Album Art Problems - A NEW THEORY

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1

Hear me out, folks. 

(I know many of us are sick of album art issue posts…)

I have a new theory as to why so many people encounter album art which does not display.  Feel free to discuss…

The theory:

The Fuze+ actually is displaying the album art, just not the file that you wanted.  Here’s why:

On my PC and in my Fuze+, something is creating files which are invisible to XP and to DOS—a file called Folder.jpg!

If I look in an mp3 folder I can’t see it, and if I run a DOS “dir” command, it will not list it.  But when I try to put my own ‘Folder.jpg’ album art in an mp3 album folder, a message indicates that there is already a file thereby that same name. 

(Has anyone else encountered this?)

Fuze+ may in fact be displaying the ‘Folder.jpg’ for that album, but it may be accessing the invisible, worthless ‘Folder.jpg’.  For all I know, it may even be generated after I put my own thumbnail in that folder, supplanting the image I wanted!

Just a theory based on the invisible file issue I encountered.

Discuss away, if the subject has not already taxed you.

2

Some of the reasons may seem convoluted, but I’m certain that there is not only one but many causes to people’s album art issues.  And I’m sure that no single solution will help everybody.

That said…

3

Try what I have written in this link.

Options

4

Here’s another one to try;

my experiences are only with Flac files as I found ALL mp3 files loaded the artwork automatically.

When you look up the saved art file is it called “folder” of the jpg type OR is it called “folder.jpg” of the jpg type?

I found that when naming/renaming some art files as “folder.jpg” some of them had the whole name including “.jpg” showing.

It was these files that did not show up as album art on the Fuze+.

Once replaced with a file named “folder.jpg” but reading only as “folder” the art showed up normally on the Fuze+.

Check it out.

The other one to watch out for is files on the net listed and as and called .jpg but when you go to save them they are actually bitmap or another.

I hope that helps someone.

5

I haven’t had much success in investigating your suggestion.  Whether by sight in Windows or by DOS dir command, I cannot even find any files with the .DAT extension in the Music or root folders.

6

I am guessing that you are making a distinction between a file called “Folder.jpg” and another file called “Folder.jpg.jpg”.  I believe that Windows would not equate these two as the same filename.

Bitmap or jpeg, I am told that Sansa Fuze+ supports them both.  But the underlying issue seems to be in the folder and not in the art files.  (Keyword: ‘seems’).

I still don’t understand why invisible files called ‘Folder.jpg’ are being secretly generated in so many of my homemade mp3 folders.

Maybe relevant or not…

Since I have no knowledge of associating mp3 extended file properties with album art files, I can’t discount the possibility that my mp3’s (which are mostly homemade) may have had a default ‘Folder.jpg’ file assigned to them.  The software I use does not access any extended mp3 properties regarding “art”.  So the problem could theoretically be right there.

7

“I am guessing that you are making a distinction between a file called “Folder.jpg” and another file called “Folder.jpg.jpg”.  I believe that Windows would not equate these two as the same filename.”

No, that’s not what i was trying to say, I’ll put it another way to clarify;

(remember I’m only speaking from my experiences with flac, I very rarely use mp3)

Let’s assume that you are working on the PC (not straight to the Fuze+) and all your music files have been assigned to their folders in the way you wish.

Any art you use must be an original jpg and I’ve been told of 300 x 300 size or less.

This image file is then saved and named as “folder.jpg” alongside the music files within the assigned folder. At the point of “save as” be sure the image shows as being of the jpg type and not bitmap etc. Despite the specs., under this way of image saving ONLY jpg has the desired result. Renamng a bitmap as jpg will not work.

Repeat for each folder.

Now go back and check all the folders you have added images to. Each one under windows should read as “folder” of the jpg type file. If it reads as “folder.jpg” of the jpg type file it will not show on the Fuze+ when you copy all the folders over to it.

Therefore, any image files that read as “folder.jpg” when you look at them using windows, must be replaced.

Q) When you say “your” mp3 files, are these music files of your own creation, i.e. recorded from instruments or computer generated music of yours? I ask as this may fall into another field of tagging altogether?

8

@gonedigi wrote:

Now go back and check all the folders you have added images to. Each one under windows should read as “folder” of the jpg type file. If it reads as “folder.jpg” of the jpg type file it will not show on the Fuze+ when you copy all the folders over to it.

 

Therefore, any image files that read as “folder.jpg” when you look at them using windows, must be replaced.

 

This would depend on how you have Windows set up . . . to show file extensions or not. I think it’s best to show these extensions; that way you won’t end up with “folder.jpg.jpg” which defintely will not display.

9

Yes!

Very good point Tapeworm, I forgot about that.

10

worthless ? lol

That is how i add cover art to my cd’s :wink:

I have a massive flac and mp3 files collection and every cd gets a folder.jpg

rather than embedded album art, which i check for and remove…

its an easy and quick way to handle covers AND your not duplicating them if they are not embedded…

so you supplying the picture one time rather than 10 pictures for 10 files etc

i can also say that i HAVE seen on my Fuze+ the looping menu album cover art bug on the current firmware.

some people may have problems becuase they just dont know what the hell they are doing

when it comes to tagging etc.

I use to use embedded album art in ID3 tags but have been phasing it out

I started building my audio collection like 10 years ago so its gonna take a while to portt all my cd rips to folder.jpg’s

Also i use the same method for tons of other things, such as i collect tv show discographys

and i use folder.jpg’s in those too and it works for the folder they sit in but also apps like winamp & win media center

I am not saying one thing is bad or one thing is good its just preference

but its usefull too be a ware of whats going on so this topic is probably a good reminder to some people out there

to check for the “folder.jpg” files that are parsed automaticly in almost everything AND check your tags on your media files…

edit:

a little warning for people like me who use folder.jpg’s and windows media center on windows 7…

even if you have “aquire media info online” turned off in the settings your album art you created

will get overwritten / created by windows media center ever time you load a song…

i found this out the hard way… i was wondering why i had like 30 cd’s with crappy quality 200x200 pictures

and i noticed it was done on each album i played… i was pissed off  too

it (wmc) creates like 3 or 4 files (usualy with hidden attributes) in the folder,

and i had to go back and copy my backup images back to the mp3 folders again.

luckily i keep a flac backup with scans and a 555pixel cd cover stored on my pc and convert to mp3 for player etc