Duplicate Album Covers - *lots* of them

[LedHarvest]

Just noticed, my AlbumCovers folder is filled with duplicate images for almost every album. Some albums have many duplicates. Note the second screenshot - that's 10 x one album, and the timestamps show 9 of them were created at once.

I deleted AlbumCovers, restarted and the correct number of album covers have been generated - until I start moving through the different tabs - Artists > Albums > Genres > Last Played. Now the duplicates are back, although it's not consistent - some albums seem to have just one thumbnail, others have 10+.

[sveakul]

You have to do a little forum searching first, this has been asked and answered a dozen times already.  Start with Tools->Advanced->Reset Artwork Cache.  Then take a look at the Album Artwork Retrieval Filter (pictured below), set it the way you want it, and hit the "Rescan Artwork" button in the lower left corner.  That should at least get you started.  Then, do some excellent reading here:

https://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=39082.0

[LedHarvest]

> You have to do a little forum searching first

I did - several keyword combos. Drew a blank.

> Album Artwork Retrieval Filter

That controls where MB looks for the artwork. It doesn't address the fact that MB is creating multiple **identical** thumbnails for the same album << that is a bug.

[boroda]

maybe not MB are creating these thumbnails. try to uninstall WMP. WMP can do weird things even in background.

[karbock]

maybe not MB are creating these thumbnails. try to uninstall WMP. WMP can do weird things even in background.

From the filename structure of those thumbnails, I guess they are located
- in MusicBee\AppData\InternalCache\AlbumCovers (Portable version)
- or in %LOCALAPPDATA%\MusicBee\InternalCache\AlbumCovers (Installed version)

There are no similar duplicates on my computer, except when using the 'Rounded Artwork' plugin (=> at most 1 duplicate).
But in my collection, album covers are stored only once per album, as cover.jpg/png in the respective folder,
and I systematically remove the pictures embedded in the audio files.

@LedHarvest:
When you have duplicates, is the album artwork embedded in the matching audio files?
That's just an assumption to explain the redundancy.

[sveakul]

> You have to do a little forum searching first

I did - several keyword combos. Drew a blank.

> Album Artwork Retrieval Filter

That controls where MB looks for the artwork. It doesn't address the fact that MB is creating multiple **identical** thumbnails for the same album << that is a bug.

Results from keywords "duplicate album covers";  please read some of these posts :
https://cse.google.com/cse?cx=426af386625354430#gsc.tab=0&gsc.q=duplicate%20album%20covers&gsc.sort=

You didn't say if you did "Reset Artwork Cache", OR "Rescan Artwork."  Do both in that order, then Tools/Advanced/Rescan All Files.  And, remove Windows Media Player as suggested by boroda.

[LedHarvest]

> maybe not MB are creating these thumbnails. try to uninstall WMP.

Look at the evidence - identical name format / timestamps. The thumbnails are obviously created by MB, not WMP (which is not installed).

...I guess they are located ....
 
When you have duplicates, is the album artwork embedded in the matching audio files?
That's just an assumption to explain the redundancy.

@karbock - thanks for your thoughts on this. I'm running portable ("~Users\USER\_Programs\MusicBee"), no plugins, Album Artwork Retrieval Filter (all checked except '*.*'), I have 'embed the picture in music file' checked for saving artwork - plus I usually 'Search internet for picture' to get better quality artwork for albums.

However, what I'm doing or not doing isn't really the issue. MB should not be creating duplicate images regardless of what settings the user selects. Hopefully Steven will take a look at the issue and patch it.

[sveakul]

When searching the Internet for artwork is left on automatic, the cache in ..MusicBee\AppData\InternalCache\AlbumCovers fills up quickly with hundreds of pics, as it is never automatically cleared. Manually pressing  Tools->Advanced->Reset Artwork Cache, will do it (it deletes the entire folder which is recreated when needed).  That's why I have asked twice if you have done this and you haven't answered yet.  Take a look inside that folder with Windows Explorer, it will be full of *.dat files containing all the downloaded images.

While probably not the issue here, WMP was infamous in its day for auto-downloading very small, hidden image files in your music files' folders.  They may or may not persist after its "uninstall" (boroda, can you help out here?),  Actually WMP is not "uninstalled" but just turned "on" or "off" in the Windows Features list.  Be sure it is unchecked as in the image below from Control Panel/Programs and Features, Turn Windows Features on or off list:

That's all from me.  Hopefully you can solve this soon.

[boroda]

@LedHarvest, you can auto-retrieve album covers from the internet, but DO NOT autosave them. and reset the artwork cache.