Absent album art

[elphin]

Hello everyone. So I've been getting the infamous "disappearing album art" issue ever since I installed MB on my new PC. Worth noting is that I never had this issue on my old PC. And yes, I have indeed checked the (rather numerous I'll admit) topics on this issue, but whether it's due to those dealing with older versions of MB, the solutions presented do not help me.

The tab I've set up is in "Album Cover" view and sorted after albums, if that matters. From here, one of the following three applies to each album:
1. The album art is visible, and when I click on the album art, a larger version of the album art is visible next to the track list (as it's supposed to be).
2. The album art is visible, but when I click on the album art, no larger version of the album art shows up next to the track list.
3. No album art is visible, and there's no album art next to the track list.

The curious thing about this dilemma is that since I manually organise my music in Explorer, each one of my album folders are set up in the same manner. That is, they each have a "cover.jpg/png" in the root folder. I've been trying to roll back to previous versions of MB (in fact, I've tried every single update past 3.0), to various degrees of success. Typically, with a fresh install of MB, every album art shows up as it should, but the moment I try to update a track or the album art itself, the art disappears. Even if I select a new picture, nothing shows up at this point, except that pesky grey "no cover art" placeholder. Many times have I also tried to use Tools>Advanced>Reset Artwork Cache, which solves the issue for some albums on some older versions of MB, but far from all.

In fact, it's the most recent version of MB that this occurs the most on. The most stable version for me is 3.0-5977, but only temporarily, as my album art always disappears sooner or later, forcing me to reinstall MB to solve it.

artwork storage settings

This is how I have things set up in artwork storage. And yes, I've tried pretty much every conceivable combination of orders in here, but it only makes even less albums arts show up if I put it to anything else than the order I have in this picture.

I'm not really sure what else I can try to be honest, so any input will be appreciated.

[phred]

The most stable version for me is 3.0-5977

You're using a version that's more than three years old. Latest release is 3.2.6902 as shown on the downloads page. The latest very stable beta is 3.3.6956.

I suggest you update to -at least- 3.2.6902 and see is the problem is resolved. Many, many fixes have been implemented since the version you're using. You can see some of the many fixes for 3.2 here: https://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=24754.0 and for 3.3 here: https://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=27074.0

[elphin]

Well, as I said, I've tried literally every version past 3.0. I'm currently on 3.3, but it's far more broken in terms of this issue compared to 3.0, which is why I was using that for a long time.

But for the sake of it, I tried 3.2.6902 again and my issue still persists.

[Steven]

you should try the beta patch version and use the "Rescan Artwork" button you see in the screenshot you posted

https://getmusicbee.com/patches/MusicBee33_Patched.zip
unzip and replace the existing musicbee files

[elphin]

Thanks for the tip. I wish I could say that it worked, but it didn't. In fact, it only seems to have increased the number of albums in which the album art is visible, but which is not next to the track list when I click on it.

I really wonder what is going on since all my music folders look the same.

[Steven]

The picture shown in the main panel and the picture in the expanded panel are sourced from the same file, so what you say doesnt make any sense. You might check the Artwork tab in the tag editor, and click the "Save To" button to make sure the picture isnt corrupt and in the expected location.
Other than that i wont be able to help further

[elphin]

Here's two screens I hastily put together which displays the issue.

Another interesting aspect is that in the tag editor, every single album has the album art present, even for the ones where it doesn't show up at all in the main panel. And yeah, I looked through a few of them and the picture is where it's supposed to be, like so.

(although, in this case I have it as embedded, some other albums use the "link the picture to this music track")

EDIT: Through testing I can confirm one thing: On a fresh install of MB, I can modify artwork and everything shows up as intended. However, the moment I close MB and reopen it again, editing anything, be it artwork or tagging a song, the artwork disappears upon saving. Very curious.

[Steven]

you probably dont have write access to the cache folder without running as an administrator
C:\Users\<your id>\AppData\Local\MusicBee\InternalCache

you can test by right clicking musicbee.exe/ run as administrator

[elphin]

Nice! I think you're on to something here. Running MB as admin does indeed solve the issue fully, every artwork is in place and I can tag stuff without anything disappearing. However, even after unchecking "read-only" on the InternalCache folder, running MB normally (without admin rights) retains the issue (i.e artwork disappears when tagging).

Am I missing something basic?

EDIT: Well, it seems that even when I uncheck "read-only" and save, if I open properties right after, the "read-only" square is still checked. Wonder what it could depend on? And yeah I do have admin access on my PC.

[boroda]

check security rights, not only read-only attribute. also 'admin access to pc' and 'run as admin' are different things.

[elphin]

That's what I mean. I ran MB as admin (i.e. right click > run as administrator), and I also have full control over my PC (at least this folder) as specified in the security tab.

I did change system locale to another place though, could this be why I can't uncheck it?

[boroda]

I did change system locale to another place though, could this be why I can't uncheck it?

I don't think so. try FAR (free) or Total Commander to change read-only flag.

[Steven]

I doubt it will be the read-only flag and instead will be the security permissions. In any case this sort of issue is best raised on a windows support forum if no one here can help