Album cover images change to the most recent image saved for any album,

[joninge]

   I recently added a bunch of new albums to my MB library, then right clicked on each album art placeholder, searched the Internet for each album's cover image and saved it to the album, checking the boxes for "embed the picture in the music file", "link the picture to this music track" and "link to an organized copy of this picture", leaving the default file name as Cover.jpg.  I then scroll down the album art display page to the next ones needing attention and repeat the process for each.  If I then scroll back up to the earlier ones I downloaded and saved, I find that the images have all been changed to the last one I downloaded and saved.
   Example: I find and save the correct cover art for "Architecture and Morality" and "Astral Weeks", then scroll down to "Flesh and Blood" and "The Fox", find and save the correct art for each.  If I scroll back up to "A & M" and "Astral Weeks", the cover art displayed for both is now that for "The Fox".  If I change both back to their correct images, then scroll down, the art for both "Flesh and Blood" and "The Fox" is now that for "Astral Weeks".
   Clearly something isn't "taking" here.  Is there some further step I need to take to make these images stay with their correct albums?
Many thanks!
Jon

[frankz]

Are all your albums sitting in the same directory? If so, every time you're saving Cover.jpg it's overwriting the last Cover.jpg. You need to organize the files and then do the art.

[psychoadept]

Since you're also embedding the artwork, you can change your artwork retrieval settings to show embedded art first and it should show up correctly after a rescan. But you will still have the problem of cover.jpg being overwritten each time you add artwork, which makes saving to cover.jpg kinda meaningless. What frankz suggests is the best practice, especially if you want to save artwork to external files.

[joninge]

Thank you both; these do seem good suggestions, but I'm afraid I'm still confused about the overall issue of album art because of the following:
- I use these settings because I was advised to by an expert on this forum after I had trouble getting images to "stick' with the album shortly after I started using MB.  I could find the appropriate image on the Internet, click OK, and it wouldn't save at all.  Using these settings has worked for me ever since, until I added the recent few albums.
- As above, it's only recently that I've had this write-over problem, and I haven't changed anything about how I use MB.  Up until recently I've been able to find and save album cover pictures and they've stayed put.
- I wondered about the generic "Cover.jpg" default name for the picture, but (a) it's greyed out and not editable, and (b) I assumed (that word!) that the image would be saved in a distinct folder with the music from its album, and so it wouldn't matter if the same name was used each time.
- I looked through File Explorer to find which folder(s) MB uses to store the album art.  I don't know if there are other folders, but the one I found was c:/users/jon/AppData/Local/MusicBee/InternalCache/AlbumCovers/0 through /9.  Each of these 0-9 sub-folders holds a different selection of album covers, in no apparent order, and very many of them have very many duplicates.  There are also several files in each sub-folder of zero size but with file names similar to those with an image; for example, 3CAEBA6E_57493A63.png is an image of the cover of Quincy Jones' "Q's Jook Joint" album, a 130KB file, and next to it is 3F9DF334_5D1CEAE4.png which is a zero-byte file.  Do you know why this might be?  Is there a different folder (such as each album's music folder, which I didn't find yet) that would be more useful?  If so, how do I specify it?

Thanks again for your help!

Jon

[frankz]

None of those files has anything to do with the issue you're having.

The question I asked you which you didn't answer and the subsequent advice you were given by myself and psychoadept which you didn't take do directly have to do with the issue you are having.

[psychoadept]

Is there a different folder (such as each album's music folder, which I didn't find yet) that would be more useful?  If so, how do I specify it?

Do you mean you don't know where your music files are stored? You definitely need to correct that. Fortunately, it's easy. You can right click on any track and select Search > Locate in Windows Explorer, and MusicBee will send you to the file location.

This may help with getting your files sorted out, although proceed with caution until you're sure you know what it's doing: https://musicbee.fandom.com/wiki/File_Organization

[joninge]

Psychoadept, many thanks for your response, which helped me remember that MB is a music cataloging/playback program and not a music management one.  The reason that only some of my albums were affected by this problem goes back to my migration from iTunes, which was notoriously bad at keeping track of its music.  Most albums came across just fine, but many individual tracks had become detached from any album information and were collected into a single "Unknown artist, unknown album" folder.  The albums I've been having trouble with lately were those that I'd re-assembled in MB, editing each track to include its appropriate album/artist/year/track number data.  MB had no problem pulling them into full albums that I can now play, but (of course, because it's not designed to) didn't physically move them into separate folders.  Hence my challenge with the art constantly being overwritten.  Moving each re-created album manually into its own folder should resolve my issue; many thanks for your help!

I do have one minor question, probably of academic interest only;  if MB won't let users change the Cover.jpg file name for the cover art, which is greyed out and non-editable, why is it displayed in a data-entry box?

Thanks again!

Jon

[psychoadept]

but (of course, because it's not designed to) didn't physically move them into separate folders.

Actually, MusicBee IS designed to do this. The difference between it and iTunes is that it doesn't do it automatically unless you ask it to. Once you're comfortable with File Organization, you can turn on auto-organize and it will all be handled for you.

I do have one minor question, probably of academic interest only;  if MB won't let users change the Cover.jpg file name for the cover art, which is greyed out and non-editable, why is it displayed in a data-entry box?

You have to go to Tags Preferences to change this.

[joninge]

Many thanks!  Clearly I have much still to learn about this flexible and powerful program, and need to do more thoughtful reading of the information in the Wiki; I haven't always grasped the impact of some the somewhat terse statements there.
Thank you again for your patience and understanding; they're very much appreciated!
Best regards
Jon

[phred]

Psychoadept, many thanks for your response, which helped me remember that MB is a music cataloging/playback program and not a music management one.

Actually you have it backwards. MB is a music manager first and a music player second.