poweramp for Android/Lineage

redwing

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The reason it's called thumb is it started with storing pictures for thumbnail browser. And now it's used for the main panel as well in artist view. Size doesn't matter. They have to be square in shape. That's why you got some big square pictures in there.
The pictures in the parent folder are for artist picture view of now playing/compact player and artist panel in addition to artist gallery of theater mode. So MB saves just two types of pictures in two different locations. What's confusing with this?

And forget about cache folders. What you should focus on instead is whether your pictures in the two folders are correctly displayed in MB. Or even the folders are correctly mapped. As I said, try pasting a picture to thumbnail browser and see if that creates a new picture in the "Thumb" folder with the artist name, and if MB displays the custom picture for the artist after that.