Various album artwork issues

[tstenz]

A while back I used the Artwork Downloader to fill in some of my artwork gaps. I'm not sure what I did wrong, but I think that added more incorrect artwork (or random photos tagged as artwork) than correct artwork. I've been slowly fixing it over time, and I have the following remaining questions:

-What tags does the Artwork Downloader use to search, and is that editable?
-Some of my files show artwork, but when I go to edit it, the artwork tab is empty. Where is it pulling the image from?
-Especially on albums with various artists (which is a big percentage of my library), it's common for some tracks on the album to have the artwork and others to have none. How can I apply the artwork to the whole album?
-Could I basically delete all of my artwork and start from scratch? If so, how?

Thanks!

[psychoadept]

It sounds like part of the problem might be solved by reviewing your artwork settings in Tags(1) preferences. If you want artwork to be embedded, be sure you've selected "embed picture in the music file" as your artwork storage option. Also make sure that "set which pictures are displayed" matches your storage settings, so if you're embedding artwork make sure embedded is the first option selected for which pictures are displayed.

If you're seeing artwork when you play the track but there's none attached to the file, it may be because MusicBee downloads artwork on the fly by default, but doesn't save it unless you change the settings in Tags(2). The albums with partial artwork: are all the files in the same folder? If not, it could be that they're taking artwork from the folder they're in (such as folder.jpg files). Files which share a folder could have the same artwork (again, review settings in Tags(1)), but files in a different folder would not.

[tstenz]

I do have my artwork set to embed; does that have any impacts besides where the image is stored?

Yes, all of the albums with partial artwork are in the same folder. The same phenomenon happens if I try to run the downloader on different albums with various artists now, which is why I'm wondering exactly what tags are being searched and if I can fix that.

[psychoadept]

Do your various artists albums have an album artist, or is it just blank?

And no, the embedding shouldn't have any other effect.

[tstenz]

There are cases of both. Album artist is either Various Artists (or some variation of it) or are null.

[psychoadept]

Before you go about fixing the artwork, I suggest deciding on a consistent way to deal with the album artist of various artist albums, because it will make it harder if MusicBee is confused about which tracks are in the same album.

Either tag them all with Various Artists, or: make the album artist blank, set the itunes compilation flag in the settings tab of the tag editor, and turn on "treat as Album Artist" in sorting/grouping preferences.

[tstenz]

set the itunes compilation flag in the settings tab of the tag editor, and turn on "treat as Album Artist" in sorting/grouping preferences.

Sorry, can you explain what this does?

[psychoadept]

If album artist is blank and the itunes compilation flag is set, MusicBee will act as though album artist is the value that you define in that field in sorting/grouping.